SoVote

Context: House Hansard - 242 - Oct/30/23

Mr. Chad Collins (Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, Lib.)

Oct/30/23 6:07:39 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-356

Madam Speaker, I had the opportunity to read Bill C-356 and it sounds a lot like our housing accelerator fund. I guess the best form of political flattery is political plagiarism. I have had the opportunity to look through the last several housing plans from the Conservatives. They have talked about money laundering, about making land available through the Canada lands initiatives and addressing amortization periods. They have talked about everything except providing support to people: seniors, persons with disabilities, the people who sit on affordable housing wait-lists. My question to the member opposite is: Why?

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All Topics

Hon. Mike Lake

Oct/30/23 6:08:22 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it would be hard to accuse me of not standing up for the rights of people with disabilities or vulnerable Canadians in this House. The Liberals fearmonger about cuts all the time. The only time that significant cuts were undertaken, unbelievable, mind-numbing cuts, was under a Liberal government, when 32% was cut from the Canada health transfer and the Canada social transfer in two years under a Liberal government because of the disastrous Trudeau economic legacy of the seventies and eighties, 14 deficits in 15 years.

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Mr. Gord Johns (Courtenay—Alberni, NDP)

Oct/30/23 6:09:10 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I find it quite ironic when Conservatives rise in this House and blame the NDP when they are responsible for losing 800,000 units when they were in government. Also, they have not negotiated or gained any housing in the whole eight years I have sat in this place. New Democrats have been trying to get getting housing built. If we were in government, there would be much more. We would have a plan to make sure that everybody has a place to live. We were able to negotiate over $7 billion for indigenous people. All I hear about the Conservatives' plan is to sell 6,000 public buildings and 15% of federal public lands. We know how that works. We saw Doug Ford in Ontario do it with the Greenbelt. He lined the pockets of a handful of developers for billions of dollars, $6.8 billion. What is my colleague going to do to make sure that does not happen with federal lands and buildings if that is the Conservatives' plan? Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

Oct/30/23 6:10:14 p.m.
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I have been hearing talk back and forth. Some people seem to want to answer questions when it is not their time to answer. Some people want to ask a question when it is not time. I would ask them to wait for the proper time. The hon. member for Edmonton—Wetaskiwin.

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Hon. Mike Lake

Oct/30/23 6:10:34 p.m.
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First of all, Madam Speaker, let me say that I have a lot of respect for the hon. member and the work that he does. He and I disagree on a lot of things, but I have a lot of respect for his passion and commitment to people. The member talked about the influence that the NDP has had on the government and pointed to some things that he calls results, but if we look at the reality, the situation in housing in this country has never been worse. After eight years of the government, the situation for Canadians regarding housing has never been worse, and Conservatives look forward to turning the tide on that.

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Mr. Gord Johns

Oct/30/23 6:11:17 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am looking for what the plan is. If the plan is to put pressure on local governments to create density, what are the Conservatives going to do to ensure that a large part of that housing is going to be non-market housing? Right now in this country, there is 3.5% non-market housing and 30% corporate ownership of housing, something I am sure the Conservatives are very supportive of. Europe has 30% non-market housing, but if we go to Europe, we will not see homelessness. I want to work with my colleague. He is a friend. I respect a lot of the work we have done together on mental health and addictions. I want to hear what the Conservatives' plan is so that we can find some common ground in this place. That is really what is needed right now from all parties. I think there is a willingness, but we have to find a pathway to get there.

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Hon. Mike Lake

Oct/30/23 6:12:12 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the reality is that even in the member's second question, he uses lingo and terminology that does not talk about results. We need housing. If the government is going to transfer money to municipalities for housing, it would be reasonable for the government to hold those municipalities accountable for actually creating housing. That is what Conservatives are going to do. I do not have enough time to give any more background on the Conservative leader's speech. I would just encourage Canadians to find it online and watch it.

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Ms. Michelle Ferreri (Peterborough—Kawartha, CPC)

Oct/30/23 6:12:57 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the constituents of Peterborough—Kawartha. It is always a big honour to stand in the House of Commons to speak on their behalf. Without a doubt, the biggest issue facing Canadians right now is housing. If anybody would argue that with me in the House, I would definitely die on that hill. It is the number one issue across the country. Tonight, we are talking about the Liberal national housing strategy. This report came out of the HUMA committee, which I sit on, so I was part of it, and I want to go through a couple of things. The report says the Liberal-NDP government “announced their national housing strategy in 2017, with great fanfare”. I guess it was not the Liberal-NDP government at that time. It was just the Liberal government. It went on: The Prime Minister even went so far as to call the [national housing strategy] “transformational”. The [national housing strategy] is supposed to: Remove 530,000 Canadian families from housing needs. Reduce chronic homelessness by 50%. Protect 385,000 community housing units. Provide 300,000 households with affordability support. Repair and renew 300,000 existing housing units. Create 100,000 new housing units. But here is what has happened since 2015 under the Liberals and their [transformational housing strategy]: House prices have doubled in Canada.... Monthly mortgage costs have more than doubled to over $3,000 per month. The average rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Canada's 10 biggest cities is $2,213, compared to $1,171. Nine out of ten young people in this country who do not own a home believe they never will. It now takes over 60% of Canadians' income to cover the cost of owning a home. According to the OECD (2023), Canada has the largest gap between home prices and incomes among G7 nations. Canada has the fewest number of homes per capita in the G7. The CMHC is predicting that housing starts will decline by up to 32% this year. That is the situation we are in. I am 44 years old, and never before in my life have I seen a housing crisis like this. Today, at committee, we had the opportunity to welcome back members of CMHC and Infrastructure Canada. For people who are watching at home, Infrastructure Canada oversees a program called Reaching Home, the program that is supposed to fight homelessness. What I am about to tell members happened today at Parliament in Ottawa. The bureaucrat from Infrastructure Canada said that it had seen “tremendous results” with the money from this program. Tremendous results in homelessness, I would say. We are less than a mile from the ByWard Market. Anybody who has come to Ottawa in their life knows that was the place to go. There was BeaverTails. It was where they went when they visited Parliament Hill. When people come to Parliament Hill now, they do not even recognize it. That is the situation across this country. In my community of Peterborough—Kawartha, there are tents; encampments; homeless people, families and seniors; and homelessness. However, we have seen tremendous results. I am just going to do a quick google here. I am not sure what tremendous results they are speaking of, but here are just a couple of headlines from the last month. “Metro Vancouver homeless count up 32%”. “Homeless encampments at ‘all-time high’ in Ottawa”. The Ottawa article goes on to say, “According to data from Brown's department, city staff have responded to 375 encampments so far this year. That's way up from 343 during all of last year and 248 in 2021. In 2020, the first year with comparable data, there were just 65.” Going from 65 in 2020 to 375 in 2023 means tremendous results. It was shocking and unnerving to hear the justification that they are doing a great job when all we have to do is go to any downtown in this country to see otherwise. I asked people on Facebook to write and email me because it is critical that we listen to our constituents. There is obviously a disconnect from reality. We see it. We see the political game. We saw that this past weekend with the carbon tax. First they were saying, “The carbon tax is great. It is wonderful. It is really helping everything”. The Conservatives have been sitting over here for years saying that it is not working and it is not a good plan. Now they are saying, “You know what, we might be losing seats. We'd better change our approach”. This is about political science, not about humanity. I want to read this to the House because it really summarizes the Canada that the Prime Minister has created. My constituent wrote: Hi Michelle, I don’t normally get involved in politics or ever even wrote to a politician. But the issue around addiction and homelessness is really starting to frustrate me. And the reason is I live in the south end of Peterborough and we are constantly having issues with people trying to get into our cars. Yesterday we had someone walk right up our driveway in front of my wife and go into our backyard and snoop around before leaving. On multiple occasions we have had people sleep in our kids mini houses in our backyard and my wife sees them when she goes to work at 5:30. As a parent of two young kids we can’t even let our children play in our own backyard for fear of people coming back there and we don’t know what these people will do. The fact that they now do it right in front of us and that we can’t do anything is a bit worrisome. I don’t know the solutions I just wanted to share a bit of my story so hopefully something can be done about this. So kids can get back to being kids and not have any fear of who or what is in there toys or if there toys will even be there when they want to use them because someone else has stolen them. Thanks for reading and hopefully something changes through all levels of government. That is one of thousands of emails I have. They are an indication of the country we live in. It is chaos. It is a public safety nightmare. At the core of all of this is housing. There is the Reaching Home program, which is supposed to help with homelessness. According to the website, “Reaching Home has 4 regional funding streams that provide funding to communities to address local homelessness needs.” We did the work to go online to see how to access these funds, and as of October 27, the designated communities funding stream is closed, the indigenous homelessness funding stream has no way to apply, the rural and remote homelessness funding stream is closed and the territorial homelessness funding stream has no way to apply. That, my friends, is what we are talking about when we say “bureaucracy”. That, my friends, is what we are talking about when we say “gatekeepers”. They talk about these programs that no one can even access. Let me mention another a little thing about the Reaching Home strategy. It is all fine and well to have access to programs that no one can access, but there is no plan for treatment and recovery in any of this. There is a very wishy-washy, wraparound support system and them saying, “Yes, we are going to offer supports”. I challenge any member in the House to find out if somebody in their local community has had timely access to the supports they need to get out of addiction, to get out of abuse, to be successful, to leave the environment they are in, because it is certainly not in here. If someone wants success in this country, they have to help people, and “wraparound supports” is a really nice term, but it means nothing if nothing is in place. There is nothing in this country under these Liberals, and after eight years of Justin Trudeau, that is designated and that focuses on treatment and recovery—

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

Oct/30/23 6:21:58 p.m.
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The hon. member mentioned the Prime Minister by name. She knows she is not supposed to do that. I am sure it was an error. I would just ask her to be careful.

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Ms. Michelle Ferreri

Oct/30/23 6:22:12 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, after eight years of the Prime Minister, the reality is this: homelessness is the worst that it has ever been. I, along with my Conservative colleagues, came here to fix it. That is why I ran. We have to do something. This national housing strategy is just more paperwork. Every expert has said that we need the private sector to close the gap. We need more supply, yet the Liberals and NDP punish people who want to build homes. I ask everyone watching to please vote Conservative and please pay attention. We need more houses built in this country, and we are the only party that would do it.

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Mr. Mark Gerretsen (Kingston and the Islands, Lib.)

Oct/30/23 6:23:05 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would note that the member has never been supportive of any of the programs that the federal government has done with respect to building affordable housing throughout the country, yet in the member's very own riding, when a project with federal dollars that she voted against was announced and the groundbreaking ceremony occurred, she tweeted out, “Step by step, brick by brick. Very happy to support this project!!” I am curious whether the member can inform the House how she was supporting the project, because it clearly was not by supporting the monetary measures that went towards it.

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Ms. Michelle Ferreri

Oct/30/23 6:23:49 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is interesting. One of the biggest problems we have in the House is that the Liberals often will say that they are spending their money. What is lost, so often forgotten, is that they do not have any money; they have taxpayers' money, and that is the reality. That is why there is record-high inflation. That is why there is a homelessness problem. There is reckless spending by a government and a Prime Minister that have never had to balance a budget. There is reckless spending by a Prime Minister who does not know that it is not his money. I will share another little point that happened today in committee. The Auditor General's report said that the government spent $1.3 billion to reduce homelessness, but could not tell whether it had reduced it at all. Of that $1.3 billion, $708 million went to social distancing and masks. I am sorry, but when people live in a tent, they do not need those things; they need houses built.

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Mr. Gord Johns (Courtenay—Alberni, NDP)

Oct/30/23 6:25:08 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, nowhere in the world has the free market solved an affordable housing crisis. We know that under the Conservative watch, we lost 800,000 units. We saw REITs and corporate ownership of residential housing go through the roof. We saw housing prices double. Today, we still hear of no plan from the Conservatives. All we see are things like what happened in Ontario with the Greenbelt. I want to hear from my colleague. Do the Conservatives have a plan, and do they support co-op and non-market housing and social housing as a solution to the free market disaster we are seeing when it comes to housing in this country?

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Ms. Michelle Ferreri

Oct/30/23 6:25:48 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the reality is that when there is an affordability crisis, the first thing people stop doing is giving to charities. The first thing people stop doing is being able to have extra cash. Social services and social programs are funded best when we have a healthy economy. Tell me what is happening in this country right now when we have historically high usage of a food bank, the highest ever. We will get houses built only when the private sector can do that, and then we would have a healthy enough economy to have social services money. Build for that. That is the reality, and we have a government right now that does not respect taxpayers' money.

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

Oct/30/23 6:26:22 p.m.
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It is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of the motion now before the House. The question is on the amendment. If a member participating in person wishes that the amendment be carried or carried on division, or if a member of a recognized party participating in person wishes to request a recorded division, I would invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.

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Hon. Mike Lake

Oct/30/23 6:28:04 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we would request a recorded vote.

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

Oct/30/23 6:28:10 p.m.
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Pursuant to Standing Order 45, a recorded division stands deferred until Wednesday, November 1, at the expiry of the time provided for Oral Questions.

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Mr. Brad Redekopp (Saskatoon West, CPC)

Oct/30/23 6:28:56 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I visited with some Falun Gong folks on the weekend. Falun Gong is a traditional Chinese spiritual discipline that consists of meditation, exercises and moral teachings based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion and tolerance. In 1999, the Chinese Communist Party launched an intensive national persecution campaign to eradicate Falun Gong. Hundreds of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners have been detained in forced labour camps, brainwashing centres and prisons. Canadian lawyer David Matas and former Canadian secretary of state David Kilgour conducted an investigation. They concluded that the Chinese regime and its agencies throughout China have put to death tens of thousands of Falun Gong prisoners and their vital organs have been seized. The European Parliament passed a resolution condemning organ harvesting in China. The petitioners are asking the Government of Canada to pass a resolution to establish measures to stop the Chinese Communist regime from systematically murdering Falun Gong practitioners for their organs, amend Canadian legislation to combat forced organ harvesting, and publicly call for an end to the persecution of Falun Gong in China.

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Mr. Dan Mazier (Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, CPC)

Oct/30/23 6:30:15 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is an honour to present a petition, once again, on behalf of the constituents of Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa. I rise for the 20th time to present a petition on the rising rate of crime. The people of Swan River have lost faith in the NDP-Liberal government's soft-on-crime policies, which allow violent repeat offenders to be on the streets instead of behind bars. Businesses are struggling to deal with the constant crime and chaos. Petitioners are calling for jail, not bail, for violent repeat offenders. The people of Swan River demand that the Liberal government repeal its soft-on-crime policies that directly threaten their livelihoods and community. I support the good people of Swan River.

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Mr. Gord Johns (Courtenay—Alberni, NDP)

Oct/30/23 6:35:13 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is a privilege to rise today on a really important issue that is impacting small businesses throughout Canada. Throughout the pandemic, small businesses closed their doors to protect public health and the people in our communities. They are the unsung heroes that are not talked about enough in the House or in this country. Obviously, many of them took a major hit financially. I have some stats from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. It cites that 60% of small businesses are still struggling with pandemic debt. In fact, the average pandemic debt is $126,827. Forty-seven per cent of small businesses are operating with sales that are below normal, and 19% are at risk of closure. This is a significant number of small businesses, which are one of the economic drivers in our communities. Many workers are employed by and rely on small businesses to succeed. My colleague, the member for South Okanagan—West Kootenay, has been pushing the federal government to extend the CEBA loan for one more year, for the full-fledged, forgivable portion. We have been calling for a CEBA extension. Right now, 250,000 businesses are at risk of closing their doors. As New Democrats, we understand the critical need to support small business. We are glad to see the Bloc join in our call for a full-fledged extension to the end of next year. We are glad to see the Greens support our call to action. However, can we guess who is missing in action? It is the Conservative Party. We cannot find the Conservatives when it comes to this critical ask that the Canadian Federation of Independent Business has identified as critical to supporting small business. I am just going to read a note from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. It is part of their petition. They are asking people to write to the government. The petition says, “18 days isn't an extension. It's an insult.” That is what the federal government just offered small business when it comes to the CEBA loan. Then, if they can, they have to go back to the bank where they got the CEBA loan. They have to come up with a deal by March and have the bank take over the loan, or they will lose the forgivable piece. Then they have to pay huge interest on top of that to the bank that finances them. This is absolutely an insult to these small businesses and those that closed their doors to protect our health. I went on a business walk with Jolleen Dick, the executive director of the Alberni Valley Chamber of Commerce. We went into Flandangles Kitchen and Gifts in Port Alberni. I was talking to Chris Washington. Not only did Chris close her doors to protect public health, but she also kept her employee going. She went out and got a job so that she could pay her employee the difference on the wage subsidy. She has paid $10,000 a year for the last two years toward the debt, but she cannot afford to meet the deadline. She is on her way back up, but it is not fair to punish Chris Washington and Flandangles Kitchen and Gifts, which not only closed its doors to support public health but also supports our community. Wildflower Bakeshop and Cafe is in the same boat. They paid $5,000 toward their loan. In fact, the mayor of our community, who owns a restaurant, told me that there is not a restaurant she knows of that has been able to pay back the CEBA loan. I am asking the government this: Will it extend the full CEBA loan to the end of next year, with the full one-third nonrepayable portion, to December 31, 2024?

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