SoVote

Context: House Hansard - 243 - Oct/31/23

Oct/31/23 11:28:46 a.m.
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The hon. member for Jonquière is rising on a point of order.

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Oct/31/23 11:28:49 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, unless my colleague can explain the connection between immigration and the carbon tax, I think he is totally off topic. If he is able to make that connection, I am ready to listen. However, what I understand from his intervention is that he is trying to pollute an opposition day, which is being held in good faith, by giving a speech that suits his agenda. That is not how things work here. I would ask him to show a modicum of respect for his colleagues and talk about the issue we are discussing today.

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The Deputy Speaker

Oct/31/23 11:29:21 a.m.
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I think it is important that all members have an opportunity to present their ideas at the beginning of their speech. I will give a little caution that it may be time to get to the crux of the discussion we are having today. The hon. member for Edmonton Mill Woods.

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Hon. Tim Uppal

Oct/31/23 11:29:38 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I think it is important to address the fact that the government's incompetence is not in only one area and that the Prime Minister's carbon tax gimmick will not help 97% of Canadians, such as Canadians in Alberta. It will help only one region of the country. There is only one answer on home heating: We need to remove the carbon tax from all forms of heating. I will also address another incompetence of the government. I want to talk about the countless families, students and skilled workers affected by the Liberal government's poor management of the immigration system. As a member of Parliament, I regularly meet with constituents in desperate situations that are due to the current state of our immigration system. I hear about the endless backlogs, years of separation from loved ones and businesses in urgent need of skilled workers. Immigrants contribute to our economy, not only by filling gaps in our labour force and paying taxes but also by spending money on goods, housing and transportation. In fact, among newcomers coming to Canada between 2011 and 2016 who were working in the health care sector, more than 40% were employed in the important areas of nursing and residential care facilities, as well as home health care services. According to the international education strategy, international students contribute more than $21 billion to the economy every year through student spending and tuition. Their spending amounts to more than Canada's exports of auto parts, lumber or aircraft. Many international students will stay and build their careers in Canada, enhancing our capacity for innovation and helping us build a stronger economy for the future. We are a nation of immigrants. I am the son of immigrants. My father would always say that, in Canada, there is value in hard work. Someone could buy a home and provide for their family, but not after eight years of the government and its mismanagement of the system. Many new Canadians, international students and Canadian businesses are struggling. Everything is broken, including the immigration system. The failures of the former immigration minister have hurt our immigration system. It is completely unfortunate that the same person has now been promoted to be the housing minister to address our housing crisis. The staggering backlogs and delays in the immigration system that he oversaw have created a profound human crisis, where families are left in limbo and the skilled professionals who came to Canada to work here and contribute to our country are forced to wait around without so much as an answer. The toll of these delays is immeasurable. Families endure emotional turmoil, financial strain and the crushing weight of uncertainty, all while awaiting a decision that holds their future in the balance. Those who want to come to Canada deserve a plan that provides clarity and certainty. Every person deserves a process that treats them with dignity, compassion and respect. However, the Liberals' record when it comes to immigration is one of failure, mismanagement and backlogs that last for years. Conservatives believe in a common-sense immigration system that is employer-driven. That is why the number of immigrants coming to Canada to contribute their skills will naturally fluctuate and should not be driven by arbitrary government targets. Instead, it should be driven by labour shortages and workforce needs. Immigration numbers should depend on demand from businesses to hire new Canadians for unfilled jobs, from charities to sponsor refugees and from families to bring loved ones to Canada. Because of the government's failure to process applications and provide work permits for skilled workers to address urgent labour shortages, provinces are having to step up and ask for more power to deal with the problems the Liberals have not solved, the problems that they created. Canada needs skilled workers today, but skilled workers are forced to leave because their work permits expire and they do not get a new one in time. The current IRCC application backlog is 2.2 million as of September 30. In September 2022, the department introduced an all-digital application system, promising that the application backlog would be reduced. It has not been reduced. This is just another failure by the current Minister of Housing and the former immigration minister. Processing times at IRCC are not even close to meeting service standards. According to a recent report by the Auditor General, privately sponsored refugees waited an average of 30 months for a decision on their file. Overseas spouses or common-law partners waited 15 months to be reunited with their partners in Canada. Members may think that things would be better for the trained professionals and skilled workers Canada needs, but this is not the case. Only 3% of applications for the federal skilled worker program were processed within service standards. According to The Globe and Mail, thousands of highly skilled immigrants who, in previous years, would easily have qualified for permanent residence in Canada are being forced to return to their home countries as their work permits expire because of a Liberal-made backlog. In 2015, the Liberals took over a Conservative-led immigration system, and processing times were as follows: Study permits were at 31 days, work permits were at 42 days and temporary resident visas were at 13 days. In April of this year, processing times were as follows: study permits, 88 days; work permits, 62 days; and temporary resident visas, 72 days. These numbers are even more shocking when considering the 144% increase in IRCC personnel since 2013. Executive management went from 135 people to 227 people in the same time span. Because of the government's failures, and under the watch of the current housing minister and the former immigration minister, dishonest immigration consultants and plaza colleges are allowed to flourish in Canada. Plaza colleges are colleges that pop up in strip malls. This is due to the breakdown in operations and system integrity across IRCC. Plaza colleges take advantage of international students, charging them tens of thousands of dollars to enrol, and some of them enrol 10 times more students than their buildings have capacity for. International students in Canada are being taken advantage of and subjected to poor living standards. This has led to international students living under bridges or sharing a floor mattress in a basement for $500 a month. Community organizations have also raised concerns about students' mental health and suicide rates among the international student population in Canada. Sadly, one crematorium in Brampton has a pamphlet for families of international students, outlining the process and cost of repatriating a body after a sudden death. Shamefully, after completely mishandling the international students file, the government is blaming the students for the current housing crisis. The same minister who was in charge of and broke the immigration system is now responsible for addressing the housing crisis. The government's failure to put forward a real plan to ensure a fair, orderly and compassionate immigration process has real consequences for those hoping to call Canada home. These people are not just file numbers; they are real human beings. Behind every statistic lies a deeply personal story of someone yearning for a better life in Canada.

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Mr. Sukh Dhaliwal (Surrey—Newton, Lib.)

Oct/31/23 11:38:37 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Edmonton Mill Woods did not mention one category of immigrants that is key to bringing in the brightest immigrants to Canada. This is the parents category. The reason he did not mention it is that, under the previous Conservative government, it took seven years for parents to come and join their families; for spouses, it took four years. However, under the Liberals, it is down to two years for parents and four months for spouses. I will focus on the parents and grandparents, because the Conservatives gutted that system. In their last year in power, they brought in only 5,000 applications and decreased the age of a dependent child from 21 to 18. When the Liberals took power, over the last so many years, we brought in a minimum of 20,000 applications every year, so more parents and grandparents can come. Is the parents category that I talked about also important to the member's constituents?

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Hon. Tim Uppal

Oct/31/23 11:39:57 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, that is an important category. I actually talked about that in my speech, and it is an important part of our plan for Canadians to be able to reconnect with their loved ones. However, one of the biggest problems here is that, instead of having some certainty for families as to when their parents or grandparents would be able to come and get through the whole immigration process, the Liberals introduced what they call a lottery system. If members talk to Canadians who are part of this lottery system, they say they have no idea when they are going to reconnect with their parents or grandparents. They have been waiting for years. This ridiculous lottery system is failing families; families are waiting and waiting, and they just do not get the lottery. Reconnecting with loved ones should not be left to a lottery.

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Mr. Mario Simard (Jonquière, BQ)

Oct/31/23 11:40:53 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, earlier in their speeches, my colleagues from Saint-Jean and from Mirabel each indicated how important it is to put immigrants at the centre of this process. Unfortunately, given the wait times and difficulties we are currently facing with the housing crisis, it is getting harder to focus on immigrants. I wonder whether my colleague agrees that, if we want to welcome immigrants in a more substantive way in the coming years, we need to really think things through.

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Hon. Tim Uppal

Oct/31/23 11:41:35 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is absolutely important that, when new Canadians come to Canada, they have an opportunity to succeed. This includes the availability of jobs for them to be able to provide for their families and the opportunity to purchase a home and for their children to go to school, as well as access to the health care system. It is absolutely imperative that this is all in place when we allow immigrants to come to Canada. Unfortunately, what has been happening under the current Liberal government is that the infrastructure is just not there. The Liberals have not done the hard work to ensure that, when new Canadians come to Canada, they have the basic necessities of life. That needs to be in place, but the Liberals have not put it in place. They announce a lot of numbers, but they do not put in the really hard work to get it done and to help new Canadians.

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Mr. Alistair MacGregor (Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, NDP)

Oct/31/23 11:42:36 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is truly remarkable to watch Liberals and Conservatives argue over housing. It is like watching two arsonists argue about who burned the house down. The Conservatives want us to magically think that these problems all started in 2015; in fact, what we are seeing today is the natural conclusion of decades of Liberal- and Conservative-backed policies that have gotten us to where we are. I have a simple question: Do my Conservative colleagues support the call by housing advocates to stop the financialization of housing by implementing a moratorium on the acquisition of affordable housing units by financial landlords, as well as the creation of a non-profit acquisition fund? It has taken a long time for Liberals and Conservatives to dig this hole, and it is going to take a sustained effort to get us out of it. Does the member support that?

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Hon. Tim Uppal

Oct/31/23 11:43:32 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is absolutely imperative that we build more homes in Canada. What we support is actually a private member's bill that we have by the Conservative leader right now: the building homes not bureaucracy act. This bill would help to build more homes so new Canadians and Canadians who are already here can move into homes. We need more homes in Canada. We need to work with municipalities to ensure that they remove the gatekeepers, remove the red tape and build more homes for Canadians to move into.

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Ms. Jenny Kwan (Vancouver East, NDP)

Oct/31/23 11:44:05 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to enter into this debate. First, let me thank my Bloc colleagues for bringing this motion forward. They are absolutely correct in saying that the federal government needs to consult with provinces and territories with respect to Canada's immigration plan. There is no question about that. I do believe that the Canadian government is doing that. That said, what needs to be done, of course, is for the federal government to show the necessary leadership to support provinces and territories so they have the necessary resources to support newcomers, and not just to support newcomers but also to support all communities so they are healthy communities. I am an immigrant. I am one of those people who came to Canada. Back in the day, my family struggled to survive, but we did survive. We also had a housing crisis at that time. Our family of eight people lived in a 700-square-foot basement suite. That is all we could afford. Fast-forward to today. Where are we with respect to the housing crisis? We now have a situation where, in Toronto, newcomers are sleeping on the street. The weather is getting colder all the time, and where are they? They do not and cannot even access a shelter. The City of Toronto is left holding the bag on its own. The Liberal government promised to transfer money to it, but that money has yet to materialize. It is all talk and no action, continuously. What does it do? It disappoints. It does not actually deliver on what it says. It is not just newcomers who are struggling with the housing crisis; all Canadians are struggling with it. What does the government want to do? The former minister of immigration has pointed to newcomers and international students as though somehow they are responsible for Canada's housing crisis. Let me be clear about who is responsible for Canada's housing crisis. Successive Liberal and Conservative governments have failed Canada and Canadians. Whether someone wanted to rent or to buy a home, what has happened over the last 30 years with Liberal and Conservative governments is that Canada has lost more than a million units of housing. That housing was being rented at $750 or below a month under both the Liberals and the Conservatives. What else happened? The Conservatives cancelled the co-op housing program, and the Liberals cancelled the national affordable housing program. They gutted funding for housing. They downloaded it to the provinces, territories and cities, saying, “Good luck to you.” Now, we have a housing crisis after they walked away from their responsibilities. Now, whom do they point their guns at? The leader of the Conservatives and the Conservatives are pointing their guns at municipalities as though it were all their fault that there is a housing crisis. The municipalities are not to be blamed. The federal Liberals and the Conservatives are to be blamed. They are responsible for the housing crisis. If blaming people when they walked away from their own responsibility were not enough, they actually emboldened wealthy investors to get into the market to buy up affordable rental apartments and then displace people, to renovict people, to demovict people, to throw them onto the streets and then jack up the rent. Rent has gone up from $750 a month to now, in Vancouver, $3,000 a month. When asked whether they will take responsibility for this, take action and say “no more” to the wealthy investors getting in there to displace people, neither the Liberals nor the Conservatives will take up that fight. They will not even speak about it. My goodness, who is to blame? Let us be clear that it is not newcomers. Conservatives and Liberals should look at themselves in the mirror and realize they are the ones who are responsible. Before I go on, let me just say that I will be dividing my time with my colleague from Elmwood—Transcona. This is a serious question. We are seeing the rise of hate and division in our community. I am experiencing it directly, as someone who is an immigrant, who came to Canada many decades ago as a young child. It has never been worse. I understand that when people are faced with tough times, and they are faced with tough times with high inflationary costs, with food insecurity and being actually thrown out of their homes, they are unable to move forward. People who grew up in communities are being displaced because they cannot afford to live in the neighbourhood they grew up in. Professionals in a family, who are making a decent income, still cannot make enough to afford rent, let alone to hope to buy. Families are having to move back home with their parents in order to survive. They are people. I was just at a community event for Thanksgiving, where I was serving Thanksgiving meals to people, and I met construction workers who are working but cannot afford rent. They are living in shelters and in cars. That is the reality, so when we see the situation and its seriousness, the government needs to understand that it is its job and it is parliamentarians' job to stop trying to divide communities, stop trying to prey on people's fears, come up with real solutions and take responsibility for their own actions. Their words matter. Equally importantly, their actions matter. What is the NDP calling for to address the housing crisis? We absolutely want to say “no more” to the wealthy investors who are coming in to buy up affordable housing and affordable rental apartments and then displacing people. We are saying “no more”. It has to stop. We need to put a ban on that. In addition, we need to ensure that the government puts forward investments to support the non-profit sector so it can go in, buy up the units that come onto the market and create a non-profit acquisition fund. This is something the NDP has been calling for for a very long time. It is time for the government to act. We also want the government to take action and speak to those who want to access government supports, such as CMHC's insurance guarantee or low-interest mortgage supports. If the private sector wants to access government programs, there has to be a return to the community. It has to reduce the rent for the community in perpetuity for those units, not just for a year or two, or for five years, but for the life of that project. Those are taxpayers' resources, and we need to ensure that taxpayers' resources benefit the community and not line the pockets of wealthy investors. We need to make sure that the government takes real action and builds social housing and co-op housing like we used to. Contrary to what the leader of the Conservatives says, which is that building social housing and co-op housing is some sort of weird “Soviet-style” model of housing, the NDP believes in supporting people. I invite the leader of the Conservative opposition to visit a co-op, to visit a social housing project and to talk to the people there who are accessing that housing about how it has made a difference in their lives. I invite the leader of the Conservatives to not just do videos and selfies in the back lane to make fun of people and to call people's house a shack, saying a proper house that people live in is some sort of shack, but rather to look deeply into people's lives and the struggles they have and to understand, when stable housing is provided to them, the difference it makes in their lives. It is time for action, not this nonsense that the Conservatives are talking about. The NDP supports the Bloc's motion absolutely. The federal government should provide leadership and should support provinces and territories, including Quebec, with the necessary resources to support newcomers.

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

Oct/31/23 11:54:10 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, a lot of the member's speech focused on housing. The speech largely ignored the $82 billion that we provided through the national housing strategy, which, I would remind members of the House, is a 10-year plan. We are halfway through that plan. Much of the resources go to non-profits and municipalities, which the member raised in terms of providing support. I am well aware of that as a long-time city councillor in Hamilton. The member had lots of criticism towards the private sector. As much as we have issues related to the financialization of housing, the private sector is key as it relates to getting us out of this housing crisis. It is going to be a partner in this space in terms of providing all the homes we need, in terms of building supply. Why does the member see fit to demonize the private sector when it is an important part of getting us out of the housing crisis?

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Ms. Jenny Kwan

Oct/31/23 11:55:18 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, first, I would invite the member to actually look into his own government's national housing strategy. The vast majority of the money is actually not real money for people. The government actually counts money from the provinces, territories and other partners towards that amount of money. The other thing is that the government slow-walks the money, so projects do not get built. We have been talking about this since 2017. What is there to show for it? There is not that much. There is another thing I actually want to point out. I invite the member to read the Auditor General's report, which says that the government itself, CMHC itself, does not even know what it is doing and whether or not the housing program is meeting the needs of the most vulnerable. Let me get into the other question the member asked on the issue around supports for people. The government needs to understand that the private sector is in it to make a greater profit. We do have to partner with the private sector, but we have to make sure we put measures in place so there is a return to the people. We have to say, “no more displacement of people and sending them out onto the streets”. That is contributing to the housing crisis, and the government, with its policies, is aiding and abetting the private sector in that regard.

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Mr. Tom Kmiec (Calgary Shepard, CPC)

Oct/31/23 11:56:46 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I serve with the member on the immigration committee, and I want to bring it back to that particular issue, which is the substance of the Bloc motion. There is an Auditor General's report that just came out about the immigration backlog and the eight immigration PR systems. The report mentions that there are two programs for permanent residency for privately sponsored refugees and government-assisted refugees that do not have service standards set for them. This is in violation of Treasury Board guidelines and directives to the department. Every single stream and service provided needs to have service standards. I would like to hear the member's opinion on why the IRCC continues to violate Treasury Board guidelines.

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Ms. Jenny Kwan

Oct/31/23 11:57:34 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, that is a question I asked the minister in question period last week. I would ask the member to check the NDP website, and my website especially, for all the comments I have made with respect to the processing backlogs and the government's violation of its own policies. It is shameful, and it is time for the government to take the necessary action to respect newcomers, to process the applications in the way in which they deserve, to establish processing standards and to abide by the standard of no more than 12 months for processing.

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Mr. Jean-Denis Garon (Mirabel, BQ)

Oct/31/23 11:58:18 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I feel that my colleague has clearly grasped the spirit of today's motion, which is that, in Quebec, we want to look after each and every fellow Quebecker. She spoke about housing. I do not find that she is demonizing the private sector. My colleague is talking about building housing that the private sector does not want to build and about building co-op housing. This is housing that people live in, manage and own as co-operatives. In Quebec, we have programs. Quebec is the only province with permanent programs to build co-op social housing. Because Ottawa is refusing to understand this model, it is taking time for the money to flow in. In the end, that is keeping us from housing people. I believe that other provinces should learn from the Quebec model. To this end, Ottawa should make a special effort to understand Quebec's specificities so that we can move forward with housing construction more quickly, rather than stalling, insisting that there be a maple leaf in the corner of every cheque and preventing Quebec from building more housing right away. Does my colleague agree?

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Ms. Jenny Kwan

Oct/31/23 11:59:20 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Quebec and British Columbia are the two provinces that are doing a lot of the heavy lifting, even without the federal government at the table. He is absolutely correct. What we need the federal government to do is to invest and to partner in a true partnership with provinces and territories in the development of housing. The way the government is doing it is shameful. It will often go to a project that is already under development, all for a couple of million dollars, so it can be part of the announcement. That is wrong. Provinces are leading the way. It needs to actually ensure that it provides the necessary resources to match the resources of provinces and territories, so the provinces and territories can address the housing crisis and can get housing built expeditiously.

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Mr. Daniel Blaikie (Elmwood—Transcona, NDP)

Oct/31/23 12:00:17 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to contribute to today's debate. I want to thank the member for Mirabel for his leadership on this motion today. I also thank my colleague from Vancouver East for all the work she does in the House on housing and immigration issues. As New Democrats, we understand that immigration is an integral part of our economic system and, even more importantly, that immigrants play an important role in our communities. We recognize that the cultural influences and diverse skills that immigrants bring to Canada are part of our strength and our success. If we are to welcome more immigrants to Canada, we must offer them the best chance of success. Because successive governments, both Liberal and Conservative, have failed again and again, we are no longer able to provide provinces with the necessary resources and ensure that immigrants can succeed. When we hear about newcomers who cannot find housing, we have to take responsibility for that. Today's motion, which seeks greater co-operation between the various levels of government, is the right way to go. If provincial governments are not consulted and do not know in advance what the federal government's immigration targets will be, they cannot possibly prepare all the services they must provide to ensure successful immigration. Of course, we could talk about the health care system, but I think that, right now, the bigger, more serious problem is housing. In 1992, the Conservative government at the time cancelled a co-op housing program. In 1993, the Liberal government, which promised throughout the election campaign to bring back the program, decided to cancel the whole national housing strategy. As a result, Canada lost housing for many years in a row. Had the government kept that strategy in place, we could have built 500,000 more affordable housing units. Instead, all that potential was lost. In 2010 or thereabouts, when mortgages were reaching their renewal date, the government created a fund to provide more affordable housing. However, the Harper government then decided not to renew those resources, so we started losing not just affordable housing potential, but also existing affordable housing. The non-profit organizations no longer had the resources to continue to provide affordable housing. During the 2015 election campaign, the Liberals once again promised to repair the damage done by the Conservatives. However, like in the 1990s, once they took office, the Liberals decided to keep that policy in place and we lost even more affordable housing. We talk about the need for more immigration to meet the needs of our economy, but we do not have any more room for these immigrants. Of course, provincial governments have a very big role to play in building affordable housing, but they need significant funding from Ottawa to be able to build it. However, we can see that there is a lack of co-operation to ensure that this housing gets built. There certainly needs to be closer co-operation between the provincial and territorial governments and the federal government to resolve the crisis, which was caused by Liberal and Conservative governments agreeing on one important point about housing—that it should be primarily, if not solely, up to the market. That is why I think that hearing from New Democrats on this issue is really important. We are the ones talking about renewing the commitment to build social and affordable housing, and we recognize that the solution to this crisis will not come from the private market alone. We are not here to demonize the private sector, but when big companies evict people, shrink the affordable housing stock, and jack up rents, we have to be able to say that as well. We have to be able to talk about that because, even if that is not the only problem, it is one of several. We have to tackle this problem if we want to resolve the housing crisis. We do acknowledge, however, that the private sector has an important role to play here. If all we talk about are market-based solutions, then we are never going to address all aspects of the housing crisis, and we are not going to resolve it. That is why it is really important to focus on social, affordable and co-op housing, because the two major parties in the House never really talk about these things. Even if the Liberals talk about them a bit, they do not take any action. That is why we are here, to focus on that. I am now ready to take questions from my colleagues.

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Mr. Jean-Denis Garon (Mirabel, BQ)

Oct/31/23 12:08:36 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the Liberal government recently removed the goods and services tax to encourage housing construction. The Liberals told us that this measure would help build housing, some of which will be started in 2030 and delivered in 2035. They recognize that it takes time to plan for housing, even in their policies. At the same time, tomorrow morning, they will announce their immigration targets for 2026. They will stand up and tell the provinces how many people they are going to get, while acknowledging in their own bill that it can take three, five, seven, eight or 10 years to plan housing. Is it just me here who finds this deeply inconsistent and deeply disrespectful of the newcomers who come here? Is it everyone in the House who sees the Liberal government's inconsistency when it comes to planning housing construction and understanding the role of the provinces and Quebec in this matter?

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Mr. Daniel Blaikie

Oct/31/23 12:09:33 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, this seems to be a classic case of the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing. I think this motion is very important because it encourages the federal government to consult the provinces. However, to have a consultation that will really make a difference, it is important that the government act early enough so that the provinces have enough time to prepare. Announcing immigration targets for 2026 now, in 2023, when there is a housing crisis and we should be setting these targets taking into account the limited number of housing units available, seems to me to be a bit like the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing.

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