SoVote

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

Mr. Luc Berthold (Mégantic—L'Érable, CPC)

Oct/31/23 2:41:55 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, last week, the Liberal Prime Minister looked at the polls and panicked. After eight years, he has finally realized that the common-sense Conservatives were right in saying that the carbon tax created inflation and drove up the cost of everything. Once again, however, the Prime Minister completely forgot Quebeckers, who are also overwhelmed with the stress of being unable to feed their families. We know that the Bloc Québécois wants to drastically increase the carbon tax, but that is certainly not what Quebeckers want. We know that it is costly to vote for the Bloc Québécois. Does the Prime Minister realize that he is not worth the cost?

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

Mr. Daniel Blaikie (Elmwood—Transcona, NDP)

Oct/31/23 3:19:43 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is no secret that Canada is in a housing crisis. We have heard from builders, bankers, economists and policy experts that significant public investment in housing is required in order to get out of the crisis. What does the finance minister say? She asks what the Bank of Canada and the rating agencies will do. There is good news. At the finance committee yesterday, the Governor of the Bank of Canada said that investments to increase housing supply in Canada would not be regarded as inflationary spending and might actually help bring down inflation. Therefore, the path is clear to replenish the co-investment fund and the rapid housing initiative, and to start a non-profit acquisition fund. Is the government going to do it in the fall economic statement or will it be missing in action?

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

Hon. Andrew Scheer

Oct/31/23 3:21:21 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I want to correct the record. I misspoke during question period and want to make sure my comments are accurate. I said that the Governor of the Bank of Canada testified that the carbon tax added 16% of extra inflation. It is actually 16% of total inflation and 33% of extra inflation above target.

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

Mr. Kyle Seeback (Dufferin—Caledon, CPC)

Oct/31/23 6:45:54 p.m.
Watch

Mr. Speaker, the last time I was here, I asked a question about housing, talking about the Liberal government's absolutely abysmal record on housing. When one looks at the problem with housing, what one sees is that there are actually two elements. There is the building of units, and we know that building starts are down. They have announcements where they say they are going to build something, but no one can actually live in an announcement. What they actually do at these announcements is find homes that are already going to be built and say that they will partner with the municipality and that the municipality will get a little extra money if it says they somehow contributed. Their building homes strategy is a big nothing burger. It is an absolute failure. Let us look at cost because cost is the other part that is making housing so unaffordable. We know that housing prices have doubled under the government, but let us look at interest rates. We know that interest rates are sky-high. The Governor of the Bank of Canada has said, many times, that the government's inflationary spending is like putting the foot on the gas pedal, as the Governor of the Bank of Canada tries to ease inflation by raising interest rates. Interest rates are at absolute highs and this has tragic consequences for builders; they cannot build the units because interest rates are so high. It makes the cost of building them even higher. It drives up the cost of building and makes it even less affordable for Canadians to buy them. Let me just give one little example. Right now, we have $186 billion worth of mortgages coming up for renewal in 2024. Let us say that one had a $600,000 mortgage coming up for renewal and an interest rate of 3%, which was not a great interest rate up until recently but is a very good rate compared to now. On a $600,000 mortgage, one's monthly payment until now would have been $2,500. Today, it is almost $4,000. That is a $1,500-a-month increase. These are the kinds of things that are crushing Canadians. This Liberal government has done the impossible on incompetence. If one does not have a home, one cannot afford a home because the cost of a home has doubled. If one is renting or looking to rent, one cannot afford that either, because rent has doubled. If one has a home and one works so hard to save and actually have a home, when one's mortgage comes up for renewal, one cannot afford to keep one's home. This government has somehow had the amazing incompetence to do two things: make it impossible for young buyers to buy a home and make it virtually impossible for people who have a home to keep the home. This is stunning incompetence on housing. What makes it worse is that household debt in Canada is the highest in the G7. Remember that the Prime Minister said that they were taking on borrowing money so that Canadians did not have to? Well, they have had to because their inflationary spending has driven up interest rates so high that Canadians now have to borrow just to survive. The most frightening stat I have seen just came out: 31% of Canadian households are having to find extra income just to make ends meet. Look at what is going on in this country after eight years of this absolutely incompetent Liberal government. One cannot buy a home. One cannot keep one's home. One cannot make ends meet. People are actually having to take on side hustles to pay the bills. This is the catastrophic record of a tired, corrupt Liberal government after eight years. I do not have time to get into the corruption. That would be an entire other late show, but let me say that housing and affordability is a disaster. The government is responsible. Why does it not, instead of puffing up its chest and saying what a great job it has done, just apologize to Canadians for the mess it has made?

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