SoVote

Context: House Hansard - 252 - Nov/21/23

Nov/21/23 4:27:07 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, let us start by setting the record straight. Canada has the lowest debt and the lowest deficit in the G7, and we have had the fastest rate of fiscal consolidation. One does not need to ask me about our fiscally responsible track record. Members can talk to the ratings agencies because they have reaffirmed our AAA rating. The question we all need to be asking the Conservatives is why they are so passionately opposed to the investments Canadians need. Why are they opposed to early learning and child care, which is working, and which is making life more affordable for Canadians while expanding our labour force at a time when we desperately need it? Why are they so opposed to building more homes faster for Canadians? Why have they said it is “disgusting” to be investing in building more rental homes? Is it disgusting for us to be cracking down on Airbnb? Why are they so opposed to our essential investments in the industrial transformation Canada needs?

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Ms. Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné (Terrebonne, BQ)

Nov/21/23 4:28:36 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the measures that the Bloc Québécois called for and wanted to see in this economic statement had one thing in common: the word “urgent”. We asked for more money for seniors who are suffering because of the rising cost of living. We asked for a one-year extension for CEBA repayment. Unfortunately, all we got for the 200,000 SMEs that are in crisis and asking for a one-year extension is a single page out of 130. That is next to nothing. We asked for money for businesses and seniors, as well as for people experiencing homelessness. We asked for an emergency fund for people who are preparing to spend winter on the streets. I have one question for the Minister of Finance. What is her definition of the word “urgent”? Clearly it is not the same as ours.

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Hon. Chrystia Freeland

Nov/21/23 4:29:24 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am going to say what I think is urgent. I think it is urgent to build housing in Quebec and across Canada. That is why, in this fall economic statement, we are investing $16 billion in housing construction. It is urgent, and that is why we are doing it now. We also feel it is urgent to have an economic plan for the jobs of today and tomorrow. That is why we are investing in the green transition. We have made the biggest investment in the history of Quebec, according to Premier Legault, who was very proud to partner with us. We are investing in the needs of today and the jobs of today and tomorrow.

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Mr. Daniel Blaikie (Elmwood—Transcona, NDP)

Nov/21/23 4:30:31 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the minister mentioned in her remarks that we are facing a housing crisis, certainly a significant housing shortage. She talked about how Canada has the lowest debt in the G7. She talked about how it has the lowest deficit in the G7. The Governor of the Bank of Canada said that spending on housing would not be inflationary. She announced some measures today for social housing, but they do not start until 2025-26—

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The Speaker

Nov/21/23 4:30:59 p.m.
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The hon. member for Saskatoon—University is rising on a point of order.

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Mr. Corey Tochor

Nov/21/23 4:31:05 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my point is order is that there is no question in this long, rambling, pointless speech. Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

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The Speaker

Nov/21/23 4:31:14 p.m.
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Order, please. I would like to remind all members this is the period for questions and comments. The hon. member for Elmwood—Transcona still has the floor.

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Mr. Daniel Blaikie

Nov/21/23 4:31:38 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, with the government saying that it is in a good fiscal position, and with the Bank of Canada saying that spending on housing is not inflationary, I question why the new investments for social housing have been put off to 2025.

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Hon. Chrystia Freeland

Nov/21/23 4:32:06 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for Elmwood—Transcona for his commitment to Canadians and for his hard work on housing. We absolutely understand the urgency of investing in housing. We need to invest in housing today, and we need to have a plan to continue investing in housing going forward. I am very pleased that our investments in housing right now include supporting the development of co-op housing and of lifting the GST from new co-op developments, along with providing new funding to get them built. As someone who has lived in a co-op, I can tell members that this is one of the best forms of affordable housing, and it creates great communities at the same time.

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Mr. Mike Morrice (Kitchener Centre, GP)

Nov/21/23 4:33:09 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that the finance minister recognizes we are in a climate crisis. At the same time, she needs to know that oil and gas companies are gouging Canadians at the pumps, as 47¢ of every dollar of inflation is from corporate profits. Why would they not apply the Canada recovery dividend, which they already did to banks and life insurance, to big oil in the fall economic statement?

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Hon. Chrystia Freeland

Nov/21/23 4:33:42 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we absolutely understand the urgency of climate action. That is why I am delighted that today we are publishing a timeline for our investment tax credits. They are so essential to Canada's green transition and our economic plan, which is creating jobs today and the jobs of tomorrow.

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Mr. Yvan Baker (Etobicoke Centre, Lib.)

Nov/21/23 4:34:08 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, in the past number of budgets, we have seen the federal government commit significant funding to support the people of Ukraine in their fight against Russia's genocidal invasion. We just saw Conservative Party MPs vote against the Canada-Ukraine free trade agreement, basically voting against support for Ukraine. Could the minister clarify what this government's position is on support for Ukraine?

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Hon. Chrystia Freeland

Nov/21/23 4:34:58 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition described our measures to build new homes for Canadians as “disgusting”. I will tell members what I would describe as disgusting: the failure of the official opposition to support the country fighting the world's fight right now for democracy and the rules-based international order. I am truly appalled.

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Hon. Pierre Poilievre (Leader of the Opposition, CPC)

Nov/21/23 4:35:45 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after eight years of this Prime Minister, inflation is at a 40-year high. Work does not pay anymore, and the cost of housing has doubled. Crime, chaos, drugs and disorder are common on our streets. The Prime Minister is trying to divide Canadians and distract them from all his failures. First, we must acknowledge the country that the Prime Minister inherited when he came to power. I will start with interest rates and the inflation rate. These rates were low. Taxes were falling faster than at any time in our country's history. The budget was balanced. Crime had fallen 25%, so low that small-town folks often left their doors unlocked. Our borders were secure. Housing cost half what it does today. Take-home pay had risen 10% after inflation and taxes. The New York Times said that, for the first time, Canada's middle class was richer than America's, despite an unprecedented financial crisis in the U.S. as well as wars in Syria, Iraq and Ukraine. It is funny how, when Stephen Harper was around, those wars did not cause inflation in Canada. Since the current Prime Minister came to power, prices have skyrocketed. Let us look at where we are now, eight years later. After breaking 40-year records, inflation is once again too high. The economy is shrinking. Yes, the economy is shrinking even as the population is growing. Per capita GDP is smaller today than it was six years ago. For the first time in our history, we have seen the economy and per capita GDP shrink over a six-year period. According to the OECD, Canada's growth is projected to be dead last in the OECD, not just for the next six years, but for the next three decades. Housing costs have more than doubled in eight years under this government, despite its promises to lower them. It now takes 25 years to save up enough money for a down payment in Toronto. Before this Prime Minister, it took that long to pay off an entire mortgage. Now, some families are having to stretch out the terms of their mortgages to 90 years. That means that a person may have to live to be 120 before their family is mortgage-free. In reality, the children and grandchildren are the ones who will have to pay off their parents' and grandparents' mortgages. Never before has this been seen in Canada, or anywhere else in the world, I imagine. Homes in Canada now cost over 50% more than homes in the United States. That is the reality after eight years under this Prime Minister, who promised to make life more affordable. What are his solutions today? First, he wants to increase taxes on fuel, which will increase the cost of everything. Everything that is transported will cost more because of the carbon tax that the government just confirmed. It will increase the price of gas by 17¢ a litre, and by 20¢ a litre if we add the sales tax. This is a tax that the Bloc Québécois wants to radically increase on the backs of Quebeckers. Furthermore, he is again promising to invest billions in housing construction. These are the same promises he has been making for eight years, but all they do is create more bureaucracy, not build homes. Finally, he is adding $20 billion in new spending that will cause inflation and interest rates to go up. Scotiabank has already said that two percentage points of the current interest rates are the direct result of the deficits, which the government is proposing to increase. Let us talk about the debt. Next year, for the first time, we will be spending more on debt interest than on health care. More than $50 billion will be spent on interest. That is more than will be sent to the provinces for our nurses and doctors. Bankers and investors in Manhattan will get the money, but our teachers, nurses and doctors will not. It makes no sense. Fortunately, we have a common-sense plan. We have a plan to cap spending and cut waste in order to bring down inflation and interest rates. We will eliminate taxes to reduce the cost of living for every Canadian. We will cut taxes to make work pay once again. We will rebuild the Canadian dream, where work enables anyone, anywhere, to have a good life, to own a home and to live a peaceful life in their community. In the next election, voters will have two choices. The first is to vote for a costly coalition that will take money from taxpayers, raise taxes and enable more crime. The second is to vote for the common-sense Conservatives, who will free people to earn more powerful paycheques that buy food, gas and homes in safe communities. That is the choice, and we will be the only common-sense choice for all Quebeckers and Canadians. As we stand here today and witness the misery visible across this country, it is hard to forget how good things were only eight years ago when the Prime Minister took office. Let me review the hard facts. Never before has a prime minister inherited a richer legacy. Inflation and interest rates were rock bottom, taxes were falling faster than at any time in Canadian history and the budget was balanced. It took 25 years to pay off a mortgage, not just to get a mortgage. Crime had fallen by 25%. It was so low that many small-town folks actually left their doors unlocked. Do members remember those good days when we could leave our doors unlocked? No one would do that today. Our borders were secure, housing costs were half of what they are today and take-home pay had gone up 10% after tax and inflation. The New York Times had calculated that Canada's middle class was, for the first time ever, richer than America's middle class. All of this was despite a once-in-a-lifetime financial crisis in the U.S. and wars in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and, yes, Ukraine. It is funny how those wars did not cause inflation when Prime Minister Harper was leading our economy. It is true that when the Prime Minister took office, Canada was rich, affordable and safe. It is also true that the very wealthy had not done particularly well. In fact, their share of the economy had shrunk during the Harper years. Now the wealth concentrates among the very, very rich, and that is because inflationary policies always help the richest people. When government concentrates wealth in the hands of politicians and bureaucrats, it is given to the most politically influential people. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Now we are seeing the biggest gap ever between the rich and the poor. The Prime Minister promised to help the middle class, but he has demolished the middle class. That is the reality. Inflation, after hitting 40-year highs, is back on the move. The economy is now shrinking. If we add in per capita terms, it is plummeting. In fact, the GDP per person is smaller than it was six years ago. This has never happened. Canada's growth is now projected to be the worst in the OECD between now and 2030, and the worst for the next four decades, according to the OECD. That is out of 40 countries. It now takes 25 years to save up for a down payment in Toronto. It used to be that one could pay off a mortgage in that time. Since the Prime Minister has taken office, families have stretched out the terms of their mortgages to 90 years. Today the minister bragged that she is going to create a charter that will allow them to stretch out their mortgages longer so they can now have a 100-year mortgage. People are supposed to thank the government. What wonderful news. I imagine she will send it out in the mail so people can open their mailbox and find out that their great-great-grandchildren will still be paying off the mortgage on their home. Canadian homes now cost 50% more than in the United States of America. In fact, one can now buy a 20-bedroom castle in Scotland for a lower price than a two bedroom in Kitchener. Vancouver is now the third most unaffordable housing market in the world when we compare median income to median house prices. It is worse than New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, and London, England. Even Singapore, a tiny island with 2,000 times more people per square kilometre than Canada, has more affordable housing. Toronto is rated by UBS to be the worst housing bubble in the world. If we had even imagined to say such a thing out loud eight years ago, people would have laughed. Today it is the reality and people are not laughing. They are actually crying. All of a sudden, after eights years, we should believe in the government's multi-billion dollar promise to build homes. The Liberals built fewer homes last year than were built in 1972, 50 years ago. That was at a time when our population was half of what it is today. We are building fewer homes now that we have 40 million people than we built when we had 22 million people. It is no wonder we have this new phenomenon of middle-class working homeless people. We have never seen this before, but now we have nurses, electricians and carpenters living in parking lots, something they could not even imagine. In Halifax, Nova Scotia, the Speaker's province and ironically the province of the housing minister, there are 30 homeless encampments in one city. This would have been unimaginable. Now the Liberals expect us to believe that this time, they mean it, that their billions of dollars of new spending are going to change what the billions of dollars they spent over the last decade have caused, and that is the worst housing crisis in Canadian history, perhaps the worst in the world today. The Prime Minister has doubled our national debt, adding more debt than all of the previous 22 prime ministers combined. He continually tells us that there are no consequences for that debt. The consequences are now becoming clear. Next year the government will spend more on dead interest than it does on health care. Instead of the money going to doctors and nurses, it will go to bankers and bondholders in Manhattan and in London, England. It is another transfer of wealth from the working class to the wealthiest people, from the working class to the smirking class. We see the social breakdown this has brought in our communities with crime raging out of control. Shootings are up 101% across Canada over the last eight years. There have been 30,000 drug overdoses. Social breakdown is the obvious consequence of the economic breakdown the Prime Minister has caused. What has he spent all of this on? He spent $54 million on the ArriveCAN app, which we did not need, which did not work and could have been done in a weekend by a couple of IT workers. We know that because they did. A couple of IT workers, as a lark, bought a few boxes of pizza and a case of beer and redesigned the entire ArriveCAN app in a weekend. It did not cost them $54 million. Maybe we should send that app to the Prime Minister and call it the “ResignCAN” app. Then the Liberals blew a billion dollars on a so-called green fund. The top bureaucrats who were involved in it say that it is a money-for-nothing scheme with gross incompetence that reminds them of the sponsorship scandal. The chair of the fund gave $200,000 of the money to her own company. Now, we find out that the $15 billion they are giving to a single battery plant is going to pay for 1,600 foreign workers, who do not even have a place to live. There is a housing shortage in Windsor. The Prime Minister's solution is to spend precious tax dollars on paycheques for people on the other side of the world to come here temporarily, collect the money and take it back to South Korea. We all love South Korea, a great country, but there is no reason why Canadian taxpayers should be subsidizing South Koreans' paycheques. Canadian tax dollars should go exclusively to Canadian paycheques; that is common sense. The Prime Minister, of course, wastes money through missed opportunities. We could develop our resources. For example, we could be breaking dependence on the world's dictators. Let us talk about this for a moment. Today, the Prime Minister's party shamefully voted to impose a carbon tax on the people of Ukraine. Its members voted to amend the existing Canada-Ukraine Free Trade Agreement, which Conservatives negotiated, and which has been a success, to require that both countries have and promote carbon taxes. This is exactly the opposite of what the people of Ukraine need. They do not need a carbon tax when they are trying to fight and win a war. They need the ability to rebuild their economy, which takes energy. That is why Conservatives will oppose any imposition of a carbon tax there, here or anywhere around the world. Do members know what else they did? They voted against an amendment that would allow Canadians to build the arms that would allow Ukraine to win the war. We proposed an amendment to the update of the agreement, which would have allowed Ukrainians to benefit from our incredible Canadian workers who produce munitions and equipment, and they voted no. Let us get this straight. They believe the best way to counter Putin is with a carbon tax. We believe the best way to do it is by breaking European dependence on his energy sector and by providing and selling great Canadian arms to win the war. Canadians understand that the way to help a country rebuild is by selling technology for energy. We proposed as well that we would both provide civilian nuclear technology and sell our civilian-grade uranium from Saskatchewan to power nuclear plants that would give emissions-free electricity to Ukrainians, as they have to replace bombed-out electricity plants. The Prime Minister did not include that in his deal, because he does not want affordable energy. He does not want the jobs to come back to our resource sector. All he wanted was to try to save his carbon tax. That is just how desperate he is and, in fact, how sick he is, on this matter. We all know that he was desperate to save his carbon tax, but for him to use the people of Ukraine as a pawn in his scheme to save the carbon tax is a level of cynicism that we did not expect even from the Prime Minister. When I am prime minister, we will have a free trade agreement with Ukraine, and that agreement will not include a carbon tax. It will include the ability for us to provide clean Canadian nuclear energy and natural gas to have a strong energy superpower status for Canada and a secure Ukraine for the future, absolutely. There are hypocritical members over there who pretended that they supported Ukraine, but who then supported the Prime Minister's signing off on a turbine to go from Montreal to Putin so he could power his natural gas pipeline and pump that gas into Europe to fund his war. That is the Prime Minister's priority: to give Putin more money selling natural gas. Our priority and our common-sense plan turns dollars for dictators into paycheques for our people in this country. I do not think this debate is going how the Liberals expected it to go. Their heads are all looking down and rightfully so. It will be a good moment for them to atone for the cynical approach they have taken on this and everything else and, frankly, for the misery that they have unleashed in this country. This is the worst time in Canada's history for the Canadian people and particularly for the middle class. The good news is that we have a common-sense plan that would axe the tax to bring home lower prices, cap spending and cut waste to bring down inflation and interest rates, remove bureaucracy to build more homes so that once again people can afford to pay their rent and mortgages. This will be a country that works for the people who do the work, for the common people and for the common sense of the common people united for our common home, their home, my home, our home. Let us bring it home.

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Ms. Rachel Bendayan (Parliamentary Secretary to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Lib.)

Nov/21/23 4:57:28 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, our government's fall economic statement announces new measures in order to get more homes built faster. The leader of the Conservative Party has called that, and I quote, a disgusting scheme. Why does the leader of the Conservative Party think that investments in the construction of 30,000 new rental apartments is disgusting? Why does the leader of the Conservative Party think that new federal investments for the construction of 7,000 new affordable homes is disgusting? The leader of the Conservative Party owes us and Canadians an explanation.

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Hon. Pierre Poilievre

Nov/21/23 4:58:26 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, those houses cannot be characterized with any adjective other than “non-existent”. They do not exist. The Liberals stand up day after day and list off the thousands of houses that they have not built. They have had eight years. It would be one thing if they were still promising to build homes in their first year, maybe their second year; okay, we will give them three years. It has been eight years and the only thing they have accomplished on housing since promising to make it affordable is they have doubled the cost. They have doubled the rent, doubled mortgage payments, doubled the needed down payment for a home. Now we have $900 billion of mortgages that are coming up for renewal. That is two-thirds of all mortgages. The IMF says we are the number one at risk of having a mortgage crisis. It is disgusting to think of the families who did everything right and risk losing everything because of the irresponsible policies of this Prime Minister and his NDP government.

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Mr. Alain Therrien (La Prairie, BQ)

Nov/21/23 4:59:47 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we often hear the Conservatives bickering with the Liberals, but they are really one and the same. The Liberals did not mention homelessness in the economic update, and nor did the Conservatives in their response. The Liberals are not talking about small businesses and are not helping them, since the government refuses to extend the repayment of the Canada emergency business account, or CEBA, loans by an additional year. The Conservatives never even mention it. The Liberals are doing nothing to help seniors. What are the Conservatives doing? They have nothing whatsoever to say about seniors. The Liberals have given $82 billion in assistance to oil companies. Will those folks over there talk about it and eliminate those subsidies? On the contrary, the Conservatives are lobbyists for the oil companies. The Liberals do not talk about housing at all. The Conservatives, meanwhile, decided to do something original. They decided to blame the municipalities and punish them if they ever find out that they are not building enough housing. It is a party of slogans and catchphrases. They have no substance. It is six of one and a half dozen of the other.

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Hon. Pierre Poilievre

Nov/21/23 5:00:55 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the member is so angry. Give me a break. I cannot understand why he is upset, because his leader just said he is going to support the Liberals and keep them in power. I thought he was going to stand up and applaud all the great things the Liberals are doing, like increasing inflation, forcing interest rates to go up and drastically increasing the carbon tax. The Bloc Québécois wants this drastic increase and the Prime Minister agrees. The Bloc agrees with the Liberals on everything except the country's capital. That is the only sticking point it has with the Liberals. Fortunately, Quebeckers will be able to vote for a commons-sense party, a party that will lower prices and give people bigger paycheques. That is what common sense is all about.

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Mr. Daniel Blaikie (Elmwood—Transcona, NDP)

Nov/21/23 5:02:05 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Canada is not going to get out of the housing crisis we are in without significant investments in social and affordable housing, and the Liberals simply have not been building enough of that. We saw today that even the recapitalization of a program to build affordable housing is being put off until 2025. We never hear the leader of the Conservative Party talk about building new affordable and social housing. In fact, Canada is still losing way more affordable units than we are building. When he was housing minister, the government decided to cancel the operating agreements that made rents affordable in co-op and other forms of non-profit housing across the country. Will he finally start talking about the need to build more social and affordable housing in Canada to help address the crisis?

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Hon. Pierre Poilievre

Nov/21/23 5:02:58 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have been talking about almost nothing but making housing affordable for the last three years. When the NDP and the Liberals and the entire establishment were dismissing me, I told the country we were headed for a housing crisis. Now everybody is playing catch-up. Here is the problem for the NDP: The facts are that, when I was housing minister, one could rent the average one-bedroom for $950. Now, under the NDP-Liberal government, it is almost $2,000. One could buy an average home for a mortgage of $1,400 a month. Now it is $3,500 a month. The needed down payment for the average new home was $20,000; now it is well over $50,000. The NDP has been in government now at least two years and supported the Prime Minister for long before that. Since they signed the coalition agreement, rent inflation has been at its worst in Canadian history. We do not need more bureaucracy. We need my common-sense plan to clear away the red tape and the gatekeepers to build millions of new homes Canadians can afford and allow them powerful paycheques to pay for them.

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