SoVote

Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 252

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 21, 2023 10:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 252 - Nov/21/23
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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Context: House Hansard - 252 - Nov/21/23
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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Context: House Hansard - 252 - Nov/21/23
Ms. Elizabeth May
  • Nov/21/23 6:26:04 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the kind words of my colleague from Milton. At the time that I had a stroke, a number of members of this place sent me nice notes and prayed, and I appreciate that a lot. With respect to co-ops, we had a commitment to $1.5 billion in budget 2023, and that money has not started to be spent yet, if I get that right. We do have new money announced in the fall economic statement, but why have we not moved things faster? The model of co-op housing is a perfect model. CMHC used to build a lot of co-op housing. Why are we not building co-op housing as fast as we possibly can? Why are we still allowing real estate investment trusts to keeping housing as a place for speculators to make money? We need to have homes where, as much as possible, we are making sure people are not investing in a speculative way such that homes for people to live in are used as a mechanism for corporations to increase their profits. I do not know where I am going with this, but sometimes I think of how we could just deal with the word “greed” by changing one letter, getting rid of the "d" and adding an “n”. We need to have policies that are designed for people who care about each other more than they care about the expanding wealth of the top 1% or .01%, whose wealth keeps growing while the lowest-income people struggle. I was so disappointed that the fall economic statement does not provide for school lunch programs or school breakfast programs. The people in low-income communities need to know that if their kid goes to school hungry, somebody will give them something to eat before they start trying to learn.
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