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Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 254

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 23, 2023 10:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 254 - Nov/23/23
Mr. Denis Trudel (Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, BQ)
  • Nov/23/23 1:26:58 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, there was one part of my colleague's speech that I really liked. When he talked about the housing crisis, he said it is a complex issue. He is right. At some point, the government is going to need to wake up and face the facts. Those 3.5 million housing units will require hundreds of billions of dollars in investments. I am not even convinced we are going to get there. However, there is one issue the government could work on, and that is the financialization of housing. That is a significant issue. We are talking about the fact that a growing share of rental housing is being bought up by large private investors, often international ones. It is estimated that, in Montreal, less than 1% of owners own 32% of the rental housing stock. They could not care less about the right to housing. All they want to do is make money. They buy buildings with 60, 80 or 100 units. They demolish or renovate them. They renovate and double the price of the units. They have a major impact on the rise in housing prices. We absolutely have to tackle this issue. Could my colleague suggest some measures today to deal with this?
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Context: House Hansard - 254 - Nov/23/23
Mr. Denis Trudel (Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, BQ)
  • Nov/23/23 11:09:13 p.m.
  • Watch
  • Re: Bill C-56 
Mr. Speaker, Bill C‑56 touches on housing. It is a priority, actually. I said it earlier, when my colleague made his speech. It will be difficult to build millions of homes. That has never been done in Canada. We have to find ways to rise to the challenge. We talked about an acquisition fund, which could be an interesting tool. The elephant in the room when it comes to the housing crisis is the financialization of housing. Big real estate empires are buying up the housing stock. In Montreal alone, it is estimated that less than 1% of owners own a third of the rental stock. That is outrageous. We need to do something about these people who buy up buildings with 60, 80 or 100 units, either to demolish them or renovate them. They double the price and it becomes very problematic. I am certain it is the same in Toronto and Vancouver. Ottawa needs to tackle this. Could my colleague speak to that? I imagine that the NDP has been thinking about these issues. Do they have any ideas about how to deal with this?
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