44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 8, 2024 02:00PM
- May/8/24 2:17:12 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, can anyone here imagine a country where young couples, 24 and 26 years old, are forced to leave their apartment and move back in with their parents in the hope of one day becoming homeowners? Can anyone here imagine a country where the housing crisis has become one of the main causes of stress among psychiatric patients? Can anyone here imagine a country where a woman is thinking about living in a minivan because she cannot find an affordable place to live? Can anyone here imagine a country where renters are contacting housing advocacy groups and expressing serious suicidal thoughts because they are not only desperate, but they see no way out and want to give up?
Unfortunately, that country is Canada, as described in the papers day after day, after nine years of this Liberal Prime Minister. With $500 billion in inflationary spending, supported by the Bloc Québécois, this Prime Minister has created the worst inflation crisis in 40 years. The crisis caused the interest rates to go up, made home ownership an unattainable dream, doubled the cost of housing and will force thousands of people out into the street. Canada was not like that before this Prime Minister, who is not worth the cost, and, fortunately, it will not be like that anymore once the next Conservative government brings back common sense.
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- May/8/24 2:26:11 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, instead of stirring up anxiety with misinformation, the member should give Canadians the true facts.
The fact is that Canada's fiscal position is the strongest of the G7 countries. We have the highest credit rating of almost any country in the world. We are investing responsibly to ensure that we are putting the government's assets in the service of Canadians and their interests. Our investment in housing is based on a highly comprehensive plan to create housing for all generations.
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- May/8/24 2:29:29 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, this is more proof that the Prime Minister is not worth the cost. He tells Canadians they have never had it so good. He doubled the debt, doubled housing costs and forced two million people to a food bank. He brags that he spent $87 billion on housing programs, and what did it get us? It got us the worst housing inflation of any country in the G7, the second worst out of nearly 40 OECD countries.
Why does the Prime Minister always spend the most to achieve the worst?
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- May/8/24 2:30:07 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I think Canadians will take no lessons from a former housing minister who was in a government that did not believe in investing in housing.
Obviously, over decades, the federal government underinvested in housing, and it has led to the challenges we are facing now. That is why we are putting and have been putting, in service for Canadians since 2017, the solid fiscal position of the federal government to invest in Canadians, to invest in communities, to invest in housing and to help solve the challenge people are facing around the world. We are solving it despite—
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- May/8/24 2:30:50 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister is absolutely right that we did not waste the billions of dollars that he has now put into his programs, but here are the results.
The average rent for a one bedroom when I was the housing minister was $973, and we built 80,000 apartment units at that low rate. Now the cost has more than doubled. Meanwhile, Stats Canada reports that incomes are down $17,000 per family.
Why are Canadians making $17,000 less to pay double the price for a home?
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- May/8/24 2:49:44 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after nine years, this Prime Minister is not worth the cost of housing, which has doubled across Canada.
The crisis is now more urgent than ever in Quebec. Non-profit organizations report meeting people who are contemplating and planning suicide because they have no idea how they will pay their rent next month.
Will the Prime Minister finally stop his radical plan to fund more bureaucracy instead of more homes?
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- May/8/24 2:50:26 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we have invested $900 million in Quebec alone through the housing accelerator fund. It has been so well received by Quebeckers that the Quebec government chose to add $900 million to the federal investment, because it knew the program would deliver housing across Quebec.
We are here to work in partnership with municipalities and provinces to invest in more housing, while the ideologically driven Leader of the Opposition calls for austerity and cuts, saying that if the government spent less, people would have more homes.
That is not true. He is wrong.
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- May/8/24 2:51:48 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as people are well aware, it takes years for investments in housing to have an impact.
When he was the minister responsible for housing and his former government was in power, they spent virtually nothing on housing. They made no investments in housing for 10 years. Then the Conservatives were surprised to see a housing crisis beginning in 2015, 2016 and 2017. Of course that was because the Conservative government had underinvested in housing for so long.
We have been there to invest in communities and to help Canadians.
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- May/8/24 3:14:22 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I agree with the member for Vaughan—Woodbridge that more needs to be done for renters. That is why we are unlocking well over 600,000 new rental homes across the country for the middle class, investing $1.5 billion to keep affordable apartments affordable and introducing a new renters' bill of rights to protect renters.
The Leader of the Opposition does not seem to worry about renters. He was housing minister in a government that pulled out of housing. Now, he wants to raise the taxes on apartment construction, and he continues to delay debate on his own housing proposal because he knows it does not measure up.
We will not rest until we level the playing field for renters.
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