44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 21, 2024 10:00AM
- May/21/24 7:18:13 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise to speak to the budget and Bill C-69, as well, which implements some of its measures. When I think about folks in my community, the long and short of it, in my view, is that this budget just does not meet the moment that we are in. If anything, it just seems to be a similar story again where the government over-promises and under-delivers or, in some cases, breaks promises altogether.
I would like to start with a couple of items that I appreciate and that will help folks in my community. First, it is important to point out that there are good measures in the implementation bill. One example is that there is a provision included to deny income tax deductions for non-compliant short-term rentals. It was first announced in the fall economic statement. It is a really important measure to move ahead with as we look to address the housing crisis and remove various incentives that are in place for those who are actually removing rental units from the housing market. Second, for parents who are mourning the loss of a child, there is a provision in the bill that will extend the Canada child benefit for six months after a child's death. This is the least that the federal government can do to support parents in such a difficult, unimaginable time.
On the whole, though, when taking a step back to look at the budget and Bill C-69, I am concerned that it just does not follow through on the big promises that the government made. First, there is the promise about the Canada disability benefit. The promise made in 2021 in the Liberal platform was that “this new benefit will reduce poverty among persons with disabilities in the same manner as the Guaranteed Income Supplement and the Canada Child Benefit.” Those are both programs in the tens of billions of dollars a year. Instead, what is proposed in the budget is nothing that the disability community has called for and not what the government had promised. The maximum amount being proposed, $200 a month, is far too little to actually reduce levels of poverty among folks with disabilities. I will point out that 40% of people living in poverty across the country are people with disabilities. I have since asked at committee for the minister to table a list of people with disabilities who would be lifted out of poverty as a result of what is proposed in the budget. I have yet to get that list.
I am also still waiting for a list of people with disabilities who asked for what was proposed in the budget. We were told that it would take three years to wait for consultations from the disability community. I am waiting for a list of people with disabilities and organizations that serve people with disabilities who asked for this $200 a month and asked for the Canada disability benefit to be delivered through the disability tax credit.
Second, this is an incredibly burdensome tax credit to apply for and receive. That flies in the face of the requirement in section 11(f) of the Canada Disability Benefit Act, which is an amendment that I was successful in securing; it requires the benefit to be barrier-free. It remains my concern that what is being proposed in budget 2024 actually contravenes the Canada Disability Benefit Act, because the delivery of the Canada disability benefit is required to be barrier-free. However, the disability tax credit has an incredibly burdensome application process.
Third, the benefit itself is not even proposed to start until July 2025, leaving people with disabilities at the exact same level of poverty as they are in right now. As of that point, they will get an extra six dollars a day or so. As Krista Carr at Inclusion Canada put it, “Our disappointment cannot be overstated.... This benefit was supposed to lift persons with disabilities out of poverty, not merely make them marginally less poor than they already are.”
Another promise the government made in this budget was for tax fairness. The simplest place to start, if we are going to talk about tax fairness, would be an excess profit tax on the largest oil and gas companies in the country. In 2022, the top five biggest companies in Canada made $38 billion in profits after they paid shareholders $29 billion in increased dividends and share repurchases. The government already introduced, in the pandemic, an excess profit tax on banks and life insurance companies. It called it the Canada recovery dividend.
I proposed in Motion No. 92 for the government to do the same thing and apply it to oil and gas companies. It has been advocated for by groups like Environmental Defence, the David Suzuki Foundation, Climate Action Network Canada and Canadians for Tax Fairness because it is a reasonable measure. With a one-time tax on profits, even just 15% of those profits over a billion dollars, it would generate $4.2 billion that could be used to help Canadians with day-to-day life, to help incentivize more public transit, reduced fares and increased service.
It could help with incentives for home energy retrofits as folks in Ontario and my community continue to wait for the new version of the greener homes grant program, for example. What did we get in this budget? We got whispers that it was in the budget a few weeks before it came out, but the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers had 30 meetings with the federal government in the three months before the budget came out and Pathways Alliance had another 23 meetings in the months before the budget came out. I guess their lobbying blitz was successful, for them at least, for their corporate greed, while the windfall profit tax is nowhere to be seen. However, when it comes to our children's future, when it comes to being serious about the climate crisis and at least making sure that these companies pay some measure of additional tax if they are going to gouge us at the pumps, it is nowhere to be found.
The budget promised to make housing affordable. What does it deliver? There is a plan that counts, in its projections, 800,000 new homes that are going to be built as a result of other levels of government being impressed with the government and there is a reduction in funding for non-profits that want to build the deeply affordable housing we need. I am really concerned about the rapid housing initiative, for example, and this is true for MPs across the country who have non-profits in their communities that want to build affordable housing. The stock of social housing in this country is down to 3.5%. It is the lowest in the G7. If we doubled social housing, we would still just be middle of the pack. When it comes to the rapid housing initiative, it used to be $750 million a year. As of this year, it looks like this budget is proposing only $100 million in total right across the country.
The budget also promised to fix the Impact Assessment Act. What did it deliver? It delivered a complete renouncing of federal jurisdiction over nationally significant greenhouse gas emissions of major projects, for example, like Highway 413 in Ontario that the Ontario government currently plans to move ahead with.
Here is what 14 leading environmental NGOs, including West Coast Environmental Law, the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, and Greenpeace had to say about what is in this bill, “The Supreme Court said Canada should have explained when and how GHG emissions become a matter of national concern. The federal government should seize that opportunity, not abandon its responsibilities to Canadians and the environment.” I know my colleague, the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands, will have more to say about this.
There are also some items in this bill I am not going to have time to get into that were not promised at all, including a plan to expand immigration detention into federal prisons being panned by former Liberal cabinet ministers. On the whole, though, the government needs to do more to follow through on the big promises it makes. It is true that whether it is young people thinking about their climate future or folks with disabilities, we are going to need far more organizing to get the budget and the legislation that we need.
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- May/21/24 9:42:30 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I do accept that in the course of debate, heckling happens. It is part of the tradition, but I would like to finish my speech. However, I would invite my colleague who was doing it to raise a question during questions and comments. I look forward to debating him on this issue and others.
I mentioned the GST waiver that will lead to more building. Just last week, I talked to builders in my London community who are quite excited about this measure because, in the context of high interest rates and a more expensive situation when it comes to securing labour and building supplies, it is incumbent on governments at all levels to do whatever they can to put incentives on the table, just like this government has, and the GST waiver stands out as part of that.
Low-interest loans for apartments in general, but also student and senior residences, are another example of incentives put on the table by this government to ensure the math does work for builders. Through the CMHC, we would ensure that those who want to take out those low-interest loans through the apartment construction loan program, or the ACLP, can do that. The interest rate will fluctuate. It is attached to the bond, but certainly a more attractive interest rate is available than, say, interest rates that would be secured through the big banks. We expect hundreds of thousands of homes, in fact, 131,000 homes, to be specific, to be built as a result of the ACLP program.
There is also a measure that has not been talked about nearly enough, but, based on conversations with builders over the past few weeks, it has been confirmed that changes to the accelerated capital cost allowance program would give builders the ability to write off up to 10% of annual mortgage costs from their taxes, and that is going to lead to much more building.
We saw something akin to that in the 1970s. Earlier tonight, I heard a colleague across the way ask why we are not seeing more homes built. He talked about the 1970s as a period of enormous building in terms of housing starts in Canada. One of the key reasons is that the accelerated capital cost allowance program at that time was akin to what the government has now done. We have moved ahead in this regard, taking our cue not only from the building sector but also from listening to what economists have said. In my community, we have Mike Moffatt at the Ivey Business School, who, among others, has advised the government to go in this direction, and the government has done exactly that.
Finally, on making the math work, we have looked at public lands, and ensuring that leasing is possible through public lands is something that we have taken very seriously. There has always been a debate in terms of land use in Canada for lands that are owned by the federal, provincial and municipal governments. At one time, the thinking was that perhaps they could be sold for housing purposes, but I think it is much more appropriate, and I agree with the government on this, that a leasing option be provided. If the government retains the opportunity to lease instead of sell, we can ensure a more affordable approach to housing.
Underused land or land that is not used at all could be put up for leasing purposes. There could be an affordable housing project on site. There could also be child care opportunities for families. There could also be health care services provided on site. I know the government, in concert with municipal and provincial governments, wants to begin that dialogue to understand how we can better use public lands going forward in this country. An inventory of public lands will be necessary in the first place, but, as I have said, I very much look forward to seeing where this could go. It is very promising, and we are seeing the needle move on this issue. I know many advocates across the country have called for this and are quite pleased with what the government has proposed in budget 2024 in this regard.
Second, in terms of building more homes, we have to work with communities to ensure that more homes get built, because it is municipalities, in particular, that are in charge of zoning. We need many more types of homes. We need duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, mid-rise apartments and row houses. This is the missing middle housing that advocates have called for. We see communities throughout the land moving in this direction. They have signed on to the housing accelerator fund in return for federal dollars. In return for making a pledge to ensure that zoning is changed to allow for that missing middle housing, they have access to funds that can be used for public transit, for infrastructure, for all sorts of needs, including affordable housing.
My community of London, back in September, was the first community in the country to receive dollars through this program, with $74 million that will see thousands more homes built in the next few years, and 750,000 homes nationally is what we expect to be built as a result of communities signing on to this program.
Much related to this is tying infrastructure dollars to home building. This is something that makes perfect sense. There are federal dollars available, as they always have been, for infrastructure purposes, dollars that would flow to municipalities, but especially to provinces, for water infrastructure, waste-water infrastructure and solid waste infrastructure, for all sorts of infrastructure. Tying that to an expectation that we see more homes built mirrors what we have done with the accelerator fund program and is something that will lead to more construction.
Finally, we have to change the way we build. That is crucial to getting more homes built. On that point, I point to the example of modular housing and the potential of modular housing in this country. We have factories throughout the land where homes are being built that are not exposed to the elements. For example, I was in Alberta recently, in Lethbridge. I visited Triple M Housing, the largest modular producer in the country. What I saw was three homes built a day of varying size appropriate for income types that exist, the varying income types we see in this country. Large homes or modest homes, whatever the desire is, the company is able to produce those.
In my own area, just north of London, in Hensall, I visited General Coach. I went to Northlander Industries in Exeter. I look forward to engaging with Royal Homes. These companies have seen in this budget loan opportunities put on the table to the tune of $500 million to see an expanded approach. A greater ability to serve the needs of the country in this regard is what modular companies will have. If they are not engaged in modular housing, if they are doing any type of prefabricated building, that is something that certainly builders can look at. They can look at this budget and see opportunities to expand their operations.
I would surmise that we see the potential of modular homes not only to fill the gap that exists with respect to market housing, but also to ensure that we have more non-market housing built for people, fellow citizens, who unfortunately have found themselves in a very unfortunate way living on the street. We have a huge responsibility in this regard. We have to get people housed, with the wraparound supports necessary for people to make a much more positive transition to ensure they have a brighter future: mental health support services on site, supports to ensure their physical health care, job training, all of that. That is what we would call a just vision to ensure that homelessness is finally dealt with in this country.
Modular home building fits into that, because we can have homes built, as I said before, very quickly. One company is doing three homes a day and others are producing close to that rate. It is something that makes a great deal of difference, and budget 2024 realizes that, among other things.
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