44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 29, 2024 02:00PM
- May/29/24 2:35:14 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, because of the incompetence of the Prime Minister and the Liberal mayor of Montreal, the wait time for a building permit has doubled and rents have tripled.
In Ville-Marie, where the mayor is also in power, it takes 540 days to get a building permit. What is the Prime Minister doing? He is handing out another $95 million to build his bureaucracy.
Why not impose financial penalties on municipal politicians who block housing starts?
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- May/29/24 2:35:56 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, instead of attacking elected officials, as the Conservative leader is doing, we choose to invest in reducing red tape and speeding up the process.
That is what we are doing with our 179 housing accelerator agreements that we signed with municipalities across the country. This will deliver more housing more quickly. These are agreements that the Conservative leader plans to cancel.
That is not going to help Canadians get more housing faster. We certainly did not see that when he was the minister responsible for housing.
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Mr. Speaker, when I was the minister responsible, the cost of housing was half of what it is today.
The Prime Minister has not only doubled the cost of housing, he is spending money on growing the very bureaucracy that is blocking construction. I have a common-sense plan in Bill C‑356, which we will be voting on this afternoon. We are going to cut construction taxes, sell federal land and buildings to build housing, and offer big bonuses to municipalities that allow more and faster housing construction.
Will he vote for more housing?
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- May/29/24 2:37:23 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, unlike the member opposite, we have a solid approach that involves working in partnership with the municipalities and provinces to invest and to build more homes in the most comprehensive and ambitious way that this country has ever seen. When he was the minister responsible for housing under the Harper government, he created six affordable housing units for Canadians. That is not going to help. According to the experts who analyze these plans, the plan he is now proposing is extremely weak.
We have a concrete plan. He refuses to invest in helping Canadians.
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- May/29/24 2:38:04 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, when I was minister, we built nearly 200,000 houses and apartments. The average rent was $973. That is half of what it is today.
Meanwhile, he is working in partnership with municipal officials to double the cost of housing. My common-sense plan requires municipalities to allow 15% more construction per year. If they exceed that percentage, they will receive a bonus. If they do not, they will be penalized. Why not pay for performance?
Will he vote for more bureaucracy or for more homes?
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- May/29/24 2:38:47 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we are leading efforts to address the housing crisis with an ambitious and achievable plan.
Let us talk about how housing experts have characterized his housing bill. They said it was an exceptionally weak response to the housing crisis and that it was full of loopholes. Perhaps that is why the Conservative leader has postponed the debate on his non-plan for several weeks.
The reality is that he does not want to have that debate, because when he was housing minister he lost 800,000 apartments and built only six.
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- May/29/24 2:39:40 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, when I was housing minister, we built almost 200,000 houses and apartments, with the average rent being $973 for a one-bedroom apartment, but the Prime Minister is not worth the cost of housing, which has doubled nine years after he and the NDP took power. What is he doing about it? He is giving half a billion dollars to the Mayor of Toronto, who has just jacked up homebuilding taxes by 20%.
Why does the Prime Minister reward local government gatekeepers who block the homes that Canadians need?
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- May/29/24 2:40:18 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we are leading on the efforts to solve the housing crisis with a plan that is ambitious and concrete. Meanwhile, after having his housing bill panned by experts as being an “exceptionally weak response to the housing crisis, riddled with loopholes”, the Conservative leader has chosen to repeatedly delay debate in the House since October on his bill. That is is because he just does not care. When he was minister, he lost 800,000 affordable apartments and built only six affordable homes.
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- May/29/24 2:41:02 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, actually the number is closer to 200,000, but the Prime Minister has never been very good with numbers. The Prime Minister cites government-funded bureaucrats and Liberal academics to bolster his approach, which has doubled housing costs in just nine years, partly because he gives money to politicians and municipalities like Winnipeg, where they just blocked 2,000 homes right next to a government-funded transit station built for those homes.
Why will the Prime Minister not accept my common-sense plan to give bonuses to those municipalities that permit more building and penalties to those that stand in the way?
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- May/29/24 2:41:44 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we criticize, rightly, the Leader of the Opposition, who when he was housing minister built only six affordable homes for Canadians across the country. It is understandable, because he was part of a government that took the federal government out of the building of affordable housing. It chose that the federal government would have nothing to do with housing across the country. Those 10 years of non-involvement of the federal government left echoes.
We have stepped up and invested in communities and invested in partnerships. We are getting the homes built. We are delivering for Canadians.
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- May/29/24 2:42:31 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, housing costs have doubled since he became Prime Minister. They were half when I was housing minister. Housing costs have gone up 40% faster than wages, a bigger gap than in any other G7 country. Why is that? It is because the Prime Minister is building bureaucracy and not homes.
Why will he not accept my common-sense plan to require municipalities to permit 15% more building, sell off 6,000 federal buildings to build homes and cut taxes so builders can build?
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- May/29/24 2:43:10 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, just like when he was housing minister, the Leader of the Opposition's solution is to do less to help Canadians, to invest less in supporting municipalities as they build housing, and to get out of the way and leave Canadians to fend for themselves. That is his political philosophy. It is a political philosophy; it is just not the one that supports Canadians. It is not the one that is delivering for Canadians as we step up with the most ambitious and achievable housing plan this country has ever seen.
We will continue to be there to invest in housing accelerators. We will be there to continue to take the GST off purpose-built apartments. We will be there for Canadians.
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- May/29/24 2:43:53 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, in mid-March, the NDP had a very balanced motion passed in support of Palestine and the Liberals effectively struck out the part recognizing Palestinian statehood.
Today, as the Prime Minister himself says he supports a two-state solution, is he prepared to join the many countries that formally recognize the State of Palestine?
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- May/29/24 2:44:25 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, a credible path to lasting peace needs to be established very urgently. We oppose the efforts of the Netanyahu government to reject a two-state solution. At the same time, Hamas, a terrorist group, is currently controlling areas of Gaza, has not laid down its arms and has not released all the hostages.
Canada is prepared to recognize the State of Palestine at a time that is most conducive to establishing lasting peace, and not necessarily at the final stage of the process for negotiating a two-state solution.
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- May/29/24 2:45:08 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, neither wine nor vanilla yogourt are a solid foundation for international relations. Canada must plant its feet firmly on the ground and take a strong position.
Is now not the best time to promote peace, starting with recognizing the Palestinian state?
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- May/29/24 2:45:29 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, for decades, Canada's position has been very clear, and it continues to be very clear. The only solution for peace in the Middle East is to have a secure and recognized Palestinian state alongside a secure and recognized Israeli state. This is the only way.
For a long time, our position was that recognizing the Palestinian state should come at the end of this process. Today, we have taken an important step by acknowledging that it is not necessarily at the end of this process that we will recognize the Palestinian state.
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- May/29/24 2:46:15 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, “Not a chance” is what the president of the Residential Construction Council said when asked if the Prime Minister would keep his promise to build 3.9 million homes by 2031.
Let us hear it from the Prime Minister. To reach that target, he would have to build 550,000 homes per year, so will the Prime Minister hit the target of 550,000 homes this year, yes or no?
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- May/29/24 2:46:54 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Canada is facing a housing crisis and we need to take real action towards it, which is what we have done with the most ambitious and achievable plan that this country has ever seen. However, that is not to say we have not had housing crises before, and it is not to say that we have not solved housing crises before. At the end of World War II, there was a need for massive new housing, and Canada stepped up and got that housing built. Indeed, when the boomers came of age, there was a need for massive housing. We made investments, and the federal government helped build housing across the country for boomers. We are doing that now as we build housing for every generation.
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- May/29/24 2:47:37 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, that was a wonderful history lesson, except it did not answer the question.
The Prime Minister promised he would lower housing costs in 2015; he doubled them. He promised he would double homebuilding; it actually went down and is still dropping. Now he is promising 3.9 million brand new homes by 2031. That means he would have to build 550,000 this year and every year.
Once again, will the Prime Minister keep his promise to build 550,000 homes this year, yes or no?
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- May/29/24 2:48:17 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the leader opposite speaks of 2015. We took office with a commitment to getting the federal government back in the business of building housing. We launched a national housing strategy in 2017, which put 2.5 million Canadians into new or refurbished homes, and we have continued to invest ever since. We are building homes on public lands. We are converting underused federal offices into homes. We are taxing vacant land to incentivize construction. We are building apartments, and bringing rents down with top-ups to the apartment construction loan program. We are scaling up modular housing. We are also launching Canada Builds to lead a team Canada effort to build more homes and more.
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