44th Parl. 1st Sess.
September 19, 2024 10:00AM
- Sep/19/24 10:04:41 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I move that the 13th report of the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities, presented on Friday, October 27, 2023, be concurred in.
I will be sharing my time with the member for Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis.
Colleagues may have noticed that it is a very brief motion. I will read it. The report is very simple. It is that “the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities recognizes Canada is in a housing crisis that requires urgent action by the federal government to end homelessness, and that this motion be reported to the House.” That is a fairly brief report, but we think it is a really crucially important report because housing is a crisis in this country right now. In short, that simple, brief, pithy report is to the point and more than appropriate today.
We all recall when the Liberal government launched its national housing strategy in 2017. Everybody remembers that there was great fanfare. The Prime Minister was surrounded by many of his colleagues and his ministers in front of a big building that was being constructed. He announced a $40-billion program. It was going to be “life-changing”.
An hon. member: Oh, oh!
Mr. Scott Aitchison: My colleague should keep clapping, Mr. Speaker; they will love the change we are going to talk about.
The Prime Minister said it was to be a life-changing, transformational national housing strategy. Of course, it has evolved over time to be more like $80 billion. Not all of it is from federal money; a lot has been from matching provincial dollars. However, the Liberals continue to talk about this national housing strategy being a great thing.
If people are living in housing that is unaffordable, that does not have enough bedrooms or that needs major repairs, and they cannot afford to live somewhere else in the community, they are described as living in core housing need. In fact, that is a statistic that the CMHC, the government's own bureaucrats, tracks and reports on regularly. Those in core housing need are obviously some of the most vulnerable in our society.
In 2018, just after the Liberal government started this national housing strategy, 11.3% of households in Canada were in core housing need. In 2022, the Canadian housing service survey, which is the latest data from CMHC on core housing need, said that core housing need is now at 11.6%. It has actually gone up a little bit. This means that the national housing strategy, when it comes to core housing need and homelessness, has done nothing. There is an $80-billion plan, but core housing need in this country is effectively the same. This is not just about the numbers. This is not just the data. We see the results of the Liberals' ineptitude all across the country. There are tent cities in every single community in this country. It used to be just a big city thing. Now they are everywhere.
When I was the mayor of Huntsville, housing was already a crisis there. We had done all kinds of things as a municipality, but it was not enough. Parry Sound—Muskoka has often struggled with people in what we call “hidden homelessness”. It is not always visible. Maybe they are sleeping on couches of friends and family. Living in a van is not entirely uncommon for seasonal workers and resort staff. I will give the example of Lions Lookout in Huntsville. It is a beautiful hill from which we can see the whole town. It is gorgeous. Periodically there would be a van parked up there overnight. People would be staying there. Today this happens all the time, and not just with one van, but with multiple vans. Rental vacancy rates in my community of Huntsville and my neighbouring communities of Bracebridge, Gravenhurst and Parry Sound have been close to 0% for over a decade.
The government talks about affordable housing and homelessness, but after nine years, the situation is worse. More than 235,000 people are estimated to be homeless in Canada. From the core housing need, now we are talking about people who are actually homeless, who do not have a home. In addition to these visibly homeless individuals, 450,000 to 900,000 are among the hidden homeless, so they are staying with family and friends because they have nowhere else to go.
In 2018, the Parliamentary Budget Officer said that the number of homeless people in Canada has increased by 20%. The Auditor General said that the federal government does not really know if its initiatives aimed at reducing chronic homelessness are actually working. What a stunning indictment of the Liberal government's record.
The Liberals are very good at having photo ops and talking points. They are very good at announcing big ideas. However, they are absolutely inept at the follow-through. The price is in the suffering. It is not just in the big cities. As I mentioned, there are encampments everywhere.
Northern Ontario is pretty cold in the winter. There are a lot of hard-working folks in northern Ontario. Sudbury, as an example, sees the situation getting worse and worse as well. According to the report card on homelessness for 2023, the number of homeless encampments in Sudbury jumped from 25 at the end of 2022 to 113 at the end of 2023.
Canadians are feeling it. It is reported that 28% of Canadians said they are considering moving to another country for greater affordability. One-quarter of Canadians say they are reconsidering whether they can start a family. The number of young people in this country who have given up on the dream of ever owning a home is shocking.
What are we doing on housing starts? If the Liberals have not really done a very good job on homelessness, what about market housing and obtainable housing? Housing starts are down. Across Canada, we had a total of 16,857 housing starts in August. In August 2023, it was 19,459. That is a 13% drop in one year. In Ontario, the drop was 25%; in British Columbia, housing starts are down 31%. These drops are in the same time period. In Quebec, housing starts have dropped 9%.
If we narrow in on places such as Toronto, the housing starts have had a 48% drop in the same time period. In Vancouver, there has been a 34% drop. In Victoria, it is a 33% drop. In Montreal, it is a 4% drop. What is the government's plan when it comes to housing? The Liberals know that, apparently, we need to speed things up in cities. Therefore, they came up with something really well-named called the “housing accelerator fund”. It is borrowed money. They use that fund to give money to cities. What do cities do in return when they get their money? They increase their fees and charges, making it more expensive to build.
The City of Toronto, where housing starts have dropped 40%, got $471 million from the housing accelerator fund. Then it turned around and increased its development charges by 42%. It has increased its development charges by over 1,000% in a decade, yet the government gave it $471 million to accelerate housing. The City of Vaughan, just north of Toronto, got $59 million, and its development charges are up 400% since 2010. Ottawa just introduced an 11% increase in its development charges. It got $176 million from the government.
If talking points and photo ops could solve problems, there would not be a problem in this country. The government has shown that it is long on performance and dismal on results. We need to hold cities accountable, and we need to start making sure that they not only move the process along faster and get development approvals done quicker but also make it cheaper. This concept that growth can pay for growth means that young people will be paying the bill forever.
Now the Liberals have made this great move to extend the length of amortization. They have missed the point. We do not want to saddle young people with more debt for longer and longer in their lives. We need to make it cheaper. Nobody makes more money on housing than governments. Governments make the most. We need to get government out of the way and reduce the fees and charges, and the government does not understand that. It just keeps doubling down, giving more borrowed money to cities that make it more expensive and slow it down. The housing accelerator fund is little more than a pay-for-promises fund and a photo op fund.
We need results in this country. We need a federal government that will hold cities accountable and get the job done. On this side, Conservatives are ready to do that. We are ready to deliver for Canadians because they cannot wait any longer.
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- Sep/19/24 10:14:13 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I found the comments very riveting from a Conservative. The member and I were both elected to city councils at the same time during the Harper years. He would be very aware of what Stephen Harper's government did for affordable housing. My community got absolutely nothing from the federal government between at least 2006 and 2014, when I was on city council. Since 2015, when the government was elected, over $40 million has come into my community alone to build housing at 40 Cliff Crescent, 1316 Princess Street, 68 Cowdy Street, 1 Curtis Crescent and 805 Ridley Drive, to name a few. They are finished constructed housing where people are living right now.
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- Sep/19/24 10:16:47 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, indeed, we cannot ignore the fact that there is a housing crisis, and our out-of-control migration policies have something to do with this. In Quebec we know this only too well, since we are the ones receiving the majority of the temporary residents. These policies certainly have something to do with this.
I do not believe, though, that the solution proposed by the opposition leader, namely to insult city mayors who are in a position to build housing, is ideal. What Ottawa could do is reach an agreement with Quebec and transfer funds that would be used to build homes.
I would like to hear what my colleague has to say about the insults his leader has directed at mayors. Does he think they are constructive?
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- Sep/19/24 10:17:27 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is a question of whether we hold other levels of government to account or not, and cities have made it more expensive to build homes in this country. On average, 33% of the cost of every single dwelling unit built in this country is government. Nobody makes more money on housing than governments, so it is sanctimonious to stand in this place and say we need to give more money.
We need to reduce the charges. We need to reduce the fees. We need to make it easier to get homes built so young people are not saddled with debt forever and they can actually get into the market. That is the solution.
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- Sep/19/24 10:18:05 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we are all very aware there is a huge housing crisis happening right now. In my riding of Nanaimo—Ladysmith, people are being particularly hard hit. For example, a two-bedroom in Nanaimo right now costs $2,459 per month. Who can afford that? Not many Canadians can.
Unfortunately, a problem that both the former Conservative government and the Liberal government have been allowing is for large corporations to swoop in and buy up affordable homes, yet the Conservative member is now saying he has the solution. When the leader of the Conservatives was the minister of housing, he built zero affordable homes in British Columbia.
When will the Conservatives actually take the problem seriously and build affordable homes that people can live in, not just allow rich developers to be propped up?
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- Sep/19/24 10:18:55 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will just simply say that it gets a little tiring listening to the NDP demonize private sector developers, because we need literally trillions of dollars of investment in housing in this country. We are not getting that done without the private sector. I think it is time that the NDP and its friends stop demonizing private sector investment. Let us start finding ways to attract that investment to this country.
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- Sep/19/24 10:19:26 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to commend my colleague from Parry Sound—Muskoka for his excellent contribution. He did a good job explaining and presenting what we are discussing today. This subject is of interest to a great many Canadians and Quebeckers too. The housing crisis we are facing today was caused by this government, which has mismanaged its files since it came to power in 2015.
My colleague spoke about this government's incompetence, which I believe takes many forms. I hope to have the opportunity to point to some of the factors that led us to this housing crisis, which has sadly affected all of Canada and all of Quebec, including in places where homelessness would have been unthinkable. This has caused terribly unfortunate situations in our cities as well as in our small towns.
As my colleague was saying, people are having to sleep on couches. This is a hidden form of homelessness, and even our small towns are not immune to it. In fact, this is happening in my riding and pretty much across Quebec. Other forms of homelessness are increasingly visible, and that is so unfortunate to see. It is truly sad that people in Canada, a G7 country, a G20 country, are not even able to put a roof over their heads. Plenty of ordinary Canadians are now finding themselves on the streets, homeless.
This week I heard a man on a call-in show describe his situation, which was pretty cut and dried: He was forced out of his home because the landlords were taking over the property. This is allowed in Quebec. He found himself on the street because there is no housing. He bought himself a tent and that is where he lives today. Does anyone think we have palm trees and sunny skies year round in Canada? October is coming. November too. In December the snow comes, along with temperatures in the negative twenties and thirties.
These people will be sleeping outside. As parliamentarians and members of this legislature, we cannot simply look away. It borders on the criminal to do so.
Thomas Mulcair, a well-known former politician who used to lead the NDP, is now a high-profile political commentator in Quebec. He said that the Prime Minister and his government promised affordable housing in 2015. They promised they would build homes so that everyone would have a roof over their head. Where are we today? The situation, as my colleague pointed out, is worse than it was nine years ago, when this Prime Minister came to power.
Many people of all backgrounds and circumstances have entered our country in recent years, and it was the Liberals who did this. However, they built less housing. How can it be that they did such a poor job? Let us crunch the numbers. Fewer homes were built in 2022 than in 1972, despite the population having doubled. How can they have done such a poor job? I repeat, fewer homes were built in 2022 than in 1972, despite a doubling of the population. In my opinion, someone somewhere is not doing their job. Someone, somewhere, on the other side needs to wake up, because this is not working.
The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, or CMHC, has indicated how many homes must be built by 2030 if we are to try and get a handle on the situation.
We will need 8.5 million housing units. I am not the one saying this. It is the CMHC. They are the experts. Here are some figures. I do little summaries like this on every sector in Canada. I can also talk about the budget and a whole host of other things, but since I only have four minutes left, I am going to focus on the housing question. Rent has doubled since 2015. Mortgage costs have doubled since 2015. Of all the OECD countries, Canada is the slowest to build. Of the G7 countries, based on our land mass, Canada has the fewest homes, and yet, if one looks at a map of Canada, it is not for lack of space.
In Toronto, it takes 25 years to save for a down payment, when that should be the repayment period. That is unbelievable. I repeat: Fewer housing units were built in 2022 under this government than in 1972. Something is not working. Right now, money is being spent left and right. We do not know what is happening with that money. Right now, we are seeing just how overwhelmed Canada's big cities are with what has been happening, especially in Montreal. Does anyone feel like going to Montreal these days? Shots are being fired, there are guns everywhere and people are sleeping outside. That is the current situation.
Our leader introduced a bill to build housing and encourage the use of federally owned surplus buildings and land, but it was voted down. The bill stipulated that municipalities would have to build 15% more housing and meet housing construction goals. How could anyone think that voting against that bill was a good idea? I will tell the House why they voted against it. They voted against it simply because it came from the Conservatives. That is the only reason. It is a matter of partisanship, when what we are trying to do here is to take care of Quebeckers and Canadians, to put a roof over their heads. That is what we are trying to do here—
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- Sep/19/24 10:31:38 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, with respect to the housing situation, I am very proud of the extremely interesting projects implemented in my riding recently. They were designed and facilitated by community groups with some expertise in affordable housing. These include groups like SOLIDES, the Société locative d'investissement et de développement social, and FROHME, the Fédération régionale des OSBL d'habitation de la Montérégie et de l'Estrie. These groups believe that their ongoing ability to take action is very important to get projects off the ground.
I would like to ask my colleague whether she is prepared to support these community organizations or, conversely, whether she is going to cut the budgets, funding, and grants that help these groups get the job done.
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- Sep/19/24 10:34:07 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the Conservatives for starting this debate, because I think it is timely. We are in the midst of a housing crisis, so I think it only makes sense to talk about housing.
That said, my question has to do with the Conservatives' strategy for solving the housing crisis. Not too long ago, I had a conversation with people from the UMQ, the Union des municipalités du Québec. They told me they were concerned because the Liberals' strategy was to say they would invest a bit of money in municipal infrastructure but that they themselves would set the municipal regulations and decide how the cities should manage urban planning rules.
The Conservatives' strategy seems almost like a carbon copy of the Liberals'. They say they will dole out money to the cities based on what they build, but the cities will not get any money in the meantime. Cities need money to build infrastructure, however. At the end of the day, it seems like both parties have the same strategy. The Liberals and Conservatives—we might call them a coalition—are both saying that, ultimately, Ottawa will tell municipal elected officials how they should run their cities.
What does the member have to say about that? There are people who were elected in Quebec's cities to manage things. There are people who were elected in Quebec City to manage things. Why must it always be Ottawa that decides for the cities?
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- Sep/19/24 10:35:14 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I do not disagree with my colleague. Elections are held, and the democratic will is expressed. That is perfectly true.
However, I would note that, when my leader pointed out what was happening in some cities, particularly in Quebec, including homelessness, things started to move a little. Neighbourhoods mobilized, people made decisions and long wait times for permits were shortened. The situation changed.
I think those are all good things. When people feel like others are watching, things get moving, and that is helping to resolve the housing crisis.
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Mr. Speaker, it is an interesting day. Again, we have the Conservatives continuing a tradition that they started virtually since they have been in opposition, and that is to prevent legislation of all forms from passing. We have seen that day in and day out. Today, they are really eager about things of this nature, because they have such a thirst or a hunger for power that they put that over the interests of Canadians.
Our government has been there consistently to deal with the issues that Canadians face on a daily basis. We understand and appreciate the concerns, tensions and anxieties in our communities. We are developing public policies, whether they be budgetary or legislative measures, to deal with those real issues.
All I have witnessed, sitting across from the Conservative opposition for many years now, is a party that thinks of nothing else but the political far-right Reform-Conservative party. That is its preoccupation, a hunger for power, nothing more. Today really amplifies that fact. It wants to talk about housing as if it cares about housing for Canadians.
Let us look at the leader of the Conservative Party. What actions did he take when he was the minister responsible for housing. We only need to use two hands to count how many houses the Harper government built while he was the minister of housing. We barely need the second hand. The former minister of housing, today's leader of the Conservative Party, managed to build six homes. What a powerful record. I suspect even those six would have been by accident.
When we think of national housing and addressing the housing needs of Canadians, the leader of the Conservative Party was an absolute disaster. Now he tries to come across as if he is a know-it-all and wants to deal with the housing crisis. Is a part of dealing with the housing crisis to slap the provinces and the municipalities around, as opposed to working with them?
Why would the government, or any member of Parliament, give any credibility to the Conservative Party today, when its leader was an absolute failure in delivering housing policy? In fact, had we had a more competent minister of housing back then, the issues that we face today would not be as great. Virtually no programming was put in place for non-profit housing under the Harper government and the then minister.
Does the leader talk about the homeless? If members search Hansard, they will see how often he talked about homelessness as minister of housing. I have a newsflash: There were homeless Canadians back then. Where was the leader of the Conservative Party when he had the chance to make a difference on this file?
Today is not about Canadians. It is not about addressing the concerns of Canadians. It is more about the Conservatives' hunger for power. They are preventing legislation from passing.
On Monday, we had the Citizenship Act. Instead of debating that legislation, the Conservatives brought in a concurrence motion, even though a majority of the members of the House wanted that legislation to pass. We even had one opposition member try to move for unanimous consent to have it pass through to committee. We are talking about citizenship for individuals who should have their citizenship. It is something that should be non-controversial, but the Conservative Party, during that debate, showed its hand, saying that it opposes the legislation.
I have been very clear that the only way that legislation would pass would be if we were to bring in time allocation to get it into second reading. However, with today's motion, now that the Conservatives want to talk about housing, what are they interrupting? What legislation are they filibustering today? It is Bill C-66. It is about the Canadian forces. The critic for the Conservative Party yesterday was criticizing the government for not passing the legislation fast enough, and today the Conservative Party is filibustering the legislation.
The first word that comes to my mind is “hypocrisy”. How can the Conservative Party, with any credibility whatsoever, try to say that they are concerned about Canadians, when they filibuster important, non-controversial legislation, even the legislation that they support? They do this in order to talk about other issues that Canadians are concerned about, such as housing.
We know Canadians are concerned about housing. We do not know need to be told that by the Conservative Party of Canada. We are aware of it because we are on the ground; we are listening to what Canadians have to say about housing. That is why we have developed a number of housing initiatives.
I can tell the members opposite that housing is not just the federal government's responsibility. The federal government has stepped up to the plate in dealing with housing, unlike any other federal government for generations, the last 50-plus or 60 years. We have a government that is investing in housing and that has had a housing strategy. If we want to talk about dollars, we are talking about something like $51 billion. The impact of those expenditures and that money that is committed has had a very real and tangible impact on Canadians' lives.
An estimated 1.8 million Canadians have directly benefited from this government's commitment to housing. Had the previous government had the type of commitment that we have had to housing, I would argue that the housing issues today would be nowhere near to what they are now if we had had a prior Conservative government actually doing its job on the issue of housing. I do not say that lightly.
I was first elected in 1988, and my first parliamentary responsibilities were being the party whip and housing. I have been following the housing file for over 30 years. I understand the importance of housing. All of us should strive to ensure that everyone has access to housing. Municipalities, provinces in particular, and the federal government all have a role to play, not to mention the non-profit sector.
When I had left the Canadian Forces, one of the first things I did was participate in the West End residents association. They had a very proactive approach to dealing with housing. We established the West End housing co-op. We lobbied the provincial government to build houses in vacant lots and to take down derelict homes and replace them with infill housing. As a community, we were very successful.
At the provincial level, there is a number of things that were actually done to try to enhance things. We should recognize that, back then, there was a population of about 1.15 million people, yet we still had over 20,000 non-profit housing units, all of which were subsidized in good part by the federal government.
These are the types of issues that provinces have to deal with. When we think of municipalities building newer homes, yes, there is a bureaucracy there. There is a process that needs to be followed so municipal planning can be conducted in a way that is good for the economy and the environment. As a federal government, we have recognized all of those aspects of housing, the non-profits, the city, the province and, of course, the federal government.
Late last spring, the Prime Minister was in Winnipeg. I was at that particular announcement, which was out in the Transcona area, and so was the mayor of Winnipeg, as well as the premier of the province. I say that because it amplifies the fact that it is more than one government that has to deal with the housing issue we have today.
As a national government, I would challenge any member, whether they are Conservative, Bloc or New Democrat, to show me a government, a national government, in the last 60 years, that has invested more in housing than the Prime Minister and the government.
That does not mean that our work is done. We understand that the need is high. That is why, as recently as Monday, we had the Minister of Finance taking a look at ways in which we can continue to support first-time homebuyers, how we can use the rules to ensure that they have more opportunities to purchase a home. There are some releases and information on that. If people are curious, they can look into it and get the details.
In virtually every budget, we see the federal government providing programs and incentives. A couple of years ago, we had the one dealing with trying to get more purpose-built apartments being constructed in the country. We have had a huge take-up on that. Thousands of units are going to be built as a direct result of that one federal program.
Members can contrast that to anything that Stephen Harper did. It does beg the question. People say that was eight years ago or nine years ago. We do not build a building overnight. Had the Conservatives done their homework, had they worked with the provinces, the municipalities and some of these non-profit organizations, I believe it would have made a difference. Because we have had some of these programs in place now for a number of years, it has had a positive impact. Recognizing that the need is so great, we continue to invest more.
As Liberals, we understand the importance of homes. I ask members to think of those non-profits. I have had the opportunity to go to a number of key ceremonies, as I suspect many of my colleagues on all political stripes have done. I am a big fan of Habitat for Humanity. Habitat has done so much in providing individuals that never would have gotten, or in all likelihood would have been very challenged in getting, the key to a new home. It has done so much, not only for the family unit but also for the communities in which they are built. I suspect that, when it comes to Habitat, Winnipeg North is probably in the top 10% of communities that have benefited the most because of it.
Habitat for Humanity Manitoba has built homes right from the Point Douglas area, going through the traditional North End into the Shaughnessy Park area, going up into The Maples. From the suburbs to the inner city, it is providing homes for people who otherwise would have been very challenged to be able to acquire one.
There are ways in which we can expand housing opportunities. We have a government that says it wants to see more housing co-ops. Housing co-ops matter. They make a difference. People who live there are not tenants. They are residents. For me, that is something we can and should be encouraging more of. That is why I was pleased that the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance has provided more supports to ensure that we will see more housing co-op developments. We have continued to look at ways we can support different organizations and levels of government to address the issue of housing, which is so very important to Canadians.
What I do not support is the manner through which we are having this debate today. I believe that the Conservatives are preventing important legislation from passing. I am talking about the Canadian Forces bill, Bill C-66, which deals with civilian courts for victims within military ranks. I was a little optimistic yesterday when the Conservative critic stood up and said that the Conservative Party supports the legislation. If it supports the legislation, if it wants to see the legislation pass, it needs to allow the debate to occur. Instead of doing so, Conservative members brought in a motion of this nature to filibuster legislation, even though they agree with it.
Canadians do have an expectation of a minority government. There is an expectation that opposition parties would also contribute in a positive way in dealing with private members' bills and government bills. As an opposition party, it should not have to be shamed into doing the right thing. As I have said before, the Conservative Party's focus is more on character assassinations. Wherever Conservatives can slap on the word “scandal”, or whatever other negative word, so they can post all sorts of false information on social media, that is what they will do.
That is why I say the hunger for power is what is driving the Conservative Party today, and it is a destructive force. It has nothing to do with the concerns of Canadians and their needs, which are what we need to be able to talk about. We need to be looking at and figuring out how we can pass legislation so that the lives of Canadians in all regions of our country will be that much better. As much as the opposition party wants to focus its attention on the negative side of things, the Liberals will continue, as a government, to be focused on Canadians.
As the Prime Minister has clearly indicated time and time again, we will continue to be focused on Canadians and improving their quality of life so that we have an economy that works for all Canadians. We will continue to focus attention on our middle class and those aspiring to be a part of it, to build a stronger and healthier economy and continue to work on the issues of inflation, which is now at 2%. That is equal to inflation prepandemic. We will continue to build that stronger and healthier economy, which we are going to see in the months ahead.
Contrary to what the Conservatives continue to say, coast to coast to coast, Canada is not broken. Canada is the best country in the world to live in and call home. As a government, we are going to strive to make that the case, not only for today, but also for tomorrow.
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- Sep/19/24 10:56:33 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I just listened, for 20 minutes, to the member opposite talking about the job the Liberals have done over nine years on the housing file in Canada.
I represent Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte and there are housing encampments all over our riding now. Nine years ago, these did not exist. Just this week, I read in Barrie Today, there was another fire at a homeless encampment at Milligan's Pond.
Please, can the member opposite not admit that over nine years, things have become much worse in Canada, and homelessness is a serious issue now that did not exist nine years ago?
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- Sep/19/24 10:58:22 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my always eloquent colleague for her speech on a topic that is of the utmost importance in the riding of Shefford, for two reasons. I am talking about housing.
Granby has one of the lowest vacancy rates of all cities. That is the reality. The city took steps to address that. Now it needs help from the federal government. The problem affects seniors in particular. I was proud to stand beside my colleague from Longueuil—Saint-Hubert last year when he unveiled the Bloc Québécois's 12 proposed solutions for fixing the housing crisis. He went on an amazing tour last summer that included a stop in Granby. We suggested 12 compelling solutions, including one that I think would really help, which is to review the budget for the Reaching Home program. Granby has a homelessness problem too, but it is not considered a designated community. Community groups in my riding believe it is crucial that this be changed. More money needs to be earmarked for cities like Granby that are grappling with homelessness for the first time.
I would like to hear what my colleague has to say about this. Did he take the time to read the report and the 12 proposals drafted by my colleague from Longueuil—Saint-Hubert? What about the Reaching Home program?
Granby deserves its share of the budget.
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- Sep/19/24 10:59:46 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I suspect there are many communities, like Granby, that have all sorts of ideas to deal with these issues. It is not just high-density urban centres that are having issues with homelessness and housing for seniors. Many seniors want to live in the communities where they grew up. The demand for non-profit, low-income and fixed-income housing for seniors is there and it is very real.
There are critical things we can do by working with provinces. They play a critical role in non-profit housing, especially the expansion of housing for seniors. There are also some things we can do, including housing co-ops. There is so much more we can do with housing co-ops. We should be looking at policy initiatives to support and encourage them, and provide a certain level of education because a lot of people do not truly understand the benefits of housing co-ops. I do think that is a strong and viable option, in particular for seniors and low-income people on fixed income.
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- Sep/19/24 11:01:14 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I represent South Okanagan—West Kootenay. I have always said that it is the most beautiful riding in this country and, because of that, people want to live there, and so housing prices are very high. However, average incomes are on the low side, because people work more in the service and agricultural sectors, and so we have kind of big urban housing prices and rural wages. I go to the city planners in my hometown of Penticton and ask what we are doing about increasing the housing market. The Conservatives are saying to just build more houses. The city planners say, “We are building more homes every day in Penticton than we have ever built before in history. ” Yet every day we have fewer affordable homes, because the new homes that are being built are being snapped up by investors rather than by people who need them. The people who need them cannot afford them, and the investors are keeping those prices up.
As the member just mentioned, we need more co-ops, more affordable homes that are built specifically for the people who need them, and yet this government is doing precious little to actually fill that need. This is where we have to be concentrating our efforts over the coming years: building affordable homes like we did after the Second World War when we built millions of homes that people could afford. I live in one of them right now. What is this government doing to build affordable homes?
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- Sep/19/24 11:02:56 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, first off, we have a beautiful country in Canada. I appreciate the member's comments about his own riding, but there is something to be said when flying into Winnipeg and seeing these vast prairies full of food, the grain fields and canola fields, and there is a great deal of beauty. Canada is so rich in its diversity.
There is a lot of non-profit housing out there, from different agencies. I was over at 800 Burrows at St. Mary The Protectress Villa, a seniors' complex, non-profit organization, which was celebrating 35 years with a mortgage burning. It was a wonderful event. I raise this only to underline that this building existed because governments, plural, got behind it and supported it.
I think that the potential is real, it is tangible, but we have to have partners. The federal government has made it very clear that it is looking to expand in whatever way it can, and it is looking for partners.
I think our actions speak louder than words. We have provided significant finances, and we have provided opportunities for those partners to be engaged. We will continue to do so. We want to ensure that we have a housing program that all of us can take pride in.
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- Sep/19/24 11:05:03 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to give the member for Winnipeg North a chance to once again highlight what this government has done for housing in comparison to the previous government.
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- Sep/19/24 11:05:23 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will just focus on the leader of the official opposition who was in the previous Conservative government and, in fact, was minister of housing. While he was minister of housing, he was very successful in building six houses in a country of 30-plus million people. To contrast that to what we have done, we are talking six-digit figures of renovating and building homes, and the numbers continue. We have a very ambitious plan. In fact, if the Conservative Harper regime had had a plan half the size of our plan, the issues we are having today would be nowhere near as severe.
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- Sep/19/24 11:15:40 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I assume the member is talking about fully subsidized social housing, which is, in essence, supported by the federal and provincial governments. Usually, it is the provincial government that plays the lead role.
Does the member have any indication from the Province of Quebec of its intent, in the short term or even the long term, with respect to the development of social housing, and if it has approached the federal government to contribute more directly to a social housing project where, let us say, a tenant would only have to pay 30% of their income?
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- Sep/19/24 11:16:19 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would return the question to him. He is completely right that Quebec is in charge of housing. As far as federal agreements are concerned, the federal government plays a supporting role, but it cannot go over Quebec's head.
What I am saying is that social and community housing are not the federal government's priority right now. Of the hundreds of programs that it put in place under the national housing strategy, only one worked really well, and that is the rapid housing initiative, or RHI, a rapid housing creation program under which community and housing organizations can apply for subsidies. That is what it should focus on. We have proposed all kinds of solutions. The CMHC's current strategy focuses on affordable housing. However, affordability is not clearly defined, since the definition varies from one program to another. We need to review that definition. Affordability should mean no more than 30% of an individual's income, not the median income of a community.
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