44th Parl. 1st Sess.
September 19, 2024 10:00AM
- Sep/19/24 12:23:11 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is always an honour to rise on behalf of the good people of Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola.
Rents are up, unemployment is up, food bank usage is up and time is up. Who tells us this? The Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities, which I have sat on in previous Parliaments, does. In its study on the housing crisis in Canada, it says, “That the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities recognizes that 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”, which is why we are here today discussing this. I am going to cover three areas where I think we need to start looking at this.
The word “crisis” actually stems from a Greek word that essentially means to cut away. It means that of all the different choices we have, a crisis is meant to actually cut away from certain choices and stick to other ones. Unfortunately the current government is listless. It talks around the issue of housing. It says that it will create housing, but really the Government of Canada does not create housing. It can help finance it through CMHC insurance. It can use its fiscal power, which the current government knows because it is the only power it seems to want to use.
However, the Liberals have not convened the provinces to have big discussions around development cost charges reform or about zoning reform. They have chosen not to. Instead, they have sprinkled money at the problem, and as the previous member who spoke, the member for Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, said, they have simply decided that they would do a review of existing lands and try to see whether they could do more to give lands, but they are not telling whom they would give the lands to.
It is actually developers who largely provide housing, but as the member previous said, we have seen a drop in places like British Columbia, where I am from, of over 30% in the last year in housing starts when we need them the most. The member is right; the David Eby government has largely failed on this issue since he took office. He had 100 days of action, and unfortunately, like the Prime Minister, he has floundered on the issue.
The three areas I am going to talk about are what we need to do a better job on, which is for workers, seniors and youth.
First I will talk about workers. I am from the Okanagan. I am very proud to represent three different valleys, but the Okanagan is known not just for its peaches and beaches, great wine or golf courses, but also largely for its retirement communities. There are a significant number of people who retire there for the weather and for the natural beauty. However, the problem I have noticed is that people who have money, especially when they cash out from Calgary, Vancouver, or some other place, often move to the Okanagan to live out their retirement.
As we get older, the question we have to ask ourselves in the Okanagan, particularly because there is very much a housing crunch, is this: Who is going to look after people as they age? Where are the younger doctors, nurses, firefighters, police officers and the support staff for many of the services seniors require going to live?
People with money always land on their feet, so I have encouraged every council that I know, and every mayor, to work on purpose-built rentals. I have to give the Kelowna multiple councils a big thumbs-up because they have done a lot of purpose-built rentals. However, it is not enough. I hear regularly, from tech employers to others in the industrial area, such as welders, etc., that they cannot keep welders and tech operators because there are very few places to rent. No one wants to stay in a community long-term, even as beautiful as Kelowna can be, or West Kelowna, if they cannot secure a home. Workers are being let down by both the Eby government in British Columbia and the Liberal government here in Ottawa.
The other side for workers is because of the problem of gatekeeping in this economy. We know that many municipalities have made it difficult to build.
Lots of people want to live in places like Victoria. Where do they end up? They go to places like Langford, where a lot of housing has been built to accommodate the demand. It is the gatekeepers in communities that make it harder. What are they gatekeeping? They are not just gatekeeping the homes that people will eventually live in; they are also gatekeeping the investment of billions of dollars that would be put into our economy and would allow workers to then be able to build homes. It would support the people who work in mills like Aspen Planers or the Weyerhaeuser mill in Princeton and Merritt, respectively.
There would be benefits to our economy, such as realtors and lawyers as they do some of the conveyancing. There would be so many knock-off effects in a place like British Columbia. The problem is that the government does not see the economic opportunity, nor does the provincial government see that the skilled trades have a huge opportunity to grow in this area. We are letting existing workers down because they cannot stay in places like Kelowna or West Kelowna, or if they can, they find short-term rentals, with no chance of ownership.
We are also letting down seniors. I will give an example because the particularly concurrence report before us speaks to homelessness. There have been renovictions in places like British Columbia. Why is that? It is because property values have gone up and because mortgage rates have gone up. People have bought homes, investing all of their sweat and equity, and rented them, and due to the government's policies, they have seen inflation and interest rates rise. Those go up and down, but we cannot negate the fact that people make economic decisions.
Many people have said they cannot afford a variable mortgage or to remortgage, so they sell. One senior did that and was living in her car at Tim Hortons. Someone asked me whether I could help that person. I went to that particular Tim Hortons three times at different times of the day, but I did not see the individual. Eventually, though, I gave information to the senior to help connect her with social services in British Columbia. However, she would have to drive to a place like Penticton because places like Summerland and other areas in the Similkameen Valley and the Nicola Valley do not have the same kinds of supports that are in bigger urban centres like Kelowna or West Kelowna.
By governments' not allowing more building, seniors do not have affordable places to rent right now. The NDP likes to say we should get not-for-profits to build more housing, or get government to build more housing, or co-ops or whatnot. However, those take a long time to form, and guess what, they are in the same queue, waiting behind the same people, because everyone is begging under the same bridge, so to speak, to get their approvals to be able to proceed under the gatekeeping economy.
The last thing I would like to talk about is youth. Partisanship aside, if we do not show young people in this country that they have the same opportunities that their parents and grandparents had to find a place that they can call home, that they can invest in and raise a family in, they will feel shut out by our economic system. There is a danger in that, because if we do not show that our current system works for young people, that they are not locked out from pride of ownership, then what will they do? They will go to radical voices that will promise them the moon and the stars, and then that will create all sorts of chaos, I believe.
This country, yes, feels broken to many, especially young people. The leader of my party, the member for Carleton, has been speaking to them directly, saying that we must do better. Not everyone in the room may like what the member of Parliament for Carleton has to say all the time, but I hope members get the message, because we need to do better, particularly for the next generation of Canadians, so they can have the same opportunities that we had.
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- Sep/19/24 12:33:46 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, as a former municipal councillor for the great community of Penticton, I learned that under the Local Government Act, yes, municipalities are authorized to create development cost charges to capture some of the costs for building new. However, let us be remindful of two things.
First of all, when a development cost charge is added, without explaining what can be charged and what should be considered a development cost charge, there will always be bureaucratic overreach over a period of time. Things like community art, which should be paid by all taxpayers in a community, are now being jammed into DCCs.
I will just be mindful that places like my old community of Penticton, just before the new council took office in the current term, said that Kelowna raised its DCCs and that Penticton should increase them by 50% to play catch-up. This is the problem. People are not asking whether development cost charges are correct or whether they are the right items and at the right costs. They are playing follow-the-leader, and the leader is more expensive. What does that mean? It means young people have less opportunity to own a home, because that is who pays for it.
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- Sep/19/24 12:36:00 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I believe that the member also served as municipal councillor at one particular point, and I want to let her know that while there are gatekeepers, I am sure she was mindful, when she made her votes at Victoria council, of young people and their opportunities.
However, first of all, the Harper government worked with the Campbell government at the time, and instead of having duelling agencies, it gave all the money to the Province of B.C.. I remember that the B.C. government at the time said it was the best way it could invest soundly across the whole country, including in places like Penticton at the Kiwanis housing facility, which I was happy to open with Bill Barisoff.
What I would also say to the member is that at the same time, we need to have a government that tries to remove the gatekeepers. We need to have a system that is responsive to youth. While we can point a finger at what happened during the Harper years, we are here to focus on the government and what it has done during its tenure. It has become worse.
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- Sep/19/24 2:05:47 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, imagine living in a rural community like Merritt or Princeton, British Columbia. People work hard, pay their taxes, but see little return from Ottawa.
In 2021, these communities were devastated by massive floods. The Prime Minister told them that he had their backs: ministers visit, telling them to hang tight for their new disaster mitigation adaptation fund; the municipalities apply, jump through every hoop, spending hundreds of thousands in engineering studies, only to be denied. Adding insult to injury, communities that never experienced flooding or fires are receiving funds, while Merritt and Princeton are left behind.
Every member here should know that the people in these communities are angry at these broken commitments. It has gotten so bad that Merritt has created an e-petition, calling on the government to honour its promises. I encourage all concerned citizens to support petition e-5135.
If being Canadian means anything, it means looking after one another. I would remind the Prime Minister that it is never too late to do the right thing for Merritt and for Princeton.
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Madam Speaker, as always, it is an honour to rise on behalf of the good people of Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola to speak about a topic on which I know there are a range of views. In a democracy, we can disagree, but I would say that everyone who has spoken tonight believes in helping Canadians, particularly those living in poverty.
I spoke earlier today about how part of being Canadian is trying to help one another. I think many of the sentiments are good; it is just about how best to achieve that. While I certainly take issue with some elements that have been presented here tonight, I want to acknowledge that the member, who has submitted an idea for debate that she feels very strongly about, deserves credit for having brought this issue to the forefront.
Bill C-223 is an act to develop a national framework for a guaranteed livable basic income, and first of all, it is important to say what this piece of legislation would do. It would not actually enact a guaranteed livable basic income. It is more of a framework to have further discussions so that at some point some sort of report can be done by the minister after discussing such a framework and doing subsequent work on it.
There is lots to discuss. Milton Friedman, a famous American economist and, some would argue, one of the greatest economists of all time, talked about a reverse income tax that would pay people. There is the same type of thing in the bill, so this is not just found in left-wing politics. Some people have mentioned former Senator Segal, who had a long career. This is an area that has advocates on both the left of the political spectrum and the right.
More than anything else today, I will say two things. First of all, I am speaking personally. I follow what political philosopher Karl Popper used to discuss, the use of something called “reverse utilitarianism”. Some may recall that utilitarianism is usually public policy meant to do the most good for the most people, to increase the general happiness for the most people. Reverse utilitarianism is reducing the suffering of those who suffer the most.
Anytime we have a question about universal programs, we have to ask who would be receiving said programs. Universal programs are not cheap. That means that every single person, regardless of their condition, would have the ability, by their choosing, to opt into this framework to receive money from the federal government. However, we do not talk about persons with disabilities, those who have the toughest situations. By giving money to those who are able, we take away resources that could go toward helping those who have the most severe issues so they can live a fulfilling life within society. That is something we would do best to keep in mind.
When the B.C. NDP government established a panel that did a report in 2020, one of its key concerns was that giving out money does not necessarily mean those who need it the most get the exact support they need. The cost of this has been brought up. University of British Columbia economist Kevin Milligan has argued that a universal basic income, whatever name we use, would be enormously expensive. That is something the panel said in its report. It also talked about the need to have some of these discussions.
If we were post-World War II parliamentarians discussing Germany and other countries putting in a welfare state and whether we should consider doing likewise, perhaps after having a discussion as a young country with a tremendous amount of economic growth, our young population would be able to support such a policy. We then would have a legitimate choice between apples and oranges: the apples of the welfare state or the oranges of a universal basic income. However, we are not in that position. Our economic growth is not flowing.
We have something called secular stagnation and the indebtedness of not just G7 and G20 countries, but of aging populations as well. We already see many provinces where businesses are complaining about a lack of workers. We have seen unemployment tick up. At a time where we are saying we need to have more people to build homes, why would we be inducing healthy individuals to take a benefit from the government and just take them out of the work force completely?
I understand the sentiment behind the thinking of the member, but I do not think this is the right policy environment for this type of policy to go forward. Again, with our aging demographics, we want to encourage more people to work. Why is that? After talking to people, it seems that most Canadians think that our old age security system is a pillar that is important to support. It is, again, a transfer from existing taxpayers today, those who are paying taxes, who send their taxes to Ottawa in good faith, and then those transfers go out to what is becoming a larger and larger population of seniors. Suddenly switching the gears to where we are actually pushing people to consider not working, to me, makes it very difficult to support this kind of transition.
Bear in mind that we also need to have a discussion as it is ultimately provinces as well that have a big role to play. Under our Constitution, the provinces are usually responsible for the social welfare of their populations. I do not think it will work for us to suddenly have a new federal program come down, especially with the way it would interact with each individual province and their systems of transfers, systems of grants and systems of programs and services.
If we look to Bill C-22, which was passed in the chamber, it talks about creating a Canada disability benefit. I hope that we can all acknowledge the truth, which is that we have no idea how much someone would get from that particular program. We now know that the government would not give more than $2,000 a year, or $200 a month.
The problem is that we have so many different programs at the federal and provincial levels, and they are already so costly. I just do not think that this is a good use of time and energy, although I appreciate its sentiment. I believe that we need to be thinking about how we can help out our fellow Canadians. This is a country where we look after our own. However, I have my worries about the economic arguments: our aging demographics, the lack of clarity of what provincial programs are doing and the fact that provinces such as B.C. have looked at this and have actually said that they are not proceeding with their own system, similar to what the member spoke of.
Lastly, there is reverse utilitarianism at play. We should not be considering more universal benefits, in my opinion, without first asking ourselves what this would do to those who are suffering the most. I do believe that targeted programs, such as our guaranteed income supplement, should be looked at. We should always be trying to ask ourselves how we can help those who are in the most extreme need, who do not have an income to be able to look after themselves, or those people who, unfortunately, due to some circumstance, have a disability that does not allow them to engage in Canadian society like the rest of us.
I will be voting against this. I do appreciate there are a number of people who have spoken very strongly about this. However, if it comes down to it, I only have two choices, either to support this or not. I reluctantly will just say that I am not going to be in support of a whole comprehensive change to our support programs for the reasons that I have given.
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