SoVote

Context: House Hansard - 339 - Sep/19/24

Mr. Marty Morantz (Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, CPC)

Sep/19/24 12:37:22 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will start off by saying a few things that I know have never been said before in the House: axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime. Has anyone heard that before? These are not just slogans. These are four lines that capture the real-life struggles of real Canadians, and one of the struggles we are talking about today is about homelessness and housing. I have an announcement to make. After nine years of the NDP-Liberal government, we have a housing crisis in Canada, in case anyone did not know, particularly in the Liberal benches across the way. It is a crisis caused by the worst housing policy ever in Canadian history. I thought I would lay out, for all those watching, some of what I call the Liberals' greatest hits of housing. Let us start way back in 2017, when the Liberals announced to much fanfare that they would reduce chronic homelessness by 50%. That was only seven years ago. Then in 2020, they said they had upped their commitment and declared their focus to be on entirely eliminating homelessness in Canada. Back in 2018, they brought in their national housing strategy and spent $82 billion on housing. What is the result? The result is the worst housing crisis in Canadian history. The cost of housing has doubled. Rent has become so expensive that a woman living in Kingston is spending 100% of her income on rent. It is reported that a man in Abbotsford had to continue living with his separated partner because he could not afford to move out. Mortgage payments have doubled. Canadians are living through a housing hell. The Building Industry and Land Development Association is reporting that 73% of GTA residents are dissatisfied with the availability and affordability of homes. I will just pause for a moment to mention that I will be splitting my time with the great member for Cariboo—Prince George. To get back to the facts, 90% of those living in the GTA believe there is a housing shortage, 83% think affordability is a significant issue and 59% say the cost of living is the most pressing issue. Let us talk about homelessness. In my hometown of Winnipeg, over 1,200 people are homeless. Last week, I had the great privilege of meeting with Jim Steep. Jim Steep is the executive director of Agape Table. Every day, it serves meals to the homeless. It has done this since 1980. I volunteered there several times giving out meals. Agape has been doing this for over 40 years. The day I was there last week, they served 1,010 meals in just the morning, the highest number in its 44-year history. At the finance committee, we have been studying the housing crisis for about a year. Last October, I had the chance to question Cam Guthrie, mayor of Guelph. He was elected in 2014. On the record, I asked him how many homeless encampments were in Guelph in 2015. He said zero. I asked him how many there were today. He said 20. Two million Canadians are now lining up at food banks. One alarming statistic is the increase in the working poor who are visiting food banks. These are people working three jobs, working single mothers having to choose between paying rent and feeding their children. The Liberals have spent $82 billion on their much-vaunted national housing program since 2018, but the PBO reports that since that same year, the number of homeless people has increased by 20% and the number of chronically homeless people has increased by 38%. Something is clearly not working. According to the Homeless Hub, the number of homeless in Canada ranges from 150,000 to 300,000. Then there are the hidden homeless, the couch surfers, estimated to be up to about 900,000 people. The Auditor General says the federal government does not even know if its initiatives aimed at reducing chronic homelessness are working. In Vancouver, homeless services found 4,820 people were homeless this year, compared to 3,634 in 2020, a whopping 32% increase in three years. In 2018, the number was 2,181. In Halifax, the number of homeless jumped from 119 in 2019 to 879 in 2024, an increase of 637%. Let us talk about Toronto encampments. In that city, on March 15, 2023, there were 82 encampments at 24 sites. One year later to the day, March 15, 2024, there were 202 at 72 locations. These are just facts. The Government of Ontario estimates that nearly 250,000 people, roughly three out of every 200 residents, are homeless. In Mississauga, as of May 5 of this year, there were 256 encampments. It has been reported that so many people are homeless that they are being turned away from homeless shelters. It is so bad, that people have resorted to sheltering in ERs in cold weather. ER visits by homeless have skyrocketed by 68%. In Saint John, New Brunswick, the number of homeless has reached 600, according to Fresh Start. In Quebec City, the number of visible homeless increased by 36% between 2018 and 2022. In Sudbury, it is up, from 164 to 237. In Waterloo, it is up 129% since 2020. In Montreal, it is up 33% since 2018. I could go on and on, but the reality is that there is a tsunami of homelessness across this land. I find this debate ironic. Every day, we are privileged to come here to work in the House of Commons, the people's house, but the stark reality is that after nine years of the Liberals, while we work in the people's house, the people do not have a house. It is a catastrophic failure of the Prime Minister. Last year, CMHC came to the finance committee and told us that to get back to housing price equilibrium, Canada would need to build three million additional homes by 2030. In 2023, Canada built 240,267 homes. Three million additional homes by 2030 would mean that, on top of that number, we would need to build an additional 500,000 homes each year. That is not going to happen. We have never built more than 270,000 homes in a single year, yet just last April, the Prime Minister announced to much fanfare that he would build 3.87 million new homes by 2031. It is just not going to happen, like so many of his promises. I remember that they were going to plant two billion trees, reduce cellular costs and balance the budget by 2019. Instead, the Prime Minister doubled the national debt in just nine years. The reality is that Canada's housing inflation is now the worst in the G7 relative to income. I could go on and on, but my time is almost up, so I will just point out that the Conservatives brought forward a common-sense bill, the building homes not bureaucracy act, which would have incentivized municipalities to build more homes. The Liberal-NDP coalition voted it down. The reality is that only common-sense Conservatives would build the homes that Canadians can afford by firing the gatekeepers and tying infrastructure funding to housing starts. Let us build the homes.

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Context: House Hansard - 339 - Sep/19/24

Mr. Marty Morantz

Sep/19/24 12:48:13 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will note that my colleague from Winnipeg said in his question that the Liberals' policies made a difference, and he is absolutely right. Their policies made it far worse. I went through the litany of statistics proving that they made it far worse. I was not here back when the next prime minister of Canada was the housing minister, but I have heard him speak eloquently in this House about his formidable record of low housing costs, low interest rates, low mortgage payments and low rent. That is a pretty good record.

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Context: House Hansard - 339 - Sep/19/24

Mr. Marty Morantz

Sep/19/24 12:50:11 p.m.
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We heard it here, Madam Speaker. The Conservative slogan is “build the homes”, and the NDP's new slogan is “build fewer homes”. It is hard to believe that they are the folks who were allowed to run the country for the last two years. Thank heavens, after we win the non-confidence vote next week, they will be gone.

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Context: House Hansard - 339 - Sep/19/24

Mr. Marty Morantz

Sep/19/24 12:51:06 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the mortgage crisis, despite what the Liberals will tell us, was caused by them. They allowed the bank governor to jack up the money supply by 23%, and the $600 billion in cash printed spiked inflation. It was not the war in Ukraine that caused inflation. It was not supply chains. It was the watering down of the value of our currency that spiked inflation, which directly led to this mortgage crisis. Now, on top of the affordability problems and on top of everything else, we will start to see people lose their homes. It is catastrophic and very sad.

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