Bill C-56

Affordable Housing and Groceries Act

An Act to amend the Excise Tax Act and the Competition Act

Part 1 amends the Excise Tax Act in order to implement a temporary enhancement to the GST New Residential Rental Property Rebate in respect of new purpose-built rental housing.
Part 2 amends the Competition Act to, among other things,
(a) establish a framework for an inquiry to be conducted into the state of competition in a market or industry;
(b) permit the Competition Tribunal to make certain orders even if none of the parties to an agreement or arrangement — a significant purpose of which is to prevent or lessen competition in any market — are competitors; and
(c) repeal the exceptions in sections 90.1 and 96 of the Act involving efficiency gains.

Affordable Housing and Groceries Act

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Port Moody—Coquitlam.

I am here today to talk about the affordability act. We know that right now Canadians across the country are facing a huge financial challenge. It has been a hard period of time. We lived through the pandemic and then we moved on to a high inflation reality. Things are just starting to cost more and more.

One of the things this bill does is remove GST for builds of rental housing. In my riding, these are the average rents in just a few of my communities: in Campbell River, it is over $1,500; in Powell River it is close to $1,500; and then in Comox, it is a whopping $1,849. Those are just the average rents. If someone lives on a fixed income or has a low income, it is just a huge challenge to pay for the things they desperately need.

I am the spokesperson for seniors in my party. Just last week, a 77-year-old gentleman walk into my office, almost an octogenarian. He shared with me that he has been living in the same location for 40 years. It recently was purchased and he is going to be renovicted. That is appalling. He needs to have a stable home to age in. I think we all know that we cannot just build houses by yelling out abracadabra and there will be a house. They do not just build themselves. Although I support this movement, we know from what we are seeing done by the government that the Liberals are just continuing to delay the process. That means that housing will be delayed up to seven years or more.

This is a crisis point. The urgency in the communities that I serve is profound. They need to see money on the ground, supports for municipalities and regional districts, to get that money out the door in the most efficient way possible.

I read an article yesterday from Oxfam. It talked about how the richest people in the world are emitting as much as the bottom 66% of income earners on the planet. Now, I love a French rosé, but when I look at what I see happening with the ultrarich, I swear they are bathing in it. They are bathing in it at the expense of everyday Canadians, who desperately need this support. What we have not seen from the government, or from Conservative governments in the past, is a willingness to actually say to the ultrawealthy that they have to pay their fair share. In my riding, people are paying their fair share. They pay their taxes. They work hard every day and they are being punished for doing that when the ultrawealthy are getting away with bigger and bigger profits.

We know the reality is that Canada has the lowest tax rate for corporations, at 15%. Ultrawealthy corporations in this country like oil and gas have seen an increase to their profits in the last year or so that is higher than the 30 years previous. We cannot say that it is just inflation, when we can see how much they are taking home of profit after inflation is accounted for.

We know that grocery stores are making more profit now than they were prior to the pandemic. That again is adjusting for inflation. Even with those extra costs, they are still making a huge amount of money and their profits are popping like popcorn everywhere. They cannot justify that when the very basics are not affordable for most Canadians. I think that it is time that we start to address these issues and take them seriously because, really, we need to build a more fair society.

I talk a lot in this place about having a bar of dignity that no one falls below. What we are seeing in this country is more and more people falling below that. I think of people with fixed incomes, people who are single parents; people who are working; and two people with decent jobs who are living out of an RV because they cannot afford even a simple apartment to live in because of how high the cost of living has become.

The other thing I am hearing from my constituents again and again is that they can hardly afford the cost of food. In my riding, there are a lot of small farms that are doing everything they can to grow food in our area and provide as reasonable a cost as they can, because they really believe in food security. I want to thank them. They do that because of what they believe in. It makes a huge difference. We also know that grocery stores are making a huge amount of profit, and they are getting away with it.

I am really relieved that the Liberals have finally listened to our leader, the member for Burnaby South, about making sure that the Competition Bureau has more teeth to crack down on price gouging. It is as though they were looking through the windshield and, suddenly, the windshield wiper moved all the dirt out of the way, and they can now see clearly that they need to do the right thing. I am grateful that they are finally listening to us, and I cannot wait to see this done.

Many Canadians are trying to buy the basic necessities of food to feed their families. We are seeing so many children whose parents care about them desperately, but they do not have enough to send them to school with a good lunch or make sure they have a good breakfast. That is shameful in this country. If we have a Competition Bureau that can do its job, it is going to make the biggest difference; it is about time.

Without having a strong Competition Bureau, having processes where grocery stores can be held to account, we are censuring consumers. We are telling consumers that we will not put anything in place. We had the Liberal government call grocery CEOs and ask them to stabilize prices because they are upsetting people. That is not putting teeth in and telling them this is serious, because our people in this country matter. They matter more than grocery stores bringing home a huge amount of profit.

I am glad the changes that the NDP has made for Bill C-56 will actually help everyday Canadians. It is not as far as we would go. There are a lot of things we would definitely have in the bill, but we got something in there that is going to make a difference.

I have been watching this place for many years, before I even got here in 2015. Sometimes I feel like I am experiencing déjà vu, because what I see happen again and again is the continued betrayal of small businesses by both Conservative and Liberal governments. I know that, in my riding, small businesses make the difference. They are the ones that stand up every day and look after our community. They care about the people they employ, and they work hard to better our communities.

During the pandemic, it was terrifying. I have to say that my community did an amazing job of supporting local businesses the best it could. Community members talked to one another. We talked to communities. We made sure that people were taken care of the best they could be. When that struggle was still there, we fought like heck to have a good loan that was helping people get through that time. The CEBA loan was created.

Now we are in a situation where the government is refusing to listen to these small business owners and make something work for them so that they do not lose their businesses. It was really sad for me to see nothing to deal with this in the financial update. I would have loved to see this in the bill, because small businesses work hard.

I was talking to a business owner in my riding, who said that rural communities have particular challenges, both with the pandemic and then later on with inflation, as well as waiting for more people to come to our small communities for tourism. They are struggling the most. To see the government not take that important connection seriously and to see it really betray those small businesses has been very concerning to me.

I will wrap up, but I just want to say that, in this House, we all have to work collectively to make sure that life is more affordable for Canadians. They deserve it, and it is really our job to maintain a bar of dignity that no one falls below. In this country right now, too many are falling; we need to do better by them.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the speech from my colleague from North Island—Powell River. She speaks about the bar of dignity a lot. I hear it a lot. I do a lot of work with the disability community, and they appreciate the human rights lens the member always talks about.

Does she mind sharing a bit about the fact that the disability benefit was not mentioned in the fall economic statement? We know it disproportionately impacts women and indigenous people, and I wanted to hear her thoughts on that.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member brought up an important reality.

We know that people across this country who are living with disabilities have particular challenges, are all too often marginalized and fall below the bar of dignity that I talk about, and really have a hard time making ends meet. This is important. When we see people from various communities supported in a good way, the amazing thing that happens is that opportunity grows. However, if we leave people in a situation where they cannot make ends meet and they are struggling every day just to get by, it is really hard for them to maintain the creativity they may have in their spirit.

When we talk about a bar of dignity, we are talking about the disability benefit. If people were lifted out of poverty and had the space to expand what they might be able to do to look at a life that is not fraught with concern and terror every day, what a better community we would have. It makes me think of my friend Karen, who teaches me a lot about living in the disabled community. She always says that when we make something accessible for everyone, we make it accessible for everyone. Let us make it accessible for everyone and see what a beautiful culture we could create in this country.

[Denis Trudel, Bloc, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C‑56 touches on housing. It is a priority, actually.

I said it earlier, when my colleague made his speech. It will be difficult to build millions of homes. That has never been done in Canada. We have to find ways to rise to the challenge. We talked about an acquisition fund, which could be an interesting tool.

The elephant in the room when it comes to the housing crisis is the financialization of housing. Big real estate empires are buying up the housing stock. In Montreal alone, it is estimated that less than 1% of owners own a third of the rental stock. That is outrageous. We need to do something about these people who buy up buildings with 60, 80 or 100 units, either to demolish them or renovate them. They double the price and it becomes very problematic.

I am certain it is the same in Toronto and Vancouver. Ottawa needs to tackle this. Could my colleague speak to that? I imagine that the NDP has been thinking about these issues. Do they have any ideas about how to deal with this?

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, this is a really important question.

We know that, right now, what we are seeing across the country and, sadly, what we have seen the government participate in is giving money to corporations that are building housing and basing it on market or above-market value. That means we are just continuing to see housing built that is not going to make a difference for everyday Canadians. The financialization of housing is taking away everyday, common people's rights in this country. We need to do better. Part of that is having non-market housing. I want to thank the member for Vancouver East, who has been very clear on this. If we do not have an investment in housing that makes a difference for people, we are letting them down.

This country does not need that. The government is abandoning people who are living on the streets every day. All of the members of this place have a safe place to go home to at the end of the day, and it is shameful that we allow other people to not have a safe place. What it does to their spirits destabilizes our country, and we need to do better by them.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I know this issue has come up, if not from this member, then from one of her colleagues. It is the issue of extreme anti-competition that we are seeing, in particular with regard to the grocery retail giants. I know that in Canada, Loblaws, which owns Shoppers, occupies about 40% of the retail grocery market. Compare that to in the United States, where Walmart, the largest, owns only 18%.

I am wondering whether the member could expand on how she thinks the legislation would help with anti-competition practice.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, this is a big, broad and complex question I am being asked.

First of all, I would say that part of it is this place's fault. Under both Liberal and Conservative governments, we have not seen an active stance around competition. In fact, recently, we have seen mergers in this country that mean there will be less competition. The people who pay when there is less competition are always the hard-working Canadians.

What we need to see is more legislation like the leader of the NDP brought forward, to make sure we have teeth in these processes to make a difference for everyday Canadians.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to follow up on the comments that my colleague from North Island—Powell River just made on how the grocery chains have made it harder for people to eat healthy food. This morning, there was a meeting of parliamentarians, senators and stakeholders on anti-poverty, and when I say “parliamentarians”, I mean all but the Conservatives. They came together to talk about the intersection of health, housing, food security and disability. The urgency that I heard in that room is not being expressed by the Liberal government in the House. This follows up on the idea that the fall economic statement was a real disappointment for many of those groups. It was certainly a disappointment for the disability community.

It was the expectation of the community, the NDP and other members in the House, that the Canada disability benefit would at least get a mention in the fall economic statement, and it did not. I am here to say that that is not acceptable. As my colleague from New Westminster—Burnaby said earlier tonight, New Democrats expect to see some movement on the Canada disability benefit right away. People are suffering, and not just at the grocery store, but also when it comes to housing, which is the next thing I want to talk about.

When we talk about the housing and grocery affordability act, we have to acknowledge that people are losing their housing every single day in this country. We are losing affordable housing at a rate of 15 to one. It was mentioned earlier that seniors are being renovicted today. As we have the debates today, seniors are getting notice of above-guideline rent increases. Their rents are going up 30%, 40% and 50%. They cannot afford it and are out on the street.

I am getting phone calls at my office from residents who have lived in the same units in my community for 20, 30 and sometimes 35 years, and they are being renovicted. They are in their seventies, and they have nowhere to go. Their safety net is their community, and they have nowhere to live because of, as one of my colleagues said earlier today, the financialization of housing. I blame the Liberals and the Conservatives before them for not protecting people's right to housing and allowing large corporations to buy up affordable housing and not replace it.

As has been said earlier today, the NDP is supporting Bill C-56. This is a move toward affordability in the areas of food and housing, but, at the same time, there is so much more to do. I think about the fact that purpose-built rentals in this country have not been invested in for decades.

I can talk specifically about what happened in Coquitlam. I was a city councillor at the time, and an application came forward for a purpose-built rental building. The Liberals at the time, in 2015, had promised a GST exemption on purpose-built rentals. A company came forward in good faith to build purpose-built rentals. It was expecting relief on the GST and was going to pass it down to renters. The company was excited to do that work in my community to make housing affordable for frontline workers, whether they were nurses, firefighters or people who worked in grocery stores. It was excited to do that work, only to be disappointed with the Liberal government not following through on its promise of a GST rebate.

The Liberals, at that point, decided to go with their corporate buddies who were asking them to please give them low-interest loans instead. The commercial loan interest rates were so low, but still the Liberal government decided to follow up with their corporate buddies and give them low-interest loans. That would contribute to the loss of 15 affordable units to every one that was built.

I cannot express my disappointment enough that the Liberal government waited eight years to bring this GST rebate forward. I am happy we have it. The Liberals have at least moved the needle a tiny bit, but they really need to start taking this seriously because, as I said, people have lost their homes today.

I want to note the infrastructure gap, which is so wide. We are talking about the small movement on groceries and the Competition Act, which we are happy about, and we are happy about housing, although there is so much more to do. I want to speak about infrastructure because mayors and councillors were in town all of this week talking about the massive infrastructure gap, and my colleague from Nunavut was talking about the exorbitant infrastructure gap in northern Canada, in Nunavut, and the housing crisis going on there. The federal government has walked away from almost $8 billion in funding for indigenous communities and infrastructure. That is totally unacceptable, and we expect to see that rectified in the spring budget, that is for sure. We cannot continue to not invest in infrastructure and we cannot continue down this path of abusing human rights in this country.

I am going to zip my speech up, but I want to make sure that I talk about transit. When we talk about affordability, we need to talk about public transit. The mayors out in my area of British Columbia have been talking about the fact that they expect the federal government to be involved in funding public transit. If we are going to make these investments in housing, which are desperately needed, if we are going to make these investments in accessibility, which are desperately needed, and if we are going to really get serious about reducing emissions in this country, we need to invest in public transit. The mayors out in British Columbia are asking for that, and I am expecting the infrastructure minister will come forward with the public transit funding that has been promised. We cannot wait until 2026 to get transit funding. We need to change behaviour now. We cannot wait.

I want to close out by talking about the member for Burnaby South, who has a bill on the floor, Bill C-352, that also addresses the Competition Act. NDP members are so proud of this bill and of the fact that we are finally in this country going to force the government to get serious about the Competition Act. We know that Canadians right now have the highest cellphone bills and the highest Internet bills. We are now looking at conglomerations of the largest banks, which already charge too much in consumer charges. We need to stop this conglomeration of the largest corporations in this country and give some power back to consumers.

I am looking forward to the passing of Bill C-56. I am also looking forward to the passing of Bill C-352.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Greg Fergus]

I would like to remind members that they have to be in their seats to ask questions and make comments.

The hon. member for North Island—Powell River.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I apologize for taking a moment. I was having a conversation. I am sorry to the member for that.

The member talked a bit about the financialization of housing, and I shared in my speech not too long ago how expensive rents are in my communities, which are significantly smaller than some of the communities the member represents. I wonder if she could share with this place why the need for non-market housing is so important when we are seeing the cost of rents go up higher and higher every day.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, that is such an important question. For eight years, I sat at a city council table and saw that perfectly affordable housing was being bought by large corporations and upzoned for them, and then almost a quarter of the condos they were building were sitting empty for years. The efforts of the development industry to pull profits out of communities at the cost of affordable homes for Canadians of all ages were very difficult to watch, because we could see the profit leaving communities. Those developments were not building communities, and we can see now that we have a lot more work to do in the area of bringing back affordable units. It is 15:1. People cannot afford to live in these communities anymore when they are taken over by real estate trusts and development groups that build luxury condo after luxury condo.

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

Uqaqtittiji, I would like to thank my colleague for reminding the House about some of the issues I have brought up regarding indigenous peoples. It is absolutely an injustice indeed that there are so many cuts being anticipated and that there are great gaps, such as the $350-billion infrastructure gap for first nations.

That figure does not even include infrastructure gaps for Métis and Inuit, but I will get back to the debate on this important bill. It could have great impacts for Nunavummiut, who suffer the most for lack of housing, as well as the cost of living. Could the member share with us why this bill is so important, not just for northerners but for all Canadians?

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I raise my hands to the member for Nunavut, who has stood up so many times in this House to explain to the Liberal government why it is so important that it live up to its human rights commitments, especially in regard to housing. There are absolutely unacceptable conditions in Nunavut, and there is a partner there ready to go.

I will follow up on the question from the member, though. We know food prices are extremely high across the country. We know this is about food price gouging. This is about profits. Because there is not competition in the grocery chains, they are taking home extreme profits. They are not being taxed fairly, and they are taking advantage of Canadians. That is why this bill is so important: We need to get serious about addressing that competition.

The other thing I will talk about is the fact that the rental, co-op and not-for-profit housing in this country needs extreme investment, and this is a tiny move forward. We are hoping for more from the Liberals. We need more from the Liberals. Affordability is just so important across the board.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague talked about the importance of getting affordable housing off the market in order to protect it from financialization. I would like her to talk about the importance of defining affordability based on tenants' ability to pay rather than comparing it to the average market price.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I know the member is very adept at research, and he knows this as well, but I just want to say here that housing prices have increased exponentially over the last two decades, and wages have not. Wages have not kept pace with the cost of living or with housing, and this is one of the reasons, as a New Democrat standing here today, I am so happy to know we have the anti-scab legislation coming forward, that a well-paying job is a union job. We are so looking forward to more Canadians being able to take advantage of those kinds of work conditions.