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

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Madam Speaker, it is really too bad that my colleague from Manitoba is taking this intervention from his home in Manitoba when this is a very important subject of affordability.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

It is best to not make references to where members are speaking from. Virtual proceedings are the norm now. We do not mention where people are making their statements from.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, on a point of order, we know that Parliament has recognized virtual. We know that the Conservatives participate virtually. This is an inappropriate attack—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

I just addressed the issue.

The hon. member for Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa.

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Madam Speaker, it is really too bad. This is part of the problem of the abuse of the virtual system.

Meanwhile, we have a provincial election going on back in Manitoba. I am sure the member is helping out there.

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, on a point of order, there is nothing abusive about using virtual Parliament. In the Standing Orders, it is made very clear that sitting in the House or virtually is seen as the same. I think it is important for you to make that very clear.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

I absolutely agree with the hon. member. That is the way we proceed in the House. It is now the acceptable way of the House to proceed. We make no references to which site the member is speaking from.

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Madam Speaker, the member went on quite extensively about the rising costs of food. He seems to have a very good grasp of it.

Could the member acknowledge, though, that the carbon tax does in fact increase the price of food?

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, I do not think there is any doubt that, through the supply chain, the carbon tax is obviously something that is a factor for pricing of food. It is why the NDP has been concerned and has proposed so many affordability measures.

We want to make dental care accessible to Canadians. That is why we proposed the dental care plan. For so many families that rely on child care, we have fought for years and years. We ran on a $10-a-day child care program in 2015, when I was first elected, because we recognized that there are a lot of things that affect the prices Canadians pay for the various things that they cannot do without. There are a lot of things that put pressure on their household budgets.

Parliament is a very appropriate place to talk about the ways we could help control the cost of things that people cannot do without. That is a debate I have always been quite willing to show up for, both in person and virtually, whenever—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

We will do without the references.

The hon. member for Mirabel.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Madam Speaker, Bill C-56 includes measures to eliminate the GST on new rental housing. In the long term, this could impact supply, at least theoretically. However, this is for housing that will be built a long time from now, housing that will be started in 2030 and completed in 2035. Meanwhile, during a briefing, we learned that the government had not commissioned any analysis or study on how much this measure will cost or what impact it will have on new housing construction.

I would like to know if this way of doing things worries my colleague. Once again, this is a quick pre-election ploy of creating a measure without knowing how much it will cost or what the outcome will be. The Liberals did the same thing when it came to increasing the immigration target with their friends at McKinsey.

Has the government's tendency to propose legislative changes without doing the necessary calculations become problematic?

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, I think it would be good if the government did its research before announcing these kinds of measures. Yes, I think it is important for us to have that information.

It seems as though this was decided very quickly, perhaps at a caucus meeting where people were unhappy and asked the government to do something about the housing crisis. This is the only component in the Liberals' social and affordable housing strategy. We are going to need more than that if we really want to address the housing crisis. Yes, there are signs indicating that the government acted quickly, on the spur of the moment, rather than taking a more strategic approached based on good research.

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, one of the elements of the member for Elmwood—Transcona 's speech that I really appreciated was his honesty about the decades of underinvestment in social housing that have contributed to the crisis we are seeing now across the country.

Could the member speak to how important this is? If we were even to double our social housing stock, we would still be just in the middle of the pack of the G7. Can he speak to how the CMHC, for example, could get back into the business of building affordable housing across the country?

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, when I was first elected, one of the things I did in Elmwood—Transcona was to bring together a group of organizations in the riding that had an interest in the housing question, because there was a lot of talk then about a new national housing strategy and I thought that we should be ready in Elmwood—Transcona for when the strategy hits the ground.

In that effort, I spoke to some folks who used to work for the federal government and the provincial government kind of prior to the cancellation of the national housing policy by the Liberals in the 1990s. One of the things they said was that because the offer for funding every year was reliable, people could plan. Someone could say that they did not have the capital right now, but they could access funding to create a plan to scout out some of the land that they might be able to acquire in order to have a budget and, over the course of six or seven years, deliver a project in a community.

For so long, we have not had that despite some of the offerings in the national housing strategy. The co-investment fund was depleted. Nobody knows when it is going to be replenished. Nobody knows when people will be able to make a request under that program again. It is very hard for non-profits that are not sitting on a pile of cash to be able to do the planning work to be able to deliver housing. That is one of the ways the cancellation of the national housing project strategy, and the ad hoc approach since, has really cost us getting affordable and social units.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, I would like to follow up on that last question. It is worth pointing out that prior to 1980, the notion of homelessness simply did not exist in Canada. There were certain inner city skid rows with local charities, but housing began to be the crisis in the 1980s as the government began to underfund, and then, of course, when Paul Martin cut the national housing program which gave the green light to multiple provinces. We have seen a slow-moving hurricane finally touch down in real time over the last 30 years, such that now upwards of 280,000 Canadians are touched by homelessness in any given year. That is a staggering number.

I want to ask my hon. colleague about the importance of making it a priority to get housing, to get non-market housing and co-operative housing, built so we can have homes for seniors, for single mums and for families. We need to make this a national priority to make up for the years of disregard from both the Liberals and the Conservatives on the fundamental right to housing in our country.