Mr. Speaker, I am rising today to also request an emergency debate for the very serious matter we see happening across Canada today, which is the housing crisis. It is one that the housing minister refuses to acknowledge as something we are going through today.
New IMF data was released. It shows that Canadian households face the greatest risk of mortgage defaults as households struggle to cope with increasing interest rates. These high interest rates were caused by high inflationary deficit spending by the government. It made the Governor of the Bank of Canada raise the rates, causing Canadians headaches and all sorts of hardships when it comes to the housing crisis.
The finance minister, in November, said she did not want to throw fuel onto the inflationary fire, but then, with the recent budget, threw 68 billion dollars' worth of fuel on that inflationary fire. That made the inflation problem worse and will possibly have the Bank of Canada raise its interest rates once again, which would cause even more hardships.
We know that nine out of 10 young people cannot imagine home ownership. Newcomers do not even dream of ever owning a home, as the cost of living is growing because of the inflationary deficit spending by the Liberal government.
I would also implore you, when considering this decision, to also consider that we are on the reading stage of the budget, so it only limits the scope. We want to expand it because of how serious the housing crisis is and how much worse it is going to get when people start defaulting on mortgages, according to RBC and this IMF report.
I am requesting an emergency debate on this very serious matter.