Daniel Blaikie

[Fall Economic Statement, November 21st, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, Canada is not going to get out of the housing crisis we are in without significant investments in social and affordable housing, and the Liberals simply have not been building enough of that. We saw today that even the recapitalization of a program to build affordable housing is being put off until 2025.

We never hear the leader of the Conservative Party talk about building new affordable and social housing. In fact, Canada is still losing way more affordable units than we are building. When he was housing minister, the government decided to cancel the operating agreements that made rents affordable in co-op and other forms of non-profit housing across the country. Will he finally start talking about the need to build more social and affordable housing in Canada to help address the crisis?

[Fall Economic Statement, November 21st, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, with the government saying that it is in a good fiscal position, and with the Bank of Canada saying that spending on housing is not inflationary, I question why the new investments for social housing have been put off to 2025.

[Fall Economic Statement, November 21st, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, the minister mentioned in her remarks that we are facing a housing crisis, certainly a significant housing shortage. She talked about how Canada has the lowest debt in the G7. She talked about how it has the lowest deficit in the G7.

The Governor of the Bank of Canada said that spending on housing would not be inflationary. She announced some measures today for social housing, but they do not start until 2025-26—

[Fall Economic Statement, November 21st, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I may be under a mistaken impression. I thought we were in the question and comment period, but perhaps we are in speeches. I wonder if you could provide some guidance to the leader of the Conservative Party.

[Housing, November 20th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-56 certainly, I think, after some improvement by New Democrats, would help a bit with the housing crisis but would not solve the housing crisis.

The fall economic statement is an important opportunity to make further progress on both the housing crisis and the affordability crisis. Funds have been depleted for social housing that need to be replenished, and there is further work to do on strengthening competition laws in Canada. Are these initiatives that we are going to see in the fall economic statement, or are Canadians going to be left waiting again?

[Government Business No. 30—Proceedings on Bill C‑56, November 20th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, the Conservative leader has called housing co-ops a Soviet-style takeover of housing. Actually, it is quite the opposite; co-op housing is a great way to build non-market housing that is not government-owned and controlled but is actually owned and controlled by the people who live there in a way that makes access to that housing more affordable now and into the future. That is why we fought hard to ensure that the GST exemption applies to co-op housing, so that co-ops can get those benefits as well.

[Government Business No. 30—Proceedings on Bill C‑56, November 20th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, I certainly very much appreciate that unprompted question. I spoke a bit already about the lack of criteria around the use of public lands in the opposition leader's bill. However, I wanted to come back to this notion he has that he is going to punish municipalities.

We have had the opportunity to hear from a lot of representatives of municipalities presenting at the finance committee. They talk about the challenges that they are trying to overcome in order to facilitate building more housing in their own communities. I do not believe that they need to be browbeaten or punished financially in order to get that done. I would remind the Conservative leader that, when he talks about financially punishing municipalities that are not meeting his Ottawa-set target for housing starts, what he is really talking about doing is punishing the people in those municipalities. In a municipality where the leadership is acting in good faith to try to get more housing built, it has no interest in not getting that housing built in the community. There can be problems, and a lot of municipalities are trying to work through them.

The Conservative leader is saying that, if they are already under-resourced and do not meet his benchmark, he is going to deprive them of even more resources, expecting them to meet the target with fewer resources when they are already clearly under-resourced to meet that challenge. That is not a strategy that would set municipalities up for success. All it would do is punish the people who live in the municipality when their government is struggling to figure out a convoluted permitting process and a bunch of other stuff.

In some cases we have heard at the finance committee, it is about the underlying infrastructure, such as sewer pipes and other things like that, which have to be in place in order to increase density. For a municipality that already does not have the resources to do that, getting dinged because it did not meet the Conservative leader's Ottawa-set housing target is not something that is going to help it to do that into the future.

Therefore, yes, we need to put an emphasis on outcomes; yes, there should be consequences for outcomes. However, just depriving municipalities of resources when they are already cash-strapped is not going to get the job done for Canadians.

[Government Business No. 30—Proceedings on Bill C‑56, November 20th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, it goes without saying that we are defending small businesses. We wrote the minister. We raised the issue. There are many things that we would like the government to do but that it will not do.

When we negotiate, we are not sitting in front of a mirror. We negotiate with a government that has its own priorities. Naturally, we propose things that it is opposed to.

I do not understand why the government wants to go after the small businesses that needed a loan during the pandemic. I do not understand why the government believes that it will get more money by causing bankruptcies. The government is clearly headed down that road even if it makes no sense.

We negotiated with the government to obtain what could be obtained. Regarding the loans, we do not think that it is something the government is prepared to do. I believe that the government is on the wrong side of this issue. I do not think we could have come to an agreement about this in Bill C‑56.

[Government Business No. 30—Proceedings on Bill C‑56, November 20th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, I will take the opportunity to highlight two problems I see with the member for Carleton's bill. One is that when we talk about using public lands to create housing, there are no conditions on what kind of housing would be built. There are no conditions asserting a return on investment for the taxpayer, whose land is going to be used to develop housing. We do not need to look very far out of this place to see what happens when Conservative governments that are cozy with developers decide they are going to start auctioning off land or opening up land for private development without a very clear set of rules at the forefront. That is a major failing of the bill.

I would gladly speak to the other failing, but I see I am out of time. Perhaps I will get a question about the other failings of that bill. I would be happy to answer it.

[Government Business No. 30—Proceedings on Bill C‑56, November 20th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, we get elected to this place to deliberate, but we also get elected to make decisions. The process does not work if we can never get to the moment of decision. That is what we call a vote around this place.

It is appropriate for us to have a discussion and debate, but it is also appropriate and necessary for us to come to a decision point. It is fair for opposition parties to stand up against particular initiatives of the government and to use procedure to delay votes, but when it is happening on everything all the time, the whole place starts to break down. It does not make any sense to come to a place of infinite debate without any possibility of making a decision.

We know Canadians are relying on this place to make decisions to help with the problems in the housing market, as just one example, and there are many others. That is why it is important that we get the opportunity to vote in this place. If members of this place will not let that occur naturally, then sometimes this type of motion will be required.