Housing  Mr. Speaker, when I was the minister responsible, the cost of housing was half of what it is today. The Prime Minister has not only doubled the cost of housing, he is spending money on growing the very bureaucracy that is blocking construction. I have a common-sense plan in Bill C‑356, which we will be voting on this afternoon.

Housing  Mr. Speaker, when I was minister, we built nearly 200,000 houses and apartments. The average rent was $973. That is half of what it is today. Meanwhile, he is working in partnership with municipal officials to double the cost of housing. My common-sense plan requires municipalities to allow 15% more construction per year.

Housing  Mr. Speaker, when I was housing minister, we built almost 200,000 houses and apartments, with the average rent being $973 for a one-bedroom apartment, but the Prime Minister is not worth the cost of housing, which has doubled nine years after he and the NDP took power. What is he doing about it?

The Economy  Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has had a revelation. In an interview with Halifax's The Chronicle Herald, he told how he responded to people asking for him to spend even more government money. He said, “As soon as you do that, inflation goes up by exactly [the same] amount. Right.”

The Economy  Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister calls his own words a “made-up excuse”. We cannot make this stuff up. The Prime Minister said that when people ask him to “send [them] more benefits or send [them] an extra thousand dollars a month”, he responds, “As soon as you do that, inflation goes up by exactly [the same] amount.

The Economy  Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister finally, for once, thought about monetary policy. He said, “As soon as you [spend more], inflation goes up by exactly the same amount. Right.” He is right for once. However, repeating the same costly promises that he has already broken does not change that fundamental monetary rule.

The Economy  Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has had an epiphany. In an interview with The Chronicle Herald, a Halifax newspaper, he said that when people ask him for even more government money, he tells them that as soon as the government spends money, inflation rises by exactly the same amount.

The Economy  Mr. Speaker, now I understand the logic. If the government spends money sending cheques directly to Canadians, that causes inflation, but if it sends money to the federal bureaucracy, that does not cause bureaucracy, unless it comes with broken promises and a lack of services. It is true what the Prime Minister said.

Housing  Mr. Speaker, when I was housing minister, we built 200,000 homes in one year, rent was only $900 and mortgage payments were half of what they are today. Fast-forward to the present, and the Prime Minister has given half a billion dollars to Toronto City Hall to jack up new taxes on homebuilding.

Housing  Mr. Speaker, my common-sense plan to build homes would reward municipalities that speed up permits and punish the politicians who get in the way. The Prime Minister's approach has not only doubled housing costs, but built up Toronto City Hall with monstrous financial transfers so that it can block construction.

Housing  Mr. Speaker, the incompetence of this Prime Minister and the Liberal mayor of Montreal, who is blocking construction, has caused rents to triple in Montreal. We learned the worst today. Under the headline “Major holdup”, La Presse reported that, “since 2019, [building] permit wait times have more than doubled.”

Housing  Mr. Speaker, everything the Prime Minister said is false. When I was the minister responsible for housing, we built 200,000 new housing units. In Montreal, the average rent was $700 a month. Now it is $2,000. What is more, the wait time for construction permits has more than doubled.

Housing  Mr. Speaker, because of the incompetence of the Prime Minister and the Liberal City Hall in Toronto, rent there has more than doubled over the last nine years. What is worse is that the Prime Minister's so-called housing accelerator fund has given half a billion dollars to Toronto, and only months later, the politicians in that city hiked up homebuilding taxes by 20%.

Taxation  Mr. Speaker, of course the Conservatives want to cut. We want to cut taxes. The Journal de Montréal has declared that Quebec taxpayers are tapped out. It should come as no surprise that 75% of respondents to Léger-Québecor polls said that they were not getting their money's worth.

The Economy  Mr. Speaker, after nine years, the NDP-Liberal Prime Minister is not worth the cost of mortgages, 76% of which will become more expensive over the next three years, according to the federal banking regulator, OSFI. This, after the Prime Minister said rates would stay low for long.