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.

Motions in Amendment

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Madam Speaker, that is a terrible question.

At the end of the day, we are looking at this and wondering why the Liberal government is attempting to divide in order to distract.

We are here to talk about housing. Here we are with the Liberals' NDP colleagues, and they want to talk about anything other than the unmitigated disaster of their housing program that has resulted in house prices doubling. It used to be that someone could get a mortgage for 25 years. Now, it takes 25 years to even save up for a down payment, and the Liberals want to talk about American politics.

We are not the United States; we are the Conservative Party of Canada and we will bring home lower prices.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Madam Speaker, housing is extremely important, especially during winter, when being homeless or kicked out of one's home for any reason becomes a health hazard.

Builders are now faced with mortgage rates so high that they cannot build housing and still turn a reasonable profit. Some even have to close down construction sites. Across Quebec, companies have to stop and wait before they can continue to build housing.

I want to ask my colleague if he is seeing the same thing in his riding. What are the solutions to help these construction companies out?

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question.

The question as I understand it is about interest rates and how volatility and high interest rates are preventing development. I actually had a discussion with a developer about this very issue and about the difficulties that come with CMHC and not approving financing on time. We have talked about one thing that the leader of the official opposition would do: stop giving out fat bonuses to people who are not getting their approvals done on time, or within 60 days, which is the benchmark. Yes, it is certainly an issue.

One thing I have noticed is that the government wants developers to take on all of the risk. They are unafraid to tell developers to take on all of the risk, yet the volatility with interest rates is so significant that it is essentially making it an untenable situation where developers may not make any money, which makes people afraid to build.

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

Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-56. I think the manner in which the bill has had to be dealt with regarding the programming motion is unfortunate. It is a bill with targeted measures in it for Canadians. It is a bill that I believe the entire House supports. I know that Conservatives voted for it at a previous stage, and the member for Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon stood up and said he supports the bill.

Conservatives have used multiple tactics to slow the bill down in moving along each step of the way, yet they say they support it. I find it really troubling that Conservatives know better than to vote against the bill, because they know it would have a meaningful impact for Canadians, yet that at the same time, they choose to drag it out, delay the vote and delay the actual measures' getting to Canadians. They support the measures but just do not want to see them get to Canadians, because that might make the government look like it is doing a good thing, and Conservatives could never allow something like that to occur, even though they clearly are in favour of the bill.

I find it very interesting that, for months, this has been the unfortunate reality of the bill. It was an extremely important measure by the Minister of Finance, if not the first measure, then one of the first introduced in the House when it resumed in September. It was tabled, and Conservatives continued to put forward speakers on the issue and then finally did vote in favour of it to go to committee, where there was a lot of discussion. We finally had to say that it was time to program it to get it back before the House so we could vote on it so people could get the measures, because it has been three months since it was introduced.

I find that extremely disingenuous. I think it feeds into the narrative of the question from the parliamentary secretary to the House leader a few moments ago when he asked why Conservatives are taking this approach, especially when it comes to something they believe in, support and recognize is so important for Canadians. It comes back to the core fundamental of the Conservative Party of Canada right now that the only thing that matters to it is to delay and to prevent the government from actually doing anything. It will use every procedural tactic to do that, as we have seen with a number of different issues, including the Canada-Ukraine free trade agreement that—

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

The hon. member for Battle River—Crowfoot is rising on a point of order.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Madam Speaker, simply using as a reference some of the interventions that this very parliamentary secretary has made, I think it would incumbent upon the Chair to ensure that he maintains relevance in his remarks and stays within the realm—

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

The hon. member has kept relevance. He is talking about the process, and we are not going to start a debate on this.

The hon. deputy House leader.

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

Madam Speaker, for the Canadians who may not pay a lot of attention to what goes on in the House, I will just explain what happened there.

I spoke about nothing but the bill and its relevance. Somebody in the back rooms of the Conservative caucus decided to send somebody in here because I was about to talk about the Canada-Ukraine free trade agreement. The member literally sat on the edge of his seat waiting for the word “Ukraine” to come out of my mouth. As soon as it did, he jumped up on a point of order as though to try to indicate there was no relevance. That is what is going on right now. That is where the Conservative Party of Canada is right now. That is how Conservatives feel about the issue. They are so afraid of Canadians' finding out where they stand on the Canada-Ukraine free trade agreement that they literally send people in here, when they see I have gotten up to speak, to sit on the edge of their seat waiting in anticipation for—

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

The hon. member for Battle River—Crowfoot is rising on a point of order.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Madam Speaker, I find it somewhat disingenuous, using the member's word, that he would suggest that somehow Conservatives do not care about Ukraine, when, actually, the opposite is true. My point of order—

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

We are not going to start a debate on this. I am going to let the hon. member finish his speech.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The government House leader was warned about some of the absurd comparisons the Liberals are making regarding the issue. I would encourage you to remind the member not to allow his comments to devolve into the absurdity that she allowed herself to the other day during debate.

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

We are going to try to finish this before the beginning of Oral Questions.

The hon. deputy House leader.

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

Madam Speaker, talk about walking on eggshells. I have not even gotten to that point yet. The member is trying to predict where I am going in my speech and is rising on a point of order pre-emptively because he is afraid I am going to make a comparison between the approach of Russia and the approach of the Conservative Party of Canada. I have not even gotten to that yet. All I said was that the member was afraid I would do that. I did not even actually make the comparison.

[Arpan Khanna, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Madam Speaker, on a point of order, the comments coming from the member are absolutely ridiculous—