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.

Fall Economic Statement

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from the Standing Committee on Finance. We just spent the last week touring western Canada. We visited every region to hear from people. All the organizations, the chambers of commerce, the organizations representing SMEs are asking for the deadline to be extended by one year. It is the same in Quebec. We hear it everywhere.

When we speak with the ministers individually, most of them agree with this call. Most of them do not understand the Minister of Finance's reaction. That is what is throwing a wrench in the works. The Minister of Finance and senior civil servants are saying that it is going to be expensive.

We have been leading the charge for quite some time. We just want to be the voice of the SMEs we represent. We were ready to negotiate with the government. For example, if the government wants Bill C‑56 to pass, in exchange, we would like the government to extend the deadline by a year. With all due respect, we wish the NDP had followed our lead. I hope they keep this example in mind so that, in future negotiations, they can ask for this in exchange. It would be a big win for SMEs. It would mean 20% fewer bankruptcies, according to figures from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. It would make a big difference.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would first like to remind the House that this is an economic statement. It is not a budget. As we know, a budget sets out the government's policies and presents the legislative, fiscal and budgetary measures required to implement them. An economic statement has a more modest purpose. It is supposed to present the evolution of the economic and fiscal situation since the last budget.

What this statement now tells us is that the deficit may change according to the government's forecasts, contrary to what the Parliamentary Budget Officer had calculated, which is worrisome. The statement outlines the government's response to these changes. There is not much there. For example, at the end of the summer, the Prime Minister asked the new President of the Treasury Board to cut $15 billion from various departments in order to balance the budget. They promised to give us an outline by mid-October. That did not happen. We were expecting to see it in the economic statement, but all they are doing is putting things off again without any concrete targets. Another objective has been missed.

What is the purpose of an economic statement? It is used to present the measures the government plans to take to deal with the emergencies that have cropped up since the last budget. There have been quite a few emergencies since the last budget. The economy has changed a great deal. There is a lot of struggling and difficulty. The economy is not doing well. Many people are affected by that. We were really expecting the minister to address the major emergencies that have come up since the last budget. Unfortunately, this is such a missed opportunity that we might wonder what the point is in having an economic statement. I will come back to that. There are several emergencies that we could have focused on that were simply not even mentioned in this statement.

I will give another example. The first chapter has to do with housing. While we are short on housing and social housing and the situation is desperate, we find out that there will be $37 million in cuts this year. For next year, not one penny more will be added to what was already presented in Bill C‑56 to get rid of the GST on social housing construction. We will have to wait two years to see the $54 million and $1 billion promised for subsequent years to tackle housing. Is that enough when we know that most of that $1 billion is money that was already announced and not spent? It is unfortunate.

A few weeks ago, we presented our requests to the minister. What we asked the government to do in the economic statement was to respond to existing emergencies, the urgent situations that we are currently facing. Take, for example, homeless people. As we know, it is starting to get cold outside. This morning, the temperature was below zero. There are people who are sleeping in tents and in the streets. It is truly awful. We are asking the government to do what Quebec did in its fall economic statement and to allocate emergency funding to immediately address homelessness. We want to set up an emergency fund to help cities and municipalities support homeless people in their area and give them the resources they need to do so. There is nothing about that in the economic statement. This is a real emergency that we are dealing with, and yet we have here a government and a minister who are ignoring the real emergencies. There was no response to that request in the economic statement.

On the housing front—and I will come back to this in more detail later—we provided the minister with ideas of how to create an acquisition fund for non-profit organizations and set up an interest-free or very low-interest loan program to stimulate the construction of social and affordable rental housing. Our program could be easily implemented and rapidly deployed without costing the government a fortune. The main measure being announced here is that builders who want to develop a real estate project will be allowed, in partnership with their financial institution, to pay only the interest on the loan and will not have to repay the capital until the building is built and sold.

While this would improve liquidity somewhat, it is not really something that was asked for by the groups that we heard at the Standing Committee on Finance, for instance. At the end of the day, we do not think it will contribute to building additional housing. Let us just say that the impact of this remains to be seen, and we do not see it in this statement.

We know that seniors are in dire straits. With the current inflation rate and what was announced this morning, the consumer price index is not as high as what we have seen over the last few months and the last few quarters, but it is still above 3%. Low-income seniors and seniors in general are struggling, and we need to restore some measure of fairness.

The government decided to increase old age security for seniors aged 75 and over. However, since then, with my friend and colleague, the member for Shefford, who is our critic for the rights of seniors, we have been saying that fairness must be restored. The increase must start at age 65. People who are struggling need this support, which will not be enough to make up for the lack of indexing to inflation or to the average wage that the program originally offered. Still, it could give seniors a little breathing room in the current inflationary environment.

The repayment of CEBA loans is another urgent situation. The Canadian Federation of Independent Business, or CFIB, chambers of commerce and many organizations representing SMEs are raising the alarm with elected officials in the House and with the government. They are asking that the deadline be extended by another year. These loans were granted during the pandemic, but after the pandemic, SMEs have had to deal with rising inflation and a difficult economic recovery. Many of them are falling further into debt. Now, the government is asking them to repay their loan or they will lose the grant portion.

According to the CFIB's numbers, approximately one in five SMEs could go bankrupt if the deadline is not extended. When we asked the minister about that, she said that it would cost too much. No serious studies were done to determine what it would cost the government, the economy as a whole and society if as many as one in five businesses went bankrupt as a result of this.

We in the Bloc Québécois are willing to bet that pushing the loan repayment deadline back one year would be much more profitable. It would strengthen the economy in the sense that it would prevent a lot of predictable bankruptcies. A few weeks ago, the Journal de Montréal published an assessment of the risk for each region. My riding, in the north of the Lanaudière region, was particularly at risk, given the minister's refusal to extend the deadline for repayment of CEBA loans by one year. That is very disappointing. We tried and tried to negotiate with the government. We could not get access to the studies it had used to make that decision because, as we understand it, there were no such studies.

In the end, the government chose to team up with its natural ally, when we could have come to an agreement in exchange for that condition, which would have greatly helped our SMEs. The government chose to turn its back on struggling SMEs. We can only conclude that the government's ally did not really care about that too much.

There are other emergencies. As I said, the purpose of the economic update is to respond to existing emergencies.

We can think of our media. Small, local and regional media, newspapers and radio stations are struggling. They are falling one after the other. The situation is catastrophic. Even the bigger media outlets are having a tough time. We do not even know if they are going to make it to Christmas or next summer. The situation is that dire. We saw the sad announcement of upcoming layoffs at Groupe TVA, with more than 500 employees affected. Even the biggest media outlets are struggling to overcome the crisis. We called for an emergency fund for the next few months at least, but that did not happen either.

Also, in order to resolve an inequity, we called for an end to fossil fuel subsidies. We are talking about tens of billions of dollars. That has not been done either, which is appalling.

Let us talk about other extremely important points. Since 2015, this government has been promising a complete overhaul of employment insurance. Once again, it has been postponed indefinitely. A year and a half ago, we were told that it was coming in the spring of 2022. After that, they said it would be no later than that fall. Now there is no mention of it, and nothing has been done. I naively wanted to believe the Liberals' promise. Let that be a lesson to me. Nothing has been done, and now they will not even dare talk about it. Shame on me for believing a Liberal promise.

When it comes to EI reform, a specific concern was also raised that once again has to do with the need to respond to emergencies. This summer, there were forest fires everywhere. That means that a lot of seasonal workers in the forestry industry were unable to accumulate enough hours to qualify for EI during the season because they could not work in the forest. We brought this to the minister's attention. This is an emergency and the government needs to be a bit flexible. The government needs to do something and to think about those workers, and yet there is nothing in the economic statement to address this emergency either.

We often asked questions in the House, and I personally drew the minister's attention to an issue that my colleague from Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou has been working on. The government announced $1 billion for a school breakfast program for children. The money was promised during the announcement, but it has yet to be delivered so that the program can be implemented. Inflation is high, and more and more children are going to school hungry. It is time for the government to pay out the money it announced. The government could have already dealt with this emergency, but this, too, was not urgent enough for the minister.

Many of my colleagues talked to me about regional infrastructure needs. Nothing more is being done. There is also the whole agriculture sector, which was hit by the flooding in some regions this summer. The produce and horticultural sectors are struggling. They are in serious trouble. Could existing programs have been adapted? The economic statement would have been the time to do that but, no, nothing was done. Once again, agriculture was not even mentioned in this statement.

There is a slightly technical detail that affects many artisanal businesses throughout our regions that could really change things. As we know, the government increased the excise tax on wine after Australian wine producers sued Canadian wine producers. Regulations on the matter are problematic. In legal texts, everything that is alcohol is called “wine”. The Bloc Québécois managed to get apple cider and mead exempted from the tax. That was a big win, and these producers are grateful.

Afterward we realized that if cider producers put a bit of pear in their drink, they have to pay the entirety of the tax. Producers of beverages made from maple alcohol also have to pay the entirety of the tax. As soon as there are a few small fruits in these drinks, producers have to pay the entire tax. It does not bother wine producers in Australia that we help our small artisans who produce these niche products. For two years we have been calling on the minister to settle this. I understand that she is busy, that she is dealing with many challenges, but at some point these are just formalities that need follow-up. This would only help better recognize the artisans without taking anything away from anyone, without frustrating anyone in Australia. It would be easy to do. This could have been implemented in the economic statement, but no, that was not done either and it is really disappointing and upsetting.

As I was saying, the government and the minister should have developed an economic statement to respond to the emergencies. I raised a few that have been brought forward by all of my colleagues here. It is not hard. How many of the emergencies we raised did the minister respond to? A big fat zero. I am referring here to a former minister I will talk about and quote. It was a former minister of Prime Minister Trudeau, the father of the actual Prime Minister. I definitely said “actual” and not “actuary”.

Speaking of actuaries, let me emphasize that the employment insurance fund surplus has doubled. Once again, workers have to pay to fill the government's coffers.

Let us come back to the urban affairs department. What is it? In the economic update, the government has chosen to create a new department, which my leader dubbed the “department of interference” because it deals with housing. It is interference, pure and simple. It is similar to what Pierre Elliott Trudeau did when he created a ministry of urban affairs. Its minister was Mr. Ouellet. That is why I am drawing attention to it.

This is a quote from a Library of Parliament research document:

Accordingly, in March 1971, Prime Minister Trudeau appointed a Minister of State for Urban Affairs, who took on responsibility not only for CMHC but also for a new Ministry of State for Urban Affairs (MSUA). Given the inescapable constitutional limitations [of interfering with provincial jurisdiction], this ministry had no program responsibilities...

Today, the government is bringing this department back. We can see where this is going. The Library of Parliament document continues as follows two paragraphs later:

This...eventually led to the downfall of Trudeau's intervention in federal-municipal relations.

A bit further on, it reads, and I quote:

In view of the Department's lack of credibility and the government's desire to cut expenditures, the MSUA was abolished on 31 March 1979.

Is that what awaits us with the creation of the new department announced in this economic update? As my colleagues have said, that is definitely what we can expect.

Let us talk about some other aspects of the economic statement. Over the past few weeks, we have been seeing a squabble play out between the Liberal government and the Conservatives in the House. The Conservative Party is all about slogans and is always pointing out problems. The Conservatives made a suggestion on housing. What is it? It involves punishing the municipalities and the provinces. The Conservatives are saying that, if the municipalities do not build 15% more housing units, then the federal government should hold back infrastructure funding. For example, this year, housing starts in Quebec decreased by half. That means that, were the Conservative Party in power, it would have cut the province's infrastructure funding by half. They are real winners, as my colleague said.

The Liberal government's response to this proposal is to use it themselves. In the statement, it is clear that they are using the same approach. In other words, they are threatening the provinces and, indirectly, the municipalities. The statement says that if they do not build enough housing, transfers will be cut off. My goodness, does the Liberal government want to go back to the Stone Age, too? I wonder.

There is one good measure involving Airbnb. The government wants to bring it in line with municipal regulations. It is going to be difficult to enforce, but there is hope. I am not simply criticizing everything. That is a good measure. As I was saying about the $15 billion in budget cuts, it was supposed to happen in October. However, the plan hatched by the government and the President of the Treasury Board is not even mentioned in the November statement. As I was also saying, we brought up a number of urgent matters, but none of them have been resolved here. There is no plan for dealing with the emergencies. Clearly, the Liberals do not understand what an emergency is.

I will say it again: Each and every one of the Bloc's demands and the urgent needs expressed by Quebeckers has been ignored. Clearly, this government, this Prime Minister and the finance minister are confusing fiscal restraint with inaction when it comes to emergencies. It is all going to cost us more in the end.

Again, the purpose of an economic update is to take stock of the economic situation since the presentation of the budget and announce solutions for the emergencies we know about. This statement does not address the many changes and does not fix anything. This is such a missed opportunity that we wonder why the government even bothered.

Thanks to the Liberals, things will get worse before they hopefully get better.

Housing

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

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

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, the Conservative Party of Canada could do a huge favour for Canadians today. Conservatives could recognize that there are two very important pieces of legislation that we are debating and allow both pieces of legislation to ultimately pass.

Bill C-56 is there to deal, in good part, with the housing crisis and price stabilization. These are things that are in the best interests of Canadians. Later this afternoon, we will be debating the Canada-Ukraine agreement. It is the same thing. These are—

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, this is the second opportunity I have been afforded to address this very important legislation. I want to start by commenting on when the legislation was introduced for debate earlier this morning, at which time the member for St. Catharines stood in his place and indicated that he would be happy to share his time with me.

I expected and hoped that, at least in part, there would be a general feeling that this is a substantive piece of legislation, which will have a very positive impact for Canadians. One would think that there would be support on all sides in favour of the legislation.

The member for St. Catharines, who is a little wiser than I am, pointed out in his comments that the Conservatives are filibustering, preventing legislation from passing. It was interesting that, when he pointed that out, he also referred to the fact that there are Conservative members who support the legislation and will be voting in favour of it. He then cited a specific member who indicated he would be voting in favour of the legislation.

After the member for St. Catharines spoke, I had the opportunity to speak. Based on previous experience, I also referred to the fact that the Conservatives have this natural inclination to prevent legislation from passing, even when they support it. A Conservative member across the way, speaking during Private Members' Business, made his perspective very clear in his opening comments. At the time, we were debating a private member's bill on a different issue, which is not government legislation, but he was critical of the government for not debating important issues.

I agree in the sense that the issues he referred to at the time, during Private Members' Business, were housing affordability and inflation. He may even have mentioned groceries. Within five minutes after the Conservative member sat down, we brought forward this piece of legislation, Bill C-56. If we read the title, it is about affordable housing and groceries. If we listen to what members opposite are saying, we would think they would be a little more sympathetic in terms of seeing the legislation passed.

Here is the catch: What did the very first speaker on Bill C-56, the member for Bay of Quinte, choose to do? He stood in his place, said a few words and referred to my speech, in which I referred to the efficiency argument in the legislation, which I will get back to. He referred to my saying that and said that is a very good part of the legislation. He acknowledged that. Then, toward the end of his speech, what did he do? He moved an amendment, with the real purpose of ensuring that there would be additional debate on this legislation.

Someone might ask what is wrong with a little more debate. On the surface, there is nothing wrong with it. However, people who follow not only this legislation but also many pieces of legislation that the government brings forward will know that the Conservative agenda has nothing at all to do with what is in the best interests of Canadians. For the Conservative Party of Canada today, it is all about putting roadblocks in place and the members doing whatever they can to assassinate the characters of government members and prevent legislation from passing. It is as simple as that.

That is why the Conservatives brought forward an amendment. What does the amendment actually say? It says:

...and the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, and the Minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities be ordered to appear as witnesses for no less than two hours each....

Every member of this House is very much aware of their opinions and thoughts on the economy, inflation and housing, as the ministers themselves have commented on the issue in different forms. The purpose of the amendment is, again, just to prevent or slow down the legislation's passing.

The Conservatives have no reservations in doing this. I appreciate that it gives me another opportunity to address the legislation. I look to the member for Bay of Quinte and thank him for allowing me to express myself a little more on the legislation.

At the end of the day, some members have said they support the legislation and other members have said there is good stuff in it. There is no reason why the Conservative Party should be attempting to prevent this legislation from passing.

Let us look at what is happening around us. If we want to support Canada's middle class and those aspiring to be a part of it, and if we want to look at how we could support low-income Canadians, in terms of getting into non-profit housing or even, in this situation, purpose-built homes, there is good stuff in here. Increasing competition is a good thing. Conservatives talk about that, but their actions are very different.

We introduced the legislation this morning, with the idea of having three hours of debate; maybe the Conservatives would see the light and the advantage of helping Canadians and would allow the legislation to pass. However, that is not the case.

It is just like one of the other pieces of legislation that really surprises me: the Canada-Ukraine agreement. We are going to be debating that legislation. It is scheduled for this afternoon. What is the Conservative Party of Canada going to do to prevent that legislation from passing? Will it bring in another concurrence report?

We have even had members in the chamber accuse the Canada-Ukraine agreement of being woke legislation. They have portrayed Canada as taking advantage of Ukraine, even though the President of Ukraine came to Canada and had a ceremony with the Prime Minister to sign this agreement.

There is no one steering the Conservative Party today on policy, ideas or things that would help Canadians in a very real and tangible way. Conservatives are more concerned about bumper stickers than they are about good, sound policy. A good example of that would be in trying to figure out what the Conservative Party of Canada stands for on the issue of the environment. I said, “What is the policy on the environment?” Members across the way just heckled, “Axe the tax.” That is what I mean about bumper stickers.

The reality is that the leader of the Conservative Party and his entire group are more concerned with social media posts, which are often very misleading, if I am being kind, and the bumper stickers they could use in the next election, as opposed to being concerned with what is in the best interest of Canadians.

This legislation, Bill C-56, is good legislation. We finally have a government that is trying to address the issue of affordability and stability of grocery prices, and the Conservatives do not want the legislation to pass.

Earlier, I brought up the issue of competition and how Canadians benefit through competition, and this legislation would provide the opportunity to take away efficiency as an argument that could be made by companies to acquire other companies. The example I used earlier was grocery stores. In Canada, as I am sure members know, we have five major grocery stores: Metro, Loblaws, Sobeys, Walmart and Costco. Those are the big five. We used to have Shoppers as a separate entity until Stephen Harper and the current leader of the Conservative Party thought there was nothing wrong with Shoppers being acquired by another company. That reduced competition.

On the one hand, we hear the Conservatives talk about the benefits of competition, but on the other hand, when it comes to voting for legislation that would help with competition pass, what do they choose to do? They choose to filibuster the legislation. They do not want to pass the legislation. That is why the member for Bay of Quinte moved an amendment. It is to prevent the legislation from passing. It is so they can continue to debate endlessly. As a government, we will have to go to the New Democrats or the Bloc to negotiate bringing in time allocation to pass this legislation, or it is not going to pass.

On the one hand, the Conservative Party will be critical of the government because it wants to see more competition, yet when it was in government, it allowed Shoppers to be acquired, with no questions asked. It was an acquisition worth billions of dollars, and its members allowed it. Then, when it has come time for us to be able to deal with those kinds of acquisitions, they are now preventing the legislation from passing. Many would suggest that is somewhat hypocritical, myself included, but it does not meet their agenda.

I ask members to take a look at what the legislation actually does. It would provide a GST exemption for purpose-built homes over the next number of years. That initiative is expected to see tens of thousands of homes being built, and that would be a direct result of this legislation. As I indicated earlier, the idea is sound and it is good. The Conservative Party of Canada should support it.

We are seeing provincial governments recognizing that this initiative is good, and they are applying it to the PST too, the provincial sales tax. We have provinces of different political stripes, and we have the Liberal government, the NDP and the Bloc all supporting that initiative. On the other hand, we have the reckless Conservatives, who feel that their job is to prevent legislation of all forms from passing in the House. I would argue that it is at a great expense to Canadians.

When we think of the housing issue, it is of critical importance. I have heard about it being of critical importance from all sides of the House, but when there are initiatives, whether legislation like this, budgetary measures that support housing co-ops and organizations such as Habitat for Humanity, the transfer of billions of dollars to provinces and non-profit groups to assist in subsidizing units, or the housing accelerator fund and the monies allocated for that, the consistent thing we get from the Conservative Party is that they vote against them, or they filibuster. In the meantime, Conservatives have the tenacity to suggest we are not doing enough on the housing file.

The reality is that no government in the last 60-plus years has been more proactive on the housing file than this government has been. No government has, and the numbers will clearly show—

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

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.

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

Madam Speaker, I find it hard to understand. I hear my NDP colleague boasting about the amendments obtained in Government Business No. 30 pertaining to Bill C‑56. These are amendments that are going to be made to the bill and are elements that are important to the NDP. However, the points contained in this motion could very well have been brought as amendments at committee stage.

The Bloc Québécois was calling for something important, namely financial flexibility, particularly for small businesses, with respect to the Canada emergency business account that was provided during the pandemic. A lot of businesses are asking us for this, and a lot of SMEs are telling us they need it to survive.

Why did the NDP not want to defend that?

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

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise and speak to today's motion. As will come as a surprise to nobody in this place, Canada is facing a housing crisis. It is not a recent housing crisis but, as time passes, it gets worse and worse.

My father used to offer an anecdote regularly, particularly when talking about the environmental crisis we are facing. He would talk about lily ponds. One of the features of the growth of lily pads is that they grow exponentially.

It starts with one and then, the next day, there are two and, the next day, there are four. The lesson, both for the environmental crisis, and I do not want to diminish that in any way, and also for the housing crisis and where we find ourselves in the housing crisis, is that the day before the entire pond is full of lily pads, it is only half full.

To a spectator who does not know anything about exponential rates of growth for lily pads on the lake, they might come by the lake and say, “There is a lot of lake there. There is lots of time. Certainly, the lily pads are coming in but it is not that bad. We still have half the lake.”

As I say, there is an important lesson when it comes to the environment and the climate crisis we are facing and the accelerating rate of change. It is also important to understand the housing crisis. We are now at the point where the lake is full. We do not have any more time to act. We have to start repairing the situation right away.

There is the sense of urgency. It is why, when we came back to the House after summer, we were pleased to see the government had an idea that it wanted to move forward with respect to housing, something new and tangible that New Democrats and many stakeholders have been calling for for a long time, which was to eliminate the GST on purpose-built rentals.

For our side, we wanted to see that done as part of a comprehensive housing strategy. We certainly do not agree that what the Liberals have called a national housing strategy since 2015 is that. It is clear that it is missing many components and that even the components that are there have not been effective in meeting the challenge that we face in Canada.

We were glad to see the government taking some good ideas from stakeholders and, indeed, from the NDP, saying that it is something that it wants to move forward on.

Our problem was that we knew, with respect to the changes to the Competition Act, that they were inadequate. We know this because our own leader, the member for Burnaby South, has done a lot of work on the Competition Act and proposed a suite of changes to the Competition Act right around the same time.

We wanted to see the changes proposed to the Competition Act and Bill C-56 take the stronger tone that our leader has taken. Our leader does not shy away from taking that tone when it comes to talking back to corporate Canada and letting it know that we see the role of government as requiring it to do right by Canadians, not exploiting its market position to gouge Canadians.

That is something we are not shy about and we believe the government should not be shy about it. It is why we run to form a government that is not shy about taking corporate greed to task.

In the meantime, we want to get as much done in that regard as we can, working with the Parliament that Canadians elected.

There was work to do on strengthening the Competition Act provision. When it came to housing, we wanted to see a more comprehensive strategy and more initiatives, particularly to focus on building more non-market units in Canada.

No matter how many market units are created, there are going to be a lot of people who cannot afford or cannot access those market units. When we build non-market units, whether that is in co-op housing or whether that is social housing, where rent is geared to income, or whether it is investing in projects alongside the private market, to ensure that there are at least some suites that have a below-market value, whatever the combination of those things is, we know that this also helps relieve pressure on the housing market.

There are people who are sacrificing their prescription drugs and food in order to pay market rent. When they get an option to be able to rent a home that meets the needs of their family and allows them to have money left over for essentials like food and medicine, that frees up market units for those who can afford them but may, nevertheless, be struggling to access them.

One glaring oversight in Bill C-56 was that it excluded, without any good reason, co-operative housing from getting a break on the GST for purpose-built rentals. That was something we definitely needed to fix, and we have received a commitment from the government to fix it at committee, along with some changes to strengthen the Competition Act.

All we have to do is look at the latest case of the Rogers-Shaw merger to know how frustrating it is for our Competition Bureau to do its job. It could not compel evidence from Rogers or Shaw, which would change here, as the Competition Bureau would be empowered to require certain kinds of evidence from the folks they are investigating. This would also mean that when the commissioner of competition believes a market study is required, the bureau would be able to embark upon it on its own initiative, something we think is very important. We also argued for tougher fines for companies that break the rules, and tougher fines not just generally but also for recidivist corporations that do not learn the lesson the first time. Those penalties would increase to deter companies from continuing to do things they know full well they should not be doing. The government has agreed to this suite of changes, and we will continue to press.

Another thing we think ought to have been included here in respect of the GST exemption were projects that had already received a commitment of some kind of funding through the various programs of the national housing strategy. We know that not enough projects are getting funded under that strategy as it is, but some of the ones that have been funded have been put on hold. Why? It is because of rising interest rates. That means for a project to proceed, people have to find more money. They either have to do that through private fundraising, which is very challenging to do at the best of times, or have to increase the amount from government grants in a project. They could benefit from the GST exemption as well, and we do not think they should be excluded just because a project started before September 14 of this year.

We think extending the GST rebate to non-profit housing projects that the government has already agreed to fund to make projects work, after a year of punishing interest rate increases, is a small thing the government can do to ensure that people out there in our communities, who are already doing great work to build housing that Canadians can afford, do not have work stymied by rising interest rates and can see something in their budget that makes it work. Removing the GST is the simplest way to do that.

The government will collect no GST from these projects if they do not move forward, because the business case is being ruined by rising interest rates. We think waiving the GST for projects that are otherwise not going ahead is a very low-cost way to ensure that the government delivers on promises it has already made by allocating funding to the projects that have stopped because of circumstances beyond their control. That is not a fight we are prepared to give up on. It is something we think should be happening, and we are going to continue to argue for it.

However, we are not insensitive to the fact that a lot of folks have announced that they want to move forward with new purpose-built rentals as a result of the GST rebate the government is offering in Bill C-56. We know that we are already well past the time to contemplate how to act. We know this is a demand that stakeholders in the housing industry, whether they advocate for market-based housing or non-market-based housing, have talked about as a way to pencil out projects, so it is something we need to move forward with.

There was an opportunity to move forward quicker if debate on the bill had collapsed, but of course it is not collapsing because no debate on bills is collapsing in this place. The official opposition sees to that daily, whether it is by moving motions to take time away from dealing with government business or by putting up speakers ad infinitum. It ensures that we need some kind of time allocation or closure just to get to the point of having a vote on a bill.

When we are talking about a crisis that is in full swing and the need to build more market housing and non-market housing, New Democrats are prepared to work with the government to move the bill through far more quickly than it has been. We will use the opportunity here to improve the bill, as we believe it is our duty to do.

We would go further if we could, but there is only so far we can go with the Liberal government, apparently. However, we are willing to test how far we can go every day of the week and are going to keep fighting for the things we think are very important, including fighting for new announcements in the fall economic statement around housing that make more funding available for organizations that want to pursue non-market housing, and offering financing on better terms for those who want to build more rental housing in the market but are struggling to make projects work from a financial point of view because of rising interest rates.

That is a bit about why we think Bill C-56 is important, how New Democrats have worked hard in this place over the last couple of months to improve the bill, what we are going to continue to fight for and why we think, now that we have reached some agreement on improving the bill, it is important to move it forward. The contractors out there waiting to pick up the shovel and put it in the ground need the deal done on the GST and want to see it move ahead. We think it is important that it move ahead. We think it is important those units come to market and Canadians have the opportunity to rent them. We want to see them come to market in sufficient volume so there is a lowering of their price.

We know that is going to take time, but delay will not help. We have been delaying already for too long, certainly for eight years under the current government, which is after 10 years of delay and no meaningful action in the housing market from the previous government, and even longer before then, going back to the mid-nineties, when the national housing strategy was cancelled and we saw the federal government completely walk away from building social housing units in Canada. That is when the first lily pad started hitting the pond, so to speak, and it has taken us 30 years to see the pond fill, with really no more time to wait to enact important solutions.

Is there more the government can do? Absolutely. We want to see it get rid of the special tax treatment that real estate investment trusts enjoy. We want to see it take action to make sure that non-profits with experience and a great track record of delivering non-market housing in our communities have access to capital so that when buildings with low rents come on the market, they have an opportunity to bid on those buildings and have the money to close a deal successfully to make that happen. The term of art for that is a non-profit acquisition fund. It is a fancy term, but all it means is making sure the non-profit housing providers in our communities, which are already doing a great job, have the opportunity to run low-rent apartment blocks when the current owners do not want to do it anymore, instead of having a corporate landlord come in, superficially renovate the building, kick everyone else out and invite tenants with higher incomes to rent suites that were formerly homes for Canadians who cannot afford luxury rent prices.

Those are some of the things we think the government ought to be doing. We are not going to get them all done in one bill, but we managed to improve what is in this bill, and we think it should hurry along so we can bring more units to market.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Madam Speaker, today we are seeing another phenomenon that keeps happening fairly regularly. We can no longer call it a phenomenon really. I would say it has become routine: another Liberal time allocation motion supported by the New Democratic Party. As we know, imposing time allocation is very democratic. I invite them to consider changing the name of their party.

Bill C‑56 was supposed to be the magic solution to the cost of living crisis we are dealing with. That is what the government said. The government introduced this bill two months ago and failed to convince the opposition parties to adopt it quickly. That must be because the bill is not that good.

I would like my colleague's opinion on the fact that the government, who claims to have a miracle bill to address the housing crisis and the cost of living crisis, is telling us that it needs time allocation and two months to be able to take action.

[Sylvie Bérubé, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Madam Speaker, let me begin by saying hello to the people of Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou and paying my respects to the Cree nation following the death of Charly Washipabano, who was a member of Hockey Abitibi‑Témiscamingue's board of directors and a program coordinator with the Eeyou Istchee Sports and Recreation Association.

I am rising in connection with the debate on Government Business No. 30, which seeks to impose a gag order and make amendments to Bill C‑56. This bill, which aims to eliminate the GST on the construction of rental housing and amend the Competition Act, was introduced in the House in September by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance.

The government's motion authorizes the Standing Committee on Finance to expand the scope of the bill in order to amend it in three ways.

The first amendment would increase the penalty amounts. This increase is right out of Bill C-352, which amends the Competition Act and contains several elements that would become obsolete with the passing of Bill C‑56. The motion proposes to “increase the maximum fixed penalty amounts for abuse of dominance to $25 million in the first instance, and $35 million for subsequent orders, for situations where this amount is higher than three times the value of the benefit derived (or the alternative variable maximum)”. In the case of a large company, the maximum penalty could be even higher, up to three times the value of the benefit derived from the practice.

The second and third amendments deal with abuse of a dominant position and the Competition Bureau's powers of inquiry when conducting market studies. As currently worded, the amendments being submitted to the committee have no real effect. The goal is to “allow the Competition Bureau to conduct market study inquiries if it is either directed by the Minister responsible for the Act or recommended by the Commissioner of Competition, and require consultation between the two officials prior to the study being commenced”.

The Competition Bureau has significant powers. It can compel witnesses to appear, demand documents and request searches if necessary. However, these powers are available to the bureau only when it is investigating a clear infringement following a formal disclosure. The investigation then becomes quasi-criminal. However, when the bureau is conducting a study to determine whether competition is working properly in a given field or market, it has no such powers. For example, in its report on the state of competition in the grocery sector, published in June 2023, the bureau noted that the grocery chains did not really co-operate with its study. They refused to hand over the documents it had requested and refused to answer some of its questions.

Government Business No. 30 includes a proposed technical amendment to the way the Competition Bureau can conduct a market study, although it does not change much from current practice.

The third amendment will “revise the legal test for abuse of a dominant position prohibition order to be sufficiently met if the Tribunal finds that a dominant player has engaged in either a practice of anti-competitive acts or conduct other than superior competitive performance that had, is having or is likely to have the effect of preventing or lessening competition substantially in a relevant market”.

Everyone knows that there is a serious housing crisis in Quebec and across Canada. We often hear about rising prices and housing shortages in major urban centres, in big cities, but it is also an issue in rural regions and smaller towns. The housing crisis is in its 18th straight year, and its impact is being felt more and more in the towns, villages and communities of Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou. In Val‑d'Or, for example, the vacancy rate is now around 1.4%, adding pressure to the average cost of rent, which has jumped by 5.4%.

The housing shortage, combined with higher rent, is directly impacting the most vulnerable, by which I mean people living alone, single-parent families, women, young people, seniors, first nations and Inuit people, immigrant families, and persons with disabilities. Unfortunately, some of these people often end up having to stay in shelters longer or live in apartments that do not meet their needs, and that is unacceptable. We also need to consider the growing number of people left homeless by this crisis. It is important to find real solutions to this problem. The ongoing housing crisis is adding to the already pressing needs, and the homelessness problem is only getting worse.

The social housing stock is also aging. The government needs to upgrade and renovate it as quickly as possible, while ensuring that rent remains completely affordable for the low-income families living there now or in the future.

The government's national housing strategy, which was launched in 2017, falls far short. The funding allocated for social housing, both to maintain existing units and to build new ones, is not enough to meet the needs of all the nations.

When it comes to housing, there is nothing to indicate that Government Business No. 30 will add any value to Bill C-56 in terms of lowering rents.

It would be surprising if a property owner decided to lower rents just because they did not have to pay GST on the new building they bought. What is more, it is important to remember that the cost of higher mortgage payments will likely be passed on to renters.

I understand the minister's intention in moving this motion, but the measure to provide a GST rebate on the cost of labour and materials will apply to future rental properties, regardless of the market value and rental prices.

I represent Nunavik, where residents experience the impact of the housing shortage in many persistent ways. In Nunavik, 47% of Inuit live in overcrowded housing, compared to 7% for Quebec as a whole. This means their situation is seven times worse. The housing problem in the Far North is nothing new. Nunavik has been short on housing since the 1990s, when Ottawa stopped funding housing construction for five years. We have never caught up since, and now that has to change.

We have a moral responsibility, from one nation to another, to ensure that Inuit communities have decent housing. Housing is definitely one of the most important social issues in Nunavik. It is not uncommon for five, six, seven, eight or even more people to live together in a two-bedroom dwelling. If one of these people has social problems, the entire family is affected. The situation is far from ideal for raising children and supporting their education.

There can be up to three generations living in one house without much privacy. This has numerous consequences for their quality of life. Some 98% of Nunavik's Inuit residents live in social housing provided by the Kativik Municipal Housing Bureau. Approximately 1,000 families are hoping for housing, yet only about 100 units are built each year. Construction costs are astronomical, at least three times higher than in southern Quebec. Materials arrive by boat, and it is difficult to build more than 100 homes a year. Even at that rate, we cannot keep up with population growth.

It is important to note that, in my community, the housing shortage is also affecting the economy. Large mining and forestry companies would like to bring workers to the region. However, they hit a brick wall when it comes to housing. Companies have no choice but to reserve homes and rent housing for fly-in, fly-out workers, which reduces housing availability for the rest of the population.

As the families, children and social development critic, I feel it is important to address the impact that the housing shortage is having on families and children.

In its eighth report on housing and poverty in Quebec, the social housing group Front d'action populaire en réaménagement urbain states that three out of five renter families have had to cut back on activities, clothing and even groceries in order to pay their rent. According to the same report, no less than 30% of parents with children aged five and under live in a home that does not meet their needs, often in terms of space, because of the lack of housing in their price range.

What is the government waiting for? Why does it not take action now? The situation is urgent.

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am sorry, but I did not understand my colleague's question. I was not listening to the interpretation and it was hard to hear him. I will just mention something that I meant to address in my speech on Government Business No. 30 concerning Bill C-56.

We spoke about supply and demand, but the problem is that when it comes to the housing crisis, the government never talks about demand. It always talks about increasing the supply. Increasing the housing supply will take a long time, but the demand may increase rapidly as a result of the actions the government is taking.

The government is talking out of both sides of its mouth. It wants to increase the demand by significantly increasing the number of people coming to Canada from abroad, but it cannot claim that adding more people will cost less money. If more people are added to a saturated market, then that is going to create more pressure. The government needs to take that into account.

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to begin my speech by saying that I will be sharing my time with the member for Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou. That is a rather long riding name. Many riding names are quite long. Mine certainly is, and so is hers.

Today we are debating Government Business No. 30. It is a government motion to shorten the debates on Bill C‑56, which seeks to implement a rebate of the GST on the construction of residential rental properties. The bill also seeks to give the Competition Bureau more power to conduct an inquiry. Notably, it could force the procurement of documents, which was not previously the case.

Unfortunately, we are debating government business instead of the bill because the government decided to impose closure yet again. We are faced with another gag order. Sadly, the current government seems to want to govern by gag order. It is one gag order after another. Obviously, the government will argue that it was meant to stop the Conservatives' filibustering. I am not saying that the Conservatives never filibuster, but we get a sense that this procedural device is being abused.

In the current case, we in the Bloc Québécois were open to speeding up debate. The government said that doing so might help build housing faster. It said that the measures in Bill C‑56 to strengthen the Competition Bureau's powers could make a difference. We were sensitive to all these things. We are very open to studying Bill C‑56, but we had other concerns too.

One of our concerns, and we have been repeating this for weeks, has to do with the emergency business account that was launched during the pandemic. It was meant to support small businesses by offering them a $40,000 loan. Twenty-five percent of that amount, or $10,000, was forgiven if the loans were paid back within three years. The problem was that, following the pandemic, there was a supply crisis and an inflation crisis, not to mention the fact that interest rates have gone up considerably. The economy is struggling even more now. Those businesses were already struggling during the pandemic, because many of them could no longer operate for health reasons. We must stand together as a society, which is why that program was put in place at the time, and we agreed on it.

However, the government did say that these businesses would have to pay back their loans. We agree that businesses should pay them back. A loan is meant to be repaid at some point, but it is important not to put Quebec businesses at risk. We have to use our brains a little and be somewhat flexible in how we do things.

I mention this while we are debating Government Business No. 30 regarding Bill C‑56, because we told the government that it should be giving Quebec businesses more flexibility. In return, we would have been prepared to fast-track the passage of Bill C‑56. Unfortunately, the government did not listen to the Bloc Québécois. It decided to let Quebec businesses fail. It will continue to leave them in jeopardy, even though people from my riding talk to me about this every week. When I am out and about in my riding, people tell me that things are not going well, that their sales are lower than expected, that things did not return to normal like they thought they would and that money does not grow on trees.

Unfortunately, the government has not been sensitive to that. We have been asking questions in the House about this for weeks. Members on the other side have responded by saying that they extended the deadline, but they extended the deadline by only 18 days.

I doubt that 18 days is enough time for a small or medium-sized business to rake in $40,000 in profit. There is no way. Unfortunately, that is what we are looking at with the Liberals.

Instead, the government decided to turn to the NDP. As we all know, the NDP can be bought quite easily. They give the government everything it wants. Unfortunately, we are stuck with the reality that Quebec businesses are going to pay because of the Liberals and the NDP.

The Bloc Québécois will continue to push for our companies to have more flexibility in repaying the Canada emergency business account so that, come January 18, the banks are not waiting for them. I can just picture them, big smiles on their faces, telling companies that they can get their $10,000 back by simply taking out a high-interest loan. Considering the significant jump in interest rates, we know full well that there are plenty of companies that will not make it through.

To come back more specifically to Bill C‑56, earlier I talked about getting rid of the tax on new rental housing construction. The government claims this is going to fix the housing crisis. Maybe not exactly, but it claims that it will make a big difference.

The Bloc Québécois has a few concerns. Will this make a difference? It may make a difference in making some projects more profitable than they were as a result of interest rate increases. It may help, but we would have liked to see a study done on this. Did the government do a study on the impact that this bill might have on the price of housing and on its availability? No, it pulled this bill out of its hat. Since we are in a housing crisis, it decided to make a quick announcement and that is what it did.

This will likely have a positive impact on housing construction, but we do not really know because we have no baseline data to confirm the result.

I have another point. In a supply and demand market, there is typically a going price for housing. Right now, that price is very high. Homes are being sold at a high price, but unfortunately, some people would benefit from lower prices. I say unfortunately, but that might be an exaggeration. What I mean is that this could have an unfortunate impact. There is absolutely no guarantee that this much-touted 5% cut to the GST on new housing construction will impact social or affordable housing. In fact, there is zero chance that it would be used for social housing because that type of housing does not qualify.

For example, if a city decides to build social housing, it is already exempt. The proposed measure will not work. The same thing applies to co-ops or non-profit organizations. There is already a type of exemption in place. This will not benefit them. Therefore, it will not result in social housing or low-cost housing. On the other hand, it will certainly help the construction of expensive housing.

The government says that it may take care of the specifics through regulations. We look forward to seeing those, but there is no guarantee. We have no guarantee that the exemptions that will be granted will be used to build reasonably priced new housing. They could be used to build units that rent for $3,000, $4,000 or $5,000 a month. I cannot even say $2,000 a month anymore because that is practically considered affordable housing nowadays. Unfortunately, the government thinks that it is going to fix the housing crisis, but this bill is no silver bullet. I find that unfortunate.

I also want to talk about the Competition Bureau. Not so long ago, the minister said in the House that he would fix the problem. He said that he had spoken with the grocers and that there would not be an issue anymore, that grocery prices would drop. The week after, he said that he had checked the flyers and seen some great discounts. He claimed to have fixed the inflation crisis by checking the flyers one week and speaking with grocery CEOs. He should have spoken with families instead. The inflation crisis is not over.

Some elements of this bill will give the Competition Bureau more oversight over large companies. This change will not necessarily happen overnight, however.

The same goes for this much-vaunted 5% rebate. It is not going to solve the problem in the short term. The effects of this measure will be felt more in the very long term. We therefore expect—

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise to speak to the types of things the government can do to support Canadians in all regions of the country. We are witnessing that Bill C-56 is a substantial piece of legislation with an intent to support Canadians.

Unfortunately, as my colleague has pointed out, the Conservative Party has chosen, once again, to use this legislation as a way to slow down the process of proceeding and prevent the government, wherever it can, to allow legislation from ultimately passing. I will hold my breath in the hope that the Conservatives will wake up and understand the reality Canadians are facing.

We often talk about the issue of inflation. There is no doubt that inflation is hurting people. Yes, it has improved. If we look at the bigger picture and compare Canada to the United States, France, the G7 or even the G20 countries, we are doing relatively well regarding our inflation rate on a worldwide basis. Since June of 2022, we have had an inflation rate of just over 8%. If we look at the last number of months, we have made significant gains in bringing down that inflation rate. We are focused on doing that because we recognize the harm it causes to our economy and, most importantly, to Canadians. That is one of the reasons we have been very targeted, whether with legislation or budgetary measures, to give those breaks to Canadians. We want a government and an economy that works for all people.

Unlike the Conservative Party, we believe in Canada's middle class and those aspiring to be a part of it. We understand and appreciate the importance of lifting people out of poverty. We have demonstrated that with hundreds of thousands of children and seniors. We recognize the harm it does. That is why I look forward to the fall economic statement that will be coming out tomorrow from the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, who has been out in the communities to get a better understanding and a better sense of the types of actions we can take as a national government to provide relief wherever we can to support Canadians.

The fall economic statement we will see tomorrow will be a reflection of what we have been hearing, whether from individual members of Parliament bringing back their concerns to Ottawa or the consultation work that the different ministers, in particular the Minister of Finance, have been doing. We are doing this because we understand the pressures that are on Canadian families. It is the reason why we have developed programs of a national nature, such as the affordable $10-a-day child care. It is the reason why we have brought in programs such as the grocery rebate program.

When we think of Bill C-56, we should think of two aspects: housing and groceries. Fighting to stabilize the price of groceries is important to the government. We often hear about how we need to improve the Competition Act. Bill C-56 is an attempt to not only improve it today, but also to continue to look at ways we could modernize it.

One of the significant improvements we are seeing today in this legislation is the use of the efficiency argument so that the Competition Bureau does not have to listen to companies saying that, for efficiency purposes, they need to buy up a company. If members think about it, at one time we had six major grocery suppliers, and we are now down to five. Why are we down to five? It is because, when Stephen Harper was prime minister and the leader of the Conservative Party sat around that cabinet, Shoppers was bought out for billions of dollars, so we went from six to five.

Even today, we hear Conservatives say that the way to ensure lower prices is to ensure that there is more competition. This legislation would go a long way in getting rid of the efficiency argument, so we would be better able to ensure there would be more competition.

I would like to think that most people in the chamber would recognize that as a positive thing. It is one of the reasons we should not have to wait endlessly and accept the ongoing filibustering of the Conservative Party. If they are serious about the cost of groceries, and if they are serious about wanting to stabilize grocery prices, Conservatives should be supporting the amendments to the Competition Act that are being brought forward, amendments that would enhance the Competition Bureau's ability to protect the interests of Canadians and of consumers. Actions speak louder than words. We look to the Conservative Party to start taking action.

On the other part of the legislation, we often hear Conservatives talk about the issue of housing. We often hear them raise the issue. However, when it comes to taking action, again, they sit on their backside and do nothing but filibuster. This legislation is good, sound, solid legislation. The proof is in the pudding. Let us think about it. The federal government, through this legislation, is saying that for purpose-built rentals, there would be no GST.

It is a sound idea. I can say that because we have provincial entities in Canada today that are copying what Ottawa is doing, but with the PST. In part, we need to recognize that, when it comes to the issue of housing, it is not just the federal Government of Canada that has to deal with the issue. The federal Government of Canada has a role to play. No government in the last 30, 40 or 50 years has played a stronger role in housing than the Prime Minister and this Liberal government. No government has.

If we are talking about a disaster, we could look at the previous Harper government and the lack of attention the Harper government gave to housing. We could contrast that to today's government, which has brought in a national housing strategy, the first of its kind, with billions of dollars of investments.

We could talk about what the government has done to support housing co-ops and other non-profit organizations in building non-profit housing, as well as our investment in tens of thousands of housing units. When I say “tens of thousands”, it is well over 150,000, so it is a bit of a guesstimate. I would say it is probably closer to 250,000 units the federal government continues to support, based on income, at least in good part, by working with provinces.

We talk about the housing crisis, and the Liberal government's approach is to work with the stakeholders and with provinces and municipalities. The Conservative approach is to hit them with a stick. The Liberal government plays an important role, which I believe we have been fulfilling, not only with legislation but also from a budgetary perspective. We are actually materializing and demonstrating that leadership.

However, cities also need to play a role with things such as zoning. Provinces also have to play a role. We are working with other jurisdictions. We have brought in programs through the housing accelerator program that ensure there is a higher sense of co-operation on the housing file.

I can assure the House that our government, whether it is the Prime Minister, cabinet ministers or the Liberal caucus as a whole, will continue to deal with the issues of inflation, the price of groceries and affordable homes the best way we can. As a government, we are concerned and care about Canadians and their well-being. That is why we work every day to try to make a difference, working with different levels of government at the same time.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am glad I could help bring the House together on that potentially controversial point about the member for Winnipeg North.

The Conservative member who just spoke was concerned that we are not addressing the housing crisis. I have great news for the member and for the House. We are debating this motion on Bill C-56, the affordable housing and groceries act. I am sure he will be thrilled to vote in favour of it.

After months of Conservative filibuster and delay and over 20 hours of debate over five days, it is clear that the Conservatives have no intention of allowing Bill C-56 to get to a vote. During question period, for 45 minutes of the day, the Conservatives pretend to care about affordability issues for Canadians, but when the rubber meets the road, they are nowhere to be found. They delay, delay, delay.

It was surprising to hear the member who spoke just before me say the Liberals are not prioritizing this. He does not look back to this own members and his own leader to ask why they are not getting Bill C-56 through fast enough to help provide relief to Canadians. This is despite the fact that many of his own members support Bill C-56, such as the Conservative member for Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, who more than a month ago committed in this House to voting in favour of the bill. Here is what he said on October 5: “I will be joining my Conservatives colleagues in voting to move this bill forward to committee”. That was 46 days ago.

Given all this, I look forward to hearing what is going to be said today. Before my Conservative colleagues rise, I would like to remind them of what this bill does, because I think some of them may have forgotten.

We know that the rising cost of groceries and lack of affordable housing are affecting families across the country. I am pleased to discuss some of the ways we are addressing these important issues through the measures outlined in Bill C-56.

We know that for too many Canadians, including young people and new Canadians, the dream of owning a home is increasingly out of reach and paying rent has become more expensive across the country. The housing crisis has an impact on our economy. Without more homes in our communities, it is difficult for businesses to attract the workers they need to grow and succeed. When people spend more of their income on housing, it means less money is being spent in our communities for necessities like groceries.

Bill C-56 would enhance the goods and services tax rental rebate on new purpose-built rental housing to encourage the construction of more rental homes, including apartment buildings, student housing and senior residences across Canada. The enhanced rebate would apply to projects that began construction on or after September 14, 2023, and on or before December 31, 2030, and that complete construction before 2036. For a two-bedroom rental unit that is valued at $500,000, the enhanced GST rental rebate would deliver $25,000 in tax relief. This is another tool to help create the necessary conditions to build the types of housing we need for families to live in.

The measure would also remove restrictions in existing GST rules to ensure that public service bodies, such as universities, public colleges, hospitals, charities and qualifying non-profits, that build or purchase purpose-built rental housing are permitted to claim the 100% enhanced GST rental rebate. The government is also calling on provinces that currently apply the provincial sales tax or the provincial portion of the harmonized sales tax to rental housing to join us by matching the rebate for new rental housing.

We are also requesting that local governments put an end to exclusionary zoning and encourage building apartments near public transit in order to have their housing accelerator fund applications approved. Launched in March 2023, the housing accelerator fund is a $4-billion initiative designed to help cities, towns and indigenous governments unlock new housing supply, with about 100,000 units total, by speeding up development and approvals through fixing out of date permitting systems, introducing zoning reforms to build more density and incentivizing development close to public transit. Every community across Canada needs to build more homes faster so we can reduce the cost of housing for everyone.

We also need to stabilize the cost of groceries in Canada. With the one-time grocery rebate in July, we delivered targeted inflation relief for 11 million low- and modest-income Canadians and families who needed it the most, with up to an extra $467 for eligible couples with two children and up to an extra $234 for single Canadians without children, including single seniors. This support was welcomed by Canadians, but we knew more needed to be done to address the cost of groceries.

This is why we are taking immediate steps to enhance competition across the Canadian economy, with a focus on the grocery sector, to help stabilize costs for middle-class Canadians. Through Bill C-56, the government is introducing a first set of legislative amendments to the Competition Act to provide the Competition Bureau with the powers to compel the production of information to conduct effective and complete market studies; remove the efficiencies defence, which currently allows anti-competitive mergers to survive challenges if corporate efficiencies offset the harm to competition, even when Canadian consumers would pay a higher price and have fewer choices; and empower the bureau to take action against collaborations that stifle competition and consumer choice, in particular in situations where large grocers prevent smaller competitors from establishing operations nearby.

Bill C-56 builds on other measures that have been introduced to make life more affordable for Canadians, including delivering automatic advance payments of the Canada workers benefit, starting in July 2023, to provide up to $1,518 for eligible single workers and $2,616 for an eligible family, split between three advance payments and a final payment after filing their 2023 tax return; supporting about 3.5 million families annually through the tax-free Canada child benefit, with families this year receiving up to $7,437 per child up to the age of six and up to $6,275 per child aged six through 17; and reducing fees for regulated child care by 50% on average, delivering regulated child care that costs an average of just $10 a day by 2026, with six provinces and territories reducing child care fees to $10 a day or less by April 2, and strengthening the child care system in Quebec with more child care spaces.

This government is taking action, and again, more often than not it is the Conservatives voting against, holding things up and delaying committees with filibuster after filibuster. It is shocking to see, especially because it is blatant hypocrisy. I am sure we will hear speeches about how important it is to provide relief to Canadians, but when will members opposite speak to the Leader of the Opposition and their House leader to say that we need to get this legislation through?

I will not hold my breath that they are going to do that. We have been seeing for a lengthy period of time delay after delay. When will the actions of the Conservative Party match the rhetoric that occurs during question period? Granted, its members love a good slogan, but let us take a look at their voting record. All of the things I mentioned, they have either held up or voted against. They do not care. They only care about chaos in this place. It is unfortunate, because I believe some of them truly do care about their constituents and want to see these benefits flow to them.

Some have said they are going to vote in favour of this legislation, but they remain silent when their leader holds it up in this place. This legislation has been debated quite a bit. The filibuster needs to end. It is time to move forward.

The new proposed housing and grocery support I outlined today would make it easier for Canadians to build more homes and would help them thrive. It would help families with the growing cost of putting food on their table. The passage of Bill C-56 would help us provide a brighter future for Canadians.

Business of the House

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as we all return to our respective ridings to mark Remembrance Day and honour the men and women who proudly fought and died to defend our country, I have a few questions for the government House leader about the work that awaits us.

I especially hope that she will have an answer for the member for Saint-Maurice—Champlain, who asked us forcefully and adamantly during question period today precisely when Bill C‑56 would finally be passed. I refer the question back to the government House leader since this bill has not been called in the House since October 5. Can the government House leader tell us when she intends to call Bill C‑56?

It will certainly not be tomorrow or next week, since the House will not be sitting. Could she tell us what business awaits us when we return from our constituency week?