Madam Speaker, I will share my time with my esteemed, and I hope estimable, friend and colleague from Beauport‑Limoilou.
I am pleased to rise in the House today to speak to Bill C-8, an act to implement certain provisions of the economic and fiscal update tabled in Parliament on December 14, 2021 and other measures. That is its actual title, but since it is a little long, we will simply refer to it as the economic update.
I would like to talk to you today about an extremely serious problem in my riding of Saint‑Hyacinthe-Bagot and more specifically in Saint-Hyacinthe, the central city of the riding, which has a population of nearly 60,000, or about 300 inhabitants per square kilometre. Saint-Hyacinthe is well known for all kinds of good reasons that fill us with pride, including its status as the agri‑food capital of Quebec, and some would say of Canada. Unfortunately, it is also known for something a lot less positive, namely its inglorious title of the city with the lowest vacancy rate in Quebec, at 0.2%. Given that rate, it is very safe to say that there is no housing available in Saint‑Hyacinthe.
To paint a more complete picture, I think it is important to add that there has been a real problem with fires in affordable and low-rental housing units in the downtown area. When we talk to the people who live in these neighbourhoods, they tell us that there is also an issue with “renovictions”, not least because the renovations are not always actually done. Another problem is that the cost of rent increased by 16% in a year, as recorded last July. That is the perfect recipe for a very difficult social situation. We can call it a crisis, because it is one. How can our society accept this and tolerate people having to sleep outside? It is unacceptable.
Before I go on, I would like to take a moment to acknowledge the hard-working activists at Comité Logemen’mêle, a group that oversees the many organizations in Sainte-Hyacinthe that work on this issue and promote the right to housing.
The problem that Saint‑Hyacinthe and many big cities with similar vacancy rates are experiencing is the result of a long history of a federal government that has underinvested or poorly invested in social and affordable housing. It is the result of a history of gross government negligence.
In June 2021, the Front d’action populaire en réaménagement urbain, or FRAPRU, published a booklet documenting Ottawa's chronic underinvestment in housing since the 1990s. The numbers are quite staggering. If Ottawa had maintained the same level of investment as before the 1990s, today, we would have 80,000 more social housing units in Quebec. Think about that. Federal cuts have deprived thousands of families and individuals of a roof over their heads.
I would like to quote FRAPRU spokesperson Véronique Laflamme, who said, “The loss of 80,000 social housing units that could have been built in Quebec had Ottawa not withdrawn its funding has been a major contributor to the current low-rent housing shortage, and the national housing strategy put in place by the [Prime Minister]'s Liberal government does nothing to compensate for this loss”.
I have heard a number of people say that FRAPRU is a very left-wing group, but if FRAPRU does not seem credible in the eyes of certain parties and individuals in the House, let us see what Scotiabank thinks. Everyone will agree that Scotiabank is not known for being particularly left-wing or anti-capitalist. Just this past January, Scotiabank estimated that Canada had the lowest average number of housing units per 1,000 people in the G7.
To reach the G7 average, Canada would need an additional 1.8 million homes. Scotiabank also estimated that the median home price rose 50% between December 2019 and December 2021 in some parts of Canada.
As for the existing programs, many of them are aimed at the right places, but they too are victims of underfunding.
Take, for example, the Canadian rapid housing initiative, or RHI. It was used in my riding, and we were very happy. It made it possible to announce the creation of 21 affordable housing units in the city of Saint‑Hyacinthe. We were very happy. It is a good program, but the budget is far too limited and operates on a first-come, first-served basis. Furthermore, the program is not permanent. It is temporary, so people rushed to apply. Once the money ran out, there was not a penny left, and it was time to move on to something else. The money ran out in the blink of an eye.
The situation is glaringly obvious and deserves to be addressed. We were told that it would finally be addressed in the economic update. Better sooner than later, of course, but better late than never too. Many of us were watching and wondering what we were going to see. We expected that Ottawa would show some ambition in recommitting to this issue by announcing meaningful reinvestments in social, community and affordable housing.
In fact, the Bloc Québécois would like to see new investments amounting to 1% of the federal government's annual revenue on an ongoing basis rather than ad hoc agreements. We also think surplus federal properties should be repurposed for social, community and affordable housing development. To be clear, programs need to be completely overhauled as well.
The billions of dollars invested should be channelled toward co-ops, non-profits, and organizations with a thorough understanding of the issues that need to be addressed and how to do so.
That is why programs that are part of the national housing strategy, the NHS, should be reconfigured financially to create an acquisition fund that would enable co-ops and non-profits to acquire buildings currently on the market and make sure they remain affordable. We need to take control of the market out of private-sector hands.
Of course we have to make sure Quebec gets its fair share of funding, no strings attached, from federal homelessness programs, and funding that was released during the pandemic needs to be made available on a permanent basis.
That is all we were hoping for from the economic update. We have read and studied it carefully.
In the end, we have a single measure: a tax on foreign-owned vacant property. The tax on underused housing would apply to dwellings in Canada owned directly or indirectly, in whole or in part, by non-residents. This would apply to single-family homes, duplexes and triplexes, as well as semi-detached and row houses, and condominiums.
This is a good idea. We have no problem standing up and recognizing that. Its implementation would reduce real estate speculation, which is a real scourge and a real problem. International investors are looking to make a profit, not build affordable housing. They keep an eye on trends based on bubbles, looking at countries where that is happening and where they should go, as most stockholders do.
Such a tax could help prevent artificial market inflation and help free up these buildings. The fact that there are vacant dwellings in large urban centres contributes to scarcity. People need housing and are seeing all these large, empty buildings around them. It is absolutely ludicrous.
This kind of tax, however, would not solve the housing problem the way a renewed government commitment would, but a massive reinvestment could do it. The tax would also constitute interference. There is a real danger here, because with this tax, this is the first time the federal government is interfering in property taxes.
Centralization is second nature to Ottawa. I am afraid it would be fair to say that Ottawa is dealing with housing the same way it deals with health, in other words, it lets things deteriorate and then, when it decides it can no longer stand idly by, it responds by interfering.
I think people who are desperately waiting for housing deserve better.
