Bill C-20

Build Canada Homes Act

An Act respecting the establishment of Build Canada Homes

This enactment establishes Build Canada Homes as a Crown corporation. The purpose of Build Canada Homes is to promote, support and develop the supply of affordable housing in Canada and to promote innovative and efficient building techniques in the housing construction sector in Canada. The enactment, among other things,
(a) sets out the powers of Build Canada Homes and its governance framework;
(b) authorizes the Minister of Finance to make payments out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund to fund the operations and activities of Build Canada Homes; and
(c) provides that the Governor in Council may transfer to Build Canada Homes the property, rights, interests and obligations held by any Crown corporation or subsidiary of a Crown corporation and may issue directives for measures to be taken in relation to the reorganization of Canada Lands Company Limited or any of its subsidiaries.
It also includes transitional provisions, makes a consequential amendment to the Financial Administration Act and contains coordinating amendments.

Build Canada Homes Act

[Sukhman Gill, Conservative, Abbotsford—South Langley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I agree with my colleague here on this side of the House that there are many problems that the current government is bringing in front of us that it is not addressing. Yes, we do need to work together. We do need to see all stages of the policies that we need to work on to make them more efficient.

I think we would both agree that the last thing we need to do is add another layer of bureaucracy.

[Steven Bonk, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague for that great speech. I know him as someone who has a real heart for youth, the young people of this country, and he advocates for them regularly.

When we look at the housing record of the government, by every metric, the past 10 years have been a disaster. Canadians know that.

Can my colleague highlight the proud vision that the Conservatives have for housing in this country, especially when it comes to young people?

[Sukhman Gill, Conservative, Abbotsford—South Langley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, when a Conservative government was in power, many family members of mine came to this country. They were able to come here, afford a home and build a life, and they were able to succeed because they saw the Canadian vision. They saw the Canadian promise, the North American promise.

For myself today, being born in Canada, it is difficult to succeed in this current chapter, in this current year, because everything is getting more and more unaffordable. That is the same thing I hear from my peers, the same thing I hear from all the youth in my community.

The member who asked me the question is correct. We need to bring change. We need to make sure that we go back to the old ways, to the things that worked, and not add more layers of bureaucracy.

[Burton Bailey, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians need affordable housing, but pumping billions of dollars into a new corporation is just growing the bureaucracy instead of getting homes built.

With Canadians struggling in a productivity crisis of the Liberals' making, can my colleague comment on why the government is creating another government job factory instead of getting houses built?

[Sukhman Gill, Conservative, Abbotsford—South Langley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I will answer that question very simply. I am from British Columbia. The current housing minister apparently did an amazing job in Vancouver with the housing bureaucracy he created there. We do not see anything getting better currently with the Liberal government. If there is a problem, it is because of the Liberal government. If something is in the way, it is because of the Liberal government. We need to make sure that we bring change. That is what Canadians are fighting for. I urge the members across to stop supporting this bill.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Algonquin—Renfrew—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise on behalf of the renters of the spacious riding of Algonquin—Renfrew—Pembroke to speak to Bill C-20, the build bigger bureaucracy act.

To begin with, I want to assure my biggest fan across the aisle that by the end of this speech, he will see what ancient Greece, Peru's new Prime Minister and the Soviet Union, as well as Jesus Christ, have in common with the Liberals' latest building bureaucracy bill.

To properly understand this legislation, we need to look at housing history, the present circumstances and the future potential.

Let us start with the past. As has become the style in Canadian political speeches, let me begin by quoting an ancient Greek philosopher. Xenophon wrote that the household is the source of all wealth. It is fitting that we begin with a discussion on the so-called housing bill with the ancient Greek. The word “economics” comes from the Greek words oikos, meaning household, and nomos, meaning custom or management. In effect, all economics begin at home. Four hundred years later, in the great Roman Republic, Cicero said each person should retain his own property and not seize that of another. It is clear that these men believed that home ownership was the path to prosperity. Sadly, the Liberal Party has not learned this ancient wisdom, even with an economist as a leader.

Moving from the ancient world to the modern world, we reach the year 2017, the year the Liberal government introduced the national housing strategy. It was a $115-billion plan to build housing. One program under the strategy, the affordable housing fund, received $16 billion over 10 years to build 60,000 new affordable rental units. The program launched in May 2018, and in the eight years since, it has spent 85% of its budget. The program has built only 25,428 units, which means the Liberals spent 85% of the budget to reach 42% of the goal. That is a failing grade.

Another part of the national housing strategy was the affordable housing innovation fund. Phase one was a five-year plan to spend $200 million to build 14,000 housing units, created using so-called “innovative business approaches and building techniques”. The program ran from 2017 to 2021. They built 5,319 units. The goal was 14,000, which means they built 38% of the target, another failing grade.

The apartment construction loan program was a $54-billion plan to build 131,000 rental units. This was a 15-year plan, and we are at the halfway mark. So far, we have built 18,497 rental units. Even if we are being generous and we cut the goal in half, that still means the Liberals have built only 28% of the mid-goal.

At 42%, 38% and 28%, the Liberals keep failing, and it gets worse. This is the history every Canadian should have known before the last election. This is the history every Canadian should have been reminded of when this Brookfield government staged a photo op at a fake housing construction site to announce this legislation. That is history. That is the Liberals' proven track record of housing failure.

Despite this legacy of failure, the Prime Minister is doubling down on a failed strategy, which brings us to the present and the bill before us today. Bill C-20 would not fix Canada's housing crisis, because Bill C-20 is not about building houses. It is about building bureaucracy.

My biggest fan, the member for Winnipeg North, once bitterly complained about the Harper government's creativity in applying branding to the short titles for legislation. To paraphrase Denzel Washington, “King Kong ain't got nuttin” on these Liberals.

The short title for Bill C-20 is the Build Canada Homes act. The real title is “an act respecting the establishment of Build Canada Homes”. The Liberals are clearly trying to trick Canadians into thinking they are building homes for Canadians. The real title reveals that they are building a new bureaucracy they call “Build Canada Homes”.

Aside from revealing the Liberals' love of slogans and propaganda, Bill C-20 also reveals the root of the problem and the real reason Liberals keep failing over and over again. Under section 4 of the bill, the Liberals lay out the purpose: “The purpose of the Corporation is to promote, support and develop the supply of affordable housing in Canada and to promote innovative and efficient building techniques in the housing construction sector in Canada.” Now, attentive listeners might have noticed that this is the same purpose behind the failed affordable housing innovation fund I mentioned earlier.

I have quoted a Greek philosopher and a Roman politician, but on the issue of building houses, maybe we should heed the words of a Jewish carpenter's son, who said, “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” No one can serve two masters, and no bill should have two purposes. While I could not find a quote to fit, I am sure we can all agree that Jesus would look unfavourably at a policy that treats lower-income Canadians as guinea pigs for housing construction.

Is the goal of the bill to provide affordable housing, or is the goal to provide corporate welfare to home builders? It cannot do both. We know it cannot because it has not worked in the past. Two years ago, the Liberal government announced it was seeking bids from developers to build homes on federal lands, including a plot here in Ottawa on an old air base. The government would own the land and give developers 99-year leases to build rental units. This is the model used in China. The state gives developers 99-year leases. Set aside the “own nothing and be happy” vibes of this policy and look at the results. Nothing has been built. People in Ottawa can visit the site. It is empty, because the Liberal government did not ask developers to submit bids for low-cost affordable housing. They asked for bids to build high-cost, low-rent housing. These units had to exceed energy-saving standards by 25%. The four-acre lot must accommodate 495 units. The units must exceed accessibility standards. The units must also respect the heritage and legacy of the Algonquin peoples and respect the military heritage of the site.

It is not enough for the Liberals to build affordable housing. It has to be progressive housing. It has to be the type of housing our Laurentian elite think we should live in. Mixed-use apartments with no vehicle parking are the Liberals' platonic progressive ideal. The problem is that most Canadians looking to buy a house want a single-family home to call their own. They do not want a 99-year rental agreement with a government always chasing the latest left-wing fad. This ideological housing policy was popular in the Soviet Union. It had the progressive notion that by building socialist Soviet communities, it would build better socialist citizens. They would own nothing, be happy and be socialist subjects, or so the government thought.

The problem is the owning nothing part. While the Prime Minister is burning as much CO2 as he can, flying around the world to avoid Parliament, I suggest he stop in Peru to have a conversation with its new prime minister, Hernando de Soto. Prior to becoming prime minister, de Soto was an internationally acclaimed economist. His research proved how important property rights and a legal system to protect those rights were to economic development. As the Prime Minister seeks to undermine Canada's law protecting property rights to build his high-speed white whale, he should visit de Soto's writings. De Soto proved with facts and figures what Cicero knew 2,000 years ago, that owning a home is the path to prosperity.

Conservatives and Liberals can agree that everyone deserves a home. Where we differ is on who should own that home. With Bill C-20, the Liberals continue to believe that government knows best. They believe government should be the landlord of first and last resort.

It was not always this way. In 1942, the Liberal government passed the Veterans' Land Act. Here is how the government described the law at the time:

The purpose of the Veterans' Land Act is to assist veterans toward the full ownership of rural homes

Bill C-20 would do nothing to increase home ownership. All the bill would do is create new bureaucracy to duplicate the work of the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation and the Canada Lands Company. It does not matter how many new bureaucracies the Liberals build; the Liberal record is clear. Over $1 billion was spent in the last eight years, and not a single program has even reached a passing grade after eight years of that 10-year plan. Liberals continue to fail the housing test, but Canadians pay the price.

Only Conservatives can be trusted to get the government out of the way so Canadians can build the homes they need and the homes they want.

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

Mr. Speaker, I must say that I always enjoy listening to the member opposite. I know she puts a great deal of effort into her speeches, and I suspect there are many Conservatives in the back room who take note of what she says so they can add it to the Conservative spin they put out on a daily basis.

Let us get down to the very root of the difference. I remember when I was the housing critic in Manitoba back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and there were 20,000 non-profit housing units, many houses built by government, with co-operation. That would not have happened if there had not been a federal government presence in the housing area.

We have a Prime Minister who has recognized the importance of affordable housing, including issues such as disabilities, seniors and so forth. Would the member opposite not agree that maybe, in certain situations, there is a role for government to play in housing?

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Algonquin—Renfrew—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I look forward to the day when the member opposite is once again the housing critic.

[Steven Bonk, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is always full of good quotes. I would just like to maybe tell her about a quote from Aristotle, who said a stable society begins with stable homes. We have seen that the Liberal government has done everything in its power to destabilize the housing market in the last 10 years.

I was wondering if she could maybe highlight some of the Conservatives' vision for how housing should and could be in this country.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Algonquin—Renfrew—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, Conservatives want government to get out of the way. Development fees form a big chunk of what the cost of a house is. We need to control spending so that interest rates do not keep on going up and up. Builders tell me that they are not building on spec anymore. They are tired of ending up being landlords. What they want to see is interest rates go down and the cost cut by cutting the development fees, so individual families themselves can make down payments and afford a mortgage to own the home themselves.

[Mario Beaulieu, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we know that the Conservatives would not want to create such a centralist bureaucratic structure. Here is my question. Would they respect the fact that housing falls under the jurisdiction of Quebec and the provinces?

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Algonquin—Renfrew—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, housing per se does come under provincial jurisdiction, specifically municipal legislation, and Conservatives respect this position.

[Carol Anstey, Conservative, Long Range Mountains, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I always enjoy listening to my hon. colleague talk. At the very opening of her speech, she talked about a very important economic concept, that of home ownership. We agree that home ownership creates a foundation for long-term stability and growth, especially for the next generation.

I am just wondering if she would like to expand on that, specifically about what the implication might be for the next generation if we do not get serious about addressing home ownership in this country.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Algonquin—Renfrew—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member is bang on. The Liberals just keep on talking about housing. We are talking about building homes. When renters have to stay being renters and cannot set aside enough for a down payment because the rent keeps on going up, that means at the end of the day they are going to have smaller families, and their families are not going to be able to have the foundation because they are paying rent too. They will never get the amount of money to set aside and buy a home themselves, because the prices keep on going up. This affects the whole economy. A good economy begins with home ownership, and the Liberals are bereft of that.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I asked earlier to another hon. colleague on the Conservative benches if there was not an improvement in seeing if, now that we have Bill C-20's approach, we actually are no longer describing Build Canada Homes as a special operating agency and there may be more transparency—