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

[Jennifer McKelvie, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Housing and Infrastructure]

Madam Speaker, I am wondering if the member could speak to the importance of partnership. Dunn House is a beautiful example of partnership, with different governments and agencies coming together. We heard comments earlier from the opposition that talked about overriding the rights and responsibilities of municipalities.

I am wondering if the member can speak to the importance of partnership.

[Karim Bardeesy, Liberal, Taiaiako'n—Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her excellent work in setting up the partnership that we have with the City of Toronto. Because we had Dunn House, the second edition of Dunn House, which had Build Canada Homes funding announced in our community just nine months after the election, has been able to attract provincial government funding for the health care supports we need.

A last piece of partnership that is really important, which we sometimes take a bit for granted, is the partnership of the community, of the neighbours. We build housing in a context of neighbourhoods, histories and people who have different connections to the neighbourhood, sometimes long-established and sometimes as newcomers. The community came together with the residents of Dunn House and its partners, the University Health Network, Fred Victor Centre, West Neighbourhood House, United Way and others, which is the kind of thing that allows this housing to successfully land in communities. It is really the partnership of those institutions and neighbours working together with health care workers and residents that makes these institutions and these housing opportunities possible.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague said that if we want to see how it is working, we should go to his riding. I would like him to come to my riding of Winnipeg Centre on Selkirk Avenue, ground zero for missing and murdered indigenous women, girls and 2SLGBTQQIA+ people, where we are trying to get support for the North End Women's Centre. Funding this would save lives. The Liberal government has not committed to funding this. What does it mean? It means it will continue to be ground zero, where indigenous women will continue to go missing and be murdered.

I am wondering if my hon. colleague can tell me if he is really serious about his housing plan, if the Liberals will do anything to change the fact that their government put zero dollars toward addressing the ongoing genocide of indigenous women and girls, and if they will get serious and fund the North End Women's Centre.

[Karim Bardeesy, Liberal, Taiaiako'n—Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Madam Speaker, I know the Winnipeg members on this side of the House are very active in their support of projects, especially housing projects in Winnipeg. The next time I am in the area, I would be delighted to have a conversation with my colleague and the Winnipeg MPs on this side of the aisle about some of the needs that exist.

I know that in my riding of Taiaiako'n—Parkdale—High Park, in particular, in the Parkdale neighbourhood, the kinds of needs that the hon. member mentioned are being attended to, in part, through the housing projects I described.

[Jonathan Rowe, Conservative, Terra Nova—The Peninsulas, NL]

Madam Speaker, I have been here for almost nine months now, and this is at least the third time I have risen in the chamber to speak about housing.

I cannot believe how much hot air the Liberals put up in this place. It is almost enough to launch the Remax hot air balloon, yet availability and affordability of housing are going down across the country. The talking points are endless. The press conferences are polished. The announcements are flashy movie sets that are quickly deconstructed afterwards.

Back home in Newfoundland and Labrador, the tents are real, the wait-lists are real and homelessness is real. Hundreds of men, women and even children are experiencing homelessness in my province. Hundreds of youth are on the waiting list for emergency shelters, and the emergency shelters are full. That is not just a statistic. That is a failure, and that failure belongs to this government. After eight years, after billions announced, after strategy upon strategy, housing is less affordable, less attainable and less available than when the Liberals took office.

In my province, young families are not asking for luxury condos. They are asking for a modest starter home, a place to raise their kids and a place to build a life. Instead, they are competing against inflation, bureaucracy, gatekeeping and federal policies that drive up the cost of living and the cost of building at every single stage. The Liberals say they are investing, but if we invest billions and the homelessness rises, it is not investment. It is incompetence.

I have learned in my last nine months here in Ottawa that the Liberals love picking winners and losers. Their favourite movie must be Pinocchio, because all they want to do is to pull the strings in almost every aspect of Canadians' daily lives.

In my riding, we have business owners applying for federal funding to build low-income housing. That may sound great, but it creates so much bureaucracy, red tape and inequality. For example, two businessmen in neighbouring communities both apply for funding for, say, 10 units at nearly $50,000 a unit. Talk about an awesome gift from the feds. I am starting to think the Liberals like the colour red, because it reminds them that they can put on their coats and pretend to be Santa Claus.

However, here is the problem: One of those businessmen did not get funding, and now all 10 of those units are going to a neighbouring community, leaving none for that businessman and his community. Why did both applicants not get five units each? The transparency of these application processes is so low. Perhaps the only way to be accepted is to be a Liberal insider or a Liberal donor.

We Conservatives, time after time, have fought for transparency and fairness, one of the biggest being the Federal Accountability Act of 2006. We fight for policies and platforms that incentivize everybody equally, instead of picking winners and losers and only choosing a select few to get incentives. We want to work with provinces to reduce the GST on all new homes under $1.3 million. These are policies that benefit all Canadians: no applications, no selection processes and no favouritism.

We have lots of land in Canada. We have high unemployment and a huge demand for housing. When we ask home builders what the problem is, they always say that there is too much red tape and bureaucracy. Developers spend years and thousands of dollars trying to acquire land, permits, developmental fees and approvals, oftentimes having to deal with three levels of government. They want government and the bureaucracies to simply get out of the way, but the Liberal government wants to do the opposite. Every solution it proposes adds to the problem by creating more bureaucracy.

Justin Trudeau's government implemented the national housing strategy. It did not work. Home prices continued to soar at rates much higher than our neighbouring economy, the United States. The Liberals came back to the House, after campaigning in the election that they would be a completely different government, and decided they wanted to continue to do the same. This led to the creation of private member's bill, Bill C-227, which would create more red tape.

That was not enough. Now we are here today discussing Bill C-20, which once again builds more bureaucracy. If the Liberals are going to come into the House with their smoke and mirrors and repackage the same bills over and again, I have no choice but to give the same speech, but just in a different font.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to continue my speech, but I will be splitting my time with another member afterward.

The Liberals are introducing this new bill to give the illusion that they are directly involved in trying to put out the fire they started. In 2017, the Liberals launched the national housing strategy, administered by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. If they already have the solution, why do they need to repackage the same old plan? They spent $150 billion to build only 170,000 homes. That works out to $676,000 per home. The money was wasted on bureaucracy. Now they want to create a new Crown corporation to physically build the homes, creating even more involvement and more strings for them to pull. Here is the kicker: They already have a Crown corporation that does this.

All the bill does is merge the failed national housing strategy and the failed Canada Lands Company into one corporation. That is Liberal math: Take two failing things, put them together and pretend it works. In reality, it is like they are trying to build a motorcycle with two flat tires. Can members imagine how many homes could have been built if the Liberals had worked with the Conservatives to remove the GST on new home builds?

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-20, An Act respecting the establishment of Build Canada Homes, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Jonathan Rowe, Conservative, Terra Nova—The Peninsulas, NL]

Mr. Speaker, imagine taking the GST off of all new homes under $1.3 million. That would instantly save 5%. With a 5% savings, that would have encouraged thousands of Canadians right across the country to build new homes. By partnering with Canadians, we could have stretched our dollar by 95%, by having that 5% incentive.

Instead of letting Canadians keep their own money, the Liberals keep taxing things like housing, things they often call a human right. They then give that money to corporations and landlords to build homes, not for young people to actually own but for them to rent. Own nothing and be happy: that is the slogan of the Liberals' plan for their new world order. Young people do not want to rent for their whole lives. They want to own a home, a place where they can paint their kids' bedroom, a place that gives them pride and hope for the future, a place where they can build a fence for their dog.

Housing is not just about shelter. It is about economic stability. It is about mental health. It is about whether young people can make a wooden box a home. In my province, we face the highest unemployment rate in the country. We add that to rising rents and rising prices and limited supply, and young people are being forced to make unfavourable choices. Some are staying with their parents. Some are even staying with their grandparents. These are young men and women, oftentimes older than myself, working full time, yet they still have to face these unfavourable choices.

Unfortunately, we are seeing even greater consequences of the lost Liberal decade. Homelessness, once unthinkable at this scale, especially in my province, is now a reality in communities right across my province and the whole country. Over the summer, I was able to have a tour of a Salvation Army homeless shelter in St. John's. I began to ask the workers at the facility what had led to people being there.

I remember one young lady looked at me and said that all those men had just hit their breaking point. The shelter sees these kinds of surges when the economy goes bad. They lose their jobs and that causes stress. They oftentimes lose their wives and their family because of that stress, and they end up there. Her statement stuck with me because of the simple fact that what we do here in Ottawa does not just affect our economy; it affects real people. It does not just affect housing stats and unemployment. It affects real people, real Canadians, people who are hurting and looking for hope.

How long will these Liberals keep hiding in their haunted house of smoke and mirrors before they admit that more bureaucracy will not build a single home? Canadians do not need another illusion. They need a real home.

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

Mr. Speaker, there is great contrast on this particular issue. On the one hand, we have a government that understands that the federal government has to play an important role in housing, by working with municipalities and provinces. That will, in fact, make a difference.

Contrast that to the Conservatives and their whole theme, which is to get out of the way, just like their leader. When he was the minister responsible, years ago, for housing, he built less than six houses. I still do not know where they are.

I wonder if the member would not recognize that the federal government does and can have a role to play, which we are playing, as the legislation clearly shows.

Will they vote for the legislation? If they are going to vote against it, will they allow it to at least go to committee?

[Jonathan Rowe, Conservative, Terra Nova—The Peninsulas, NL]

Mr. Speaker, having a housing crisis and having Canadians forcing Liberals to step in to try to do something does not show success. It shows failure. The Conservatives have never had to build more than six homes because we were out of the way, and private industry was building homes.

In 2017, the Liberals launched a strategy, an agency. Nothing got built, and problems got worse. The more they do, and the evidence shows this, the more problems we have. They should just get out of the way. That is it.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, when the federal government, and especially this Liberal government, sticks its nose into something that is working relatively well, usually something managed by municipalities in Quebec and in the provinces or by the provincial governments or the Quebec government, it always creates a terrible disaster involving mismanagement, cost overruns and money not getting where it needs to go.

Creating the giant beast that is Build Canada Homes may have been a great idea with the best intentions, but the fact is that mechanisms are already in place. Experts are already on the ground. The municipalities know better than anyone the needs they are facing.

Does my colleague not think that the federal government and the Liberals should get out of the way and simply transfer the money to Quebec and the provinces so that the programs can be implemented quickly?

[Jonathan Rowe, Conservative, Terra Nova—The Peninsulas, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know if I have ever agreed with the Bloc as much as I do now.

One hundred per cent, the federal government needs to step out of the way and let people on the ground, the people who build homes and communities, do the work. Let them build the homes they want to build. The federal government needs to just get out of the way, get policies in place or get policies removed so that they can build homes.

[Scott Aitchison, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I wonder if my colleague could comment a little more on the notion of building bureaucracy.

There are now four federal housing agencies. Build Canada Homes is the third federal Crown corporation focused on housing. I wonder if the member might be able to predict how many Crown corporations it will take to build a home.

[Jonathan Rowe, Conservative, Terra Nova—The Peninsulas, NL]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals lost my seat by 12 votes, so maybe 12 will do the trick and get it done.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Mr. Speaker, nowhere in the world has the free market solved an affordable housing crisis.

Let us look at the Netherlands, with 34% non-market housing; Denmark, 21%; Britain, 16%; and France, 17%. Here in Canada, we are now at 3.4% non-market housing. Nothing in this bill sets targets on non-market housing. My colleague had a good idea around removing the GST on housing. Instead, why do we not take that GST, invest it back into the communities where homes were sold and use it for building non-market housing?

We know we need a mix of market and non-market housing. They go hand in hand. Do the Conservatives support any form of non-market housing? Do they understand its critical importance for the most vulnerable, for people who are trying to make ends meet, especially housing that is geared to income?

[Jonathan Rowe, Conservative, Terra Nova—The Peninsulas, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's dedication to thinking outside the box. We definitely need to try something new rather than just repackaging the same bureaucracy.

However, what the Conservatives are very adamant on is creating policies that everyone across this country can benefit from. Removing the GST would not pick winners and losers. Anybody could go out, build a new home and benefit from that. It would be incentivizing everybody.