Finance Committee on Dec. 7th, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, MP Ste-Marie.

We go now to MP Blaikie, please.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I was glad to see that Mr. Hallan was not the only one fishing for a gold star today. I want to thank and commend Mr. Morantz for highlighting the good work of NDP MPs in respect of housing in their ridings. If I didn't know him better, I might have thought by his tone that he was insinuating something untoward was going on, but I would like to reassure him that this is not the case and share an anecdote with him.

When I was first elected in 2015, I ran on re-establishing a national housing strategy, as did, as it happens, what would become the Liberal government. One of the first things I did was bring together all the non-profit housing providers in Elmwood—Transcona and non-profit groups that might have an interest in building housing in the riding. We met together over a series of several meetings over months. We found people who had worked at Manitoba Housing and at CMHC in the heyday of federal funding for housing. We talked about how the national housing strategy pre-1995 worked. We talked about the kinds of things you would have to do if you wanted to properly execute a housing project—looking for land, getting drawings done up, monitoring websites for funding opportunities as they became available from the federal government and so on.

We ended up ultimately doing a round table that included lots of the non-profit housing providers and umbrella organizations for them across the city of Winnipeg. We brought everybody who had been part of successful non-profit housing projects in the city together to share best practices. At that time, folks were working on the Grace Co-op, which has since been built. Even though it wasn't, strictly speaking, in Elmwood—Transcona, we brought them in to talk about what they were doing, because we wanted to prepare our community as best we could for the funds that had been promised, so that when those funds became available, we would maximize the opportunities for investment in our communities.

Mumilaaq Qaqqaq, who was the previous NDP MP for Nunavut, I know did a tour of 14 or 16 communities in Nunavut documenting the housing need—the mould, the overcrowding, all of the problems. She published that publicly and worked with communities to talk about their housing needs and to present those in a coherent, forceful way to the federal government. Jenny Kwan, in Vancouver East, regularly meets with groups who are providing housing in their communities.

I'm not surprised that so much grassroots community effort in working with non-profits to deliver affordable housing in their communities has led to a higher level of investment in ridings where there are MPs who see that as part of their job and want to deliver more public resources for affordable housing in their communities.

I want to thank Mr. Morantz for having highlighted that good work and giving me the opportunity to explain how it's done.

I would wish—for him and for all members at this table—that they do that work in their own community, while government provides more resources, so that as more MPs from other parties learn how to do that work in their ridings, resources are available commensurately to increase the amount of social and affordable housing stock.

Thank you, once again, Mr. Morantz, for providing an opportunity for that education about one way that you can be an effective MP for your community.

I asked the minister earlier if we could get information on some of those non-profit projects that have already received federal funding but have stalled out because of high interest rates.

Can we get that information?

[Chris Forbes]

I'm not sure what information we have. Perhaps Ms. McDermott has specific details on that.

[Alison McDermott, Assistant Deputy Minister, Federal-Provincial Relations and Social Policy Branch, Department of Finance]

I would say that these programs generally are run out of CMHC or housing in Infrastructure Canada. They have been given, I know, flexibility in the management of these programs to provide additional support for some of the more vulnerable projects. As we understand it, they are managing those well. We don't generally get details on the projects themselves, but there may be a level of transparency that's possible, so we could look into that if—

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

Sure. I think all we really need in terms of information is whatever would be sufficient to cost the application of the GST rebate to those projects. We know that somewhere in the federal government there is a list of all the projects that have been approved for funding. It's impossible to believe that they don't have it.

I have asked this question before and gotten soft commitments around providing this information, so I expect at some point the Department of Finance has reached out to partners in government to get that information to be able to come up with a cost estimate.

[Chris Forbes]

It goes back to one of the opening questions. I think what we could get back to you with is where this information might be held, and you can make sure, I guess, that the clerk or somebody can reach out and get it from....

I feel a little uncomfortable promising information from another department, but I think we could find it and make sure you get the right place to connect with.

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

That sounds good.

If it eases your mind, I have been told by folks in the housing minister's office that this information could be provided. It just hasn't been provided.

[Chris Forbes]

Okay. Let's see what we can do.

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

Let's cross the finish line on that. I would be very grateful for it.

Another question that was asked previously about information was if we could get the deposit amounts for first homebuyer savings accounts.

We know the number of Canadians who have opened an account. How much has been deposited in those accounts?

[Chris Forbes]

We'll look into what we can make available. I don't have that off the top of my head. We'll look into that.

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

Thank you very much.

Is the system set up so that the government does get that information at some point, or are you guys not concerned about knowing how much is being deposited in those accounts as a means of evaluating the effectiveness of the program?

[Chris Forbes]

I don't know the specifics of this program, personally. With other, similar programs we would have access to overall amounts.

I would be hard pressed to tell you for sure exactly what we could pull out, but we should be able to pull out some broader numbers in terms of the overall value of what's there and the growth, etc.

To be honest with you, I don't know the timing of that and exactly what would be there, but we can certainly come back with something.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, MP Blaikie.

We are moving into our second round. With the time we gave up for suspension and starting a few minutes late, etc., if I hold really tight to the time, we can get it in.

MP Lawrence, go ahead, please, for five minutes.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Thank you very much, Chair.

Merry Christmas to all the panellists. Thank you for your hard work and dedication to the Canadian people.

I want to start with a quick remark with respect to Mr. Blaikie's soliloquy there.

It was once said by a very wise person that progressives define compassion as how many people government can help; Conservatives define compassion as how many people government does not have to help. We want to be in a position where Canadians can afford their own food and their own housing. That's really the difference between our side of the table and the other side.

I'm just a simple guy from Orono, Ontario. I assume that you, as deputy minister of finance, should have control over the money. The dollars that all the taxpayers are paying is really your thing, right?

[Chris Forbes]

I'm a deputy minister, so I obviously provide policy advice to government.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Perfect. You should know numbers and things like that. Is that right, Mr. Forbes?

[Chris Forbes]

I should know some numbers. I won't know them all, for sure, as we all know. Hopefully, I know some.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Okay, I'm going to ask you a couple of straightforward questions.

My son got a little shout-out from the minister, which I appreciated. He's learning long division.

With some of these projects, I take the amount of money that's dedicated and divide it by the number of units with respect to housing. The CMHC 2022 annual report said that $14 billion had been committed to building 40,000 new units. That approaches $3 million per unit.

This is a fairly straightforward number: Could you tell me, of the projects that the government has either loaned money for or just out and out financed completely, how much is the average cost of those units?

[Chris Forbes]

I do not have a number for that.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Could you undertake to provide that number?

[Chris Forbes]

Is that the dollar per unit of all the investments that the government has made, current and future?

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Yes. For every unit the government has either built, subsidized or otherwise financially supported, what is the average cost of those units?

[Alison McDermott]

I'll just note that there are a range of programs withing the national housing strategy. Obviously some of them provide.... There are apartment construction loans, which are in the range of $20,000 per unit. In some of the programs for more deeply affordable housing, that support is obviously a whole lot higher.

We could give you a range, but I'm not sure an average would be—

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Don't get stuck on the word “average” there. I want the cost per door, though. How much does it cost to build these, whether it's per apartment, per condo, per house, or an average number.

You guys are good with numbers. I trust you'll be able to provide me with something that a simple guy from Orono can understand. Is that fair enough?

[Chris Forbes]

You want something that's accessible to everybody.