I think what we're suggesting—
Evidence of meeting #6 for Finance in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was cities.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #6 for Finance in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was cities.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Chief Executive Officer, Inclusion Canada
If you increase the base amount of the DTC—I forget the percentage we put in our brief—that should offset any negative impact that the tax cut would have.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Karina Gould
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. MacDonald.
Mr. Garon for two and a half minutes.
Bloc
Jean-Denis Garon Bloc Mirabel, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Ms. Lavoie, you talked about all the initiatives your organization has put in place to help people, especially young households, become first-time homeowners. Frankly, it's impressive. The hard part is getting into the market. Once you're on the train, it keeps moving forward and generates capital gains.
However, I feel that, in recent years, there have been two types of support measures. The first measure was building social housing. We had asked that the money go to Quebec to finance off-market housing. The second measure, which targeted people able to build equity, was the creation of the first home savings account, or FHSA, and the enhancement of the homebuyers' plan. Often, these people are helped by their families, by their parents. According to statistics from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, or CMHC, there has been an increase in the number of first-time home buyers whose down payment comes in part from their family.
The Bloc Québécois feels that there is still a category of people who are somewhat excluded from programs, namely those who won't be moving into social housing, who are currently tenants but who are unable to save for a down payment or put money into an FHSA, for example. We therefore propose that the government finance the down payment, interest-free, and that it be repaid in subsequent years. This could be done through CMHC. These people could then jump on the bandwagon and become homeowners. This would subsequently free up rental housing, thereby promoting movement in the market.
What do you think about a proposal like that?
National Senior Director, Public Policy, Habitat for Humanity Canada
We find that proposal very interesting. However, we already have a solution, which is to invest in Habitat for Humanity. That's exactly what we do: We don't require an initial down payment, but rather add it to the mortgage. Families pay a reduced mortgage, and we cover the rest of the costs as part of our program. We already have a lot of experience in this area. We have programs—
Liberal
Conservative
Greg McLean Conservative Calgary Centre, AB
Thank you.
Madam Lavoie, thank you very much for your testimony and for all that your organization does for affordable housing in Canada.
You state, as I noted in your submission, that the gap in Canada between the price of homes and what people earn has doubled since 1987. It's safe to say that the bulk of that gap has occurred in the past 10 years. Would you agree?
National Senior Director, Public Policy, Habitat for Humanity Canada
I don't have that statistic in front of me. I don't think that one was in my brief necessarily, but we have certainly seen an acceleration and a gap for the families that we serve.
Conservative
Greg McLean Conservative Calgary Centre, AB
Thank you.
“No other G7 country has seen such a stark deterioration in housing affordability.” That's a quote from your website, actually.
A lot of this is inflation, and a lot of inflation is driven by government policy, of course. However, as far as housing goes, inflation shows up in a few ways. The price of a house includes things like mortgage costs, which historically are actually still pretty low compared to where we've been in the past, although higher than in the last couple of years.
There are also building costs, and those building costs include goods and labour. There's demand-pull inflation and there's cost-push inflation, but then there's a third one, which is the land.
Which of these factors—the goods, the labour and the land—do you think is the one that increases housing costs the most?
National Senior Director, Public Policy, Habitat for Humanity Canada
In our experience, it's very market-specific.
Again, in our highest-cost markets, that could be a matter of land. In the areas where—
Conservative
Greg McLean Conservative Calgary Centre, AB
If I may, I think most journalists have come out and said that it's now land speculation that drives 35% of the cost.
One of the other charges in there, of course, with regard to land in civic areas, is government charges. There are significant amounts of taxes and civic charges at all three levels of government. They now account for about 35% of the cost of homes, which is a significant increase over what it was even 10 years ago.
Is that impacting your operations at all?
National Senior Director, Public Policy, Habitat for Humanity Canada
Fortunately for us at Habitat for Humanity, we are often exempted from some of those fees and charges. One of the advantages of investing in non-market homebuilders is that we get additional financial efficiency.
Certainly it is a challenge for our private market partners, and we, in our work that we do with them, can appreciate that it has become a growing challenge.
Conservative
Greg McLean Conservative Calgary Centre, AB
Would you say that the places where you build your homes are places where your competitor builders would be paying these 35% charges?
National Senior Director, Public Policy, Habitat for Humanity Canada
Certainly. They're facing a lot of charges themselves.
Conservative
Greg McLean Conservative Calgary Centre, AB
All right. Thank you.
The government has announced a $13-billion Build Canada Homes project. That $13 billion is going to go into competition with other homebuilders, of course, with $13 billion being thrown into the housebuilding pool, if you will. Do you think that's going to have some cost-push inflation on other homes that are being built, such as the ones you build?
I'm saying there's only a limited amount of lumber, drywall and labour available for this effort.
If you can give me your comments, I'd appreciate it.
National Senior Director, Public Policy, Habitat for Humanity Canada
I can, absolutely. Thank you so much.
With regard to Build Canada Homes and the investments that are being proposed at the moment, we are cautiously optimistic that the initial focus on non-market housing will help insulate somewhat from an initial inflationary push, from that perspective.
I think it's a smart strategic move to actually begin with the non-market sector, where the deepest housing need is, and to work with those kinds of builders, again going back to purpose-built homes, which seems to be a theme for me today. We are building purposefully for affordability, and not so much at the whim of the broader market systems, in the same way.
Conservative
Greg McLean Conservative Calgary Centre, AB
As you know, most of the market housing being built is out of reach for most people.
The thing about government policy, in all respects, is that government policy affects everything. If the government is running significant deficits ad nauseam going forward, it's going to affect inflation, and then inflation is going to affect your house prices, and therefore the affordability mix is going to be very clear for the people you serve.
How bad do you think that's going to be, if you take a look at what's coming forward from this government's continued escalating deficits?
National Senior Director, Public Policy, Habitat for Humanity Canada
Looking at broader inflationary pressures is a little bit out of my remit—I'm a housing nerd myself—but I do think we have to be mindful that affordability could continue to be a challenge and make careful strategic choices as we move forward.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Karina Gould
Thank you.
We'll go to Mr. Turnbull for the last round of questions in this discussion.
Liberal
Ryan Turnbull Liberal Whitby, ON
I'm last but not least, right?
Ms. Carr, I'll start with you.
Thanks to both witnesses for being here. I admire the work of both your organizations greatly.
I want to ask you a question. It's a bit of inside baseball, in terms of how legislation is done in this House. I know that before I got into federal politics, over six years ago, I wouldn't have known exactly how that happens.
Your proposal is to increase the amount of both the disability tax credit and the child disability benefit by 3.45%, and that would compensate for, essentially, the diminished taxable income that is used to calculate those two benefits. Is that right?
Liberal
Ryan Turnbull Liberal Whitby, ON
If, for some reason, a solution were deemed out of scope.... The minister indicated in this committee that they were looking at solutions, and I know that's true because I'm the parliamentary secretary. What I wanted to say to you is that if the solution you're suggesting were deemed out of scope for Bill C‑4, because of how Parliament works, and there was some other mechanism used, does it matter to you, or do you...?
I think you're focused on the outcome. I think you're focused on making individuals who have that limited income, who live with a disability, whole. Is that correct?