Human Resources Committee on May 27th, 2021

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Raquel Dancho]

All right.

If there are no other comments on the amendment, I believe we have to—please, Madam Clerk, correct me if I'm wrong—vote on the amendment.

I will call the question.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Madam Chair, I have a point of order.

Have we all received a copy of that? I don't have a copy of the—

[The Clerk]

It has just been sent to all the members.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Raquel Dancho]

I just received it. Do you want to give it a minute, take a look, and then we can vote?

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

It would be really great to have a minute to actually look at it before we vote, because I need to know what I'm voting on, if that's okay.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Raquel Dancho]

All right.

We will take a minute.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

On another point of order, Madam Chair, may I request, in view of this not having been put on notice in advance, that we have just a couple more minutes of suspension to confer with our team, just to review this? I think that would be pretty standard practice within the normal proceedings of our committee.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Raquel Dancho]

We can take perhaps a two-minute suspension, just because we are coming up to the end and we will need to do the vote before we hopefully.... I think the procedure is we'd have to vote on this, since it's been called. We'll take a two-minute suspension so you can confer with your colleagues, beginning now.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Raquel Dancho]

Madam Clerk, perhaps you could call the roll.

(Amendment negatived: nays 6; yeas 3)

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Raquel Dancho]

Thank you, Madam Clerk. I know we are running out of time here.

As the amendment has been defeated, I believe we go back to debating the original motion, or we could call the vote on that as well, if you could just give me a little direction here.

[Adam Vaughan, Liberal, Spadina—Fort York, ON]

Call the vote.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Raquel Dancho]

Thank you, Mr. Vaughan.

I'll call the vote on the motion of Mr. Vis.

(Motion negatived: nays 7; yeas 3 [See Minutes of Proceedings])

Thank you, Madam Clerk. We'll move on.

Thank you, Ms. Bowers, for your patience and your intelligent remarks today. I know we are just running out of time here.

With our remaining minutes, I believe, Mr. Vis, it was your round, so please proceed.

Actually, we are out of time now, so it's officially the end. Unless there is a consensus to continue.... I assume there is a consensus to adjourn, but I'm just looking around—

[Adam Vaughan, Liberal, Spadina—Fort York, ON]

On a point of order, the practice of this committee has been to apportion time equally in questioning, and seeing as we have not achieved that yet, I would ask that the chair allow Mr. Vis to continue his final minute, and then that the next Liberal be given their turn, and that would apportion time equally in a way that would be fair to all participants.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Raquel Dancho]

Thank you, Mr. Vaughan.

He actually had five minutes in his.... He had taken up less than one minute, so he'd have four.

Again, I'm not sure of the availability of Ms. Bowers or others, but if everyone is fine to just finish off those two rounds, we can absolutely jump right into that.

Ms. Bowers, are you available for another nine minutes?

[Romy Bowers]

Yes, of course. I'm very happy to be here.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Raquel Dancho]

Thank you very much.

Go ahead, Mr. Vis, please, for four minutes.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

I have four minutes remaining? Okay.

Furthermore, Madam Bowers, on the RHI, CMHC did not meet its promised deadline of March 31. Could you provide...? Well, I'm not even going to ask that question anymore.

Please explain how CMHC came to predict a 9% to 18% decline in home prices early on in this pandemic.

[Romy Bowers]

When that prediction was made, we were in, I think, April or May, during the very early days of the pandemic, when there were very deep uncertainties about the future of the economy and also the role of government supports in providing mitigation of some of the very adverse economic impact.

The prediction, based on the facts at the time, was of a very extreme scenario. As we have learned, the impact of the pandemic has not been as severe as we initially thought. I think—

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Why did CMHC hold that prediction through the fall, though, when we were seeing the rapid increase in prices across Canada?

[Romy Bowers]

Customarily we update those outlooks on a yearly basis, so there was a gap between when those predictions were made and when the updates were made.

Looking forward, and learning from this pandemic, I recognize that in exceptional circumstances like the pandemic, we should put in place measures to make sure those kinds of predictions are assessed. I take that point.

Thank you very much.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Thank you.

I'm going to return to some of your initial comments.

This week I had the opportunity to celebrate a project in my riding with Habitat for Humanity. Habitat for Humanity outlined again that home ownership leads to better socio-economic outcomes for all people in Canada.

You mentioned racialized communities as well, and your Asian heritage, and how racialized Canadians in some cases don't have the same access to home ownership as other groups in Canada do.

This morning a family friend came over. She is just scared, frankly, for her young daughter, who is graduating university. She's in pharmacy, and she lives in the Vancouver area. She has no hope of owning a home given the current prices.

What advice would you give to a young person facing those types of barriers?

[Romy Bowers]

As I mentioned in my remarks, I think that escalating house prices is a serious issue for Canadians. I was very happy recently to see OSFI in the Department of Finance taking some steps so that people would not be taking on excessive debt when house prices are so escalated. I view that as being very serious for the stability of the housing finance system.

As I mentioned in my earlier—

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Thank you.

I have one other quick point.

What do you think is the largest determinant leading to price increases in Canada?

[Romy Bowers]

There's a lack of supply.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Thank you.

I think that's all I need to ask today, Madam Chair.

Again, Madam Bowers, congratulations on your appointment.