Evidence of meeting #134 for Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was know.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Peter Fragiskatos Liberal London North Centre, ON
Chair, there was a pause there. I take it that Mrs. Gray is relinquishing the floor, or at least, if she's not, then a pause would indicate that we're ready to—
Conservative
Liberal
Peter Fragiskatos Liberal London North Centre, ON
No, it's not even about that.
Chair, I'm next on the list.
Liberal
Peter Fragiskatos Liberal London North Centre, ON
I'm next on the list, and there was a break in what she was saying.
It's time to relinquish the floor.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bobby Morrissey
I will remind members that they have the floor until they stop speaking. If you stop speaking, I will make a call and move to the next person on the list.
Mrs. Gray.
Conservative
Tracy Gray Conservative Kelowna—Lake Country, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I hope that you will allow.... You know, if I take a breath or swallow, that's not—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bobby Morrissey
I'll be the judge of stopping and moving to the next speaker. Thank you.
Mrs. Gray, you have the floor.
Conservative
Tracy Gray Conservative Kelowna—Lake Country, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
After nine years, we know that food costs families $700 more this year than it did in 2023. Millions of Canadians are having to line up outside of food banks just to survive. We've now seen record numbers of people going to food banks—two million people a month going to food banks.
As I mentioned earlier, food banks are running out of food and are making different policies around whom they're going to serve. We also saw a Statistics Canada report on food insecurity, which showed that nearly 15.6% of Canadians experienced food insecurity in 2022, which was up from 11.6% in 2018 and 9.6% in 2017. This means that the rate of food-insecure Canadians had increased by over 60% over the course of just two years. These are numbers from Statistics Canada. This isn't any kind of partisanship discussion. These are actually StatsCan numbers.
It became worse in 2024, and this was made clear through Food Banks Canada's 2024 poverty report card, showing that almost 50% of Canadians feel financially worse off compared to last year, while 25% of Canadians are experiencing food insecurity. Food insecurity means that people aren't able to have the food that they need in order to survive. We've also heard sad stories that scurvy is increasing in Canada. Again, it's just absolutely unbelievable.
Across the country, food banks “have seen a 50 per cent increase in visits since 2021”, and this is a direct consequence of the NDP-Liberal government's inflationary tax and spending agenda and its carbon tax. We know that the carbon tax makes the price of everything go up. Everything that is transported has the carbon tax tied to it. Therefore, when you're talking about the farmer who grows the food, or the food manufacturer, if that's the case, or the warehousers, transporters, retailers and then ultimately the consumers, all along the way, there's carbon tax being charged at every stage as you go.
No wonder food prices have increased as much as they have. You only have to go to a grocery store to see the increases in the food prices. We know that the carbon tax is slated to increase to 61 cents per litre, and that will be on every point of this value chain, or food chain, if you call it that, as you go. That will only increase prices more. Even as you see where inflation might be, food costs will go up. Ultimately, those get passed on to the consumer; that gets passed on to families.
Even for those businesses that are supporting families, like food banks, that means their costs go up as well. People do donate money. Not everyone donates food and cans. The food banks and other organizations really rely on financial donations, and they're not going as far. We hear that quite often. As costs keep increasing, their costs keep increasing. It's a really vicious cycle.
There are things that we need to do in order to.... I just took a sip of water. Hopefully that's allowed. Thank you very much.
This is another issue we're looking at. The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation released their housing data for September, which was just a month ago, showing that there are still not enough homes being built for Canada's population. As a result, housing affordability will continue to remain out of reach for Canadians. This CMHC report—which, again, isn't a partisan report, as this comes right from the government—shows that housing starts continue to trend lower while Canada's population has increased. In fact, the six-month trend reveals a 1.9% decrease, from 246,972 units in August to 243,759 units in September.
When comparing September 2024 to September 2023, the results are even worse. Across the country, housing starts were down 15% to 18,806 this September, compared to 22,194 in September 2023. In Nova Scotia, housing starts collapsed by 40% in the same period, while Ontario saw a drop of 37%.
Those numbers are staggering. We know there have to be a lot more housing starts happening in order to build the homes that we need, but also to bring back some type of affordability. I'll talk more about the Conservative announcement shortly.
Similarly, in Canada's most expensive cities, the government's housing plans and policies have really not done anything to build more homes. For example, in Toronto, when comparing September 2024 to September 2023, the number of housing starts declined by 64%, while Montreal and Halifax saw their housing starts decline by 59% and 61%, respectively. Those are huge numbers that show that starts are down.
We also know some of this. We've had different testimony here from witnesses who are builders, experts in their field, who have talked about the interest rates being one of the main reasons. We know that interest rates are slowly coming down. They're still very high.
Conservative
Conservative
Scott Aitchison Conservative Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON
It's getting very noisy in here again. I'm sitting very close to Mrs. Gray, and I was struggling to hear her. She's talking about something very important, housing, and I really want to hear it.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bobby Morrissey
We agree. Thank you, Mr. Aitchison.
As I indicated before, I hear noise coming from all around the room, and I'll remind you that you are all adults.
Go ahead, Mrs. Gray.
Conservative
Tracy Gray Conservative Kelowna—Lake Country, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I was talking about some of the construction companies and builders that were here. They were talking about how it's more difficult, because the interest rates are high. Costs have gone up. They talked about the cost of everything—the cost of transportation, which we know is increasing because of the carbon taxes.
In addition to that, we had witnesses who talked about how the capital gains tax is not helping, either. Investors might invest in a number of these larger development projects, which we need, so the capital gains tax change is not going to help housing. I recently asked a number of witnesses about what the finance minister said when she originally announced that the capital gains tax would help with housing and increase it. We heard that it's not the case. I asked multiple witnesses about that. They said, “Well, no, it's not going to.”
There are a number of federal policy-related factors that are not helping with the building of homes. We know 5.8 million homes need to be built. CMHC said that Canada needs to build those homes by 2030 in order to restore housing affordability. Again, a number of these different witnesses at committee here were asked by me and others whether or not we're going to be on track to do that. Even if we break it down by how many houses we have to build per year, are we on track to do that? All along the way, we heard, “No, we are not on track to do that.” I think one witness said, “Not a chance.”
We know, based on these policies, that we are not on track to build that number of homes, which is why we need bold policies. For example, the leader of the official opposition announced a Conservative policy this week. When he becomes Prime Minister and the Conservatives are in government, we will remove the GST on all new homes sold under $1 million. As an example, for an $800,000 home, it would mean savings of $40,000, or $2,200 a year in mortgage payments. This is a substantial policy we have put out.
An overwhelming number of organizations have come out in favour of that particular policy, in order to build those homes and bring back affordability, especially for young families and people starting out and owning a home for the first time. I don't have a list in front of me here, but some of these are the Canadian Home Builders' Association, the Canadian Real Estate Association and Habitat for Humanity. There have been policy experts who have come out on this, such as the West End Home Builders Association and a number of organizations from all across the country. Whether they're national or local organizations, they have come out saying that they are in favour of this.
I will read a couple of quotes about how impactful this will be. The Canadian Home Builders' Association said:
Today’s announcement by the Conservative Party of Canada to remove GST on new homes with a purchase price under $1 million will make a big difference if enacted, especially for first-time buyers.
West End Home Builders Association CEO Mike Collins-Williams said:
Removing the GST for new homes purchased for under $1 million may be the most significant housing policy commitment made in the past two decades. Removing the GST shows leadership to cut crippling levels of taxation on new housing, puts money directly back into the pockets of Canadians while combatting the housing crisis.
We have the Coalition Against New-Home Taxes, which said that this policy marks a significant first step in addressing Canada's housing affordability crisis, a goal we believe is essential for substantial economic growth and accessible housing for Canadians.
There's also the Canadian Real Estate Association, which said, “This proposed step is a positive move toward lowering building costs, increasing housing supply, and making home ownership more attainable for Canadians.”
The Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness founder and CEO Tim Richter said, “This is smart.”
Habitat for Humanity said that under the current framework, Habitat affiliates are paying more in GST to the federal government than is received through co-investment funding. Eliminating GST would reduce costs. Savings are passed on to Habitat homeowners.
The Greater Ottawa Home Builders' Association said, “In Ottawa this change would mean that townhomes, which make up over 50% of new home sales, would be eligible for the full rebate, instantly making a significant improvement in housing affordability across the National Capital Region.”
BILD GTA said: “BILD applauds the Federal Conservatives' announcement on their commitment to addressing one of our calls to action. If elected, they plan to remove the federal portion of the HST on new homes under $1 million. This is a significant step forward in helping housing affordability.”
There's also the Residential Construction Council of Ontario. President Richard Lyall said, “We commend opposition leader Pierre Poilievre and his party for putting forward this plan to remove the GST and encourage the provinces to do the same as it will save buyers tens of thousands of dollars on the purchase of a new home”.
Then we have, from LiUNA, director of public relations Victoria Mancinelli: “This is good policy.”
We also have Eric Lombardi, a Toronto-based consultant with expertise in financial services, who said, “Glad to see this, much needed change! I'd also suggest indexing to inflation. I also echo the call for provinces to end the HST on homeownership dreams! (And DCs/LTTs) However, funding shouldn't come at the expense of the Housing Accelerator Fund.”
Now, what I do want to mention here, actually, is calling for the removal of the provincial taxes as well, which the Leader of the Opposition did do yesterday, which was to call for provinces—where it's appropriate—to also remove the provincial sales taxes. This is very important.
We've also had Mike Moffat, economist and founding director of the Place Centre, who said, “WOW. According to my costing calculator, this is about a $5-6B tax cut on new housing each year. I admire the boldness here. This will get more housing built.” I also know that Dr. Moffat has made a number of other comments online, on X, that relate to this announcement. He's had quite a number of comments. I don't have them all here, but I do encourage anyone who is on X to have a look at those comments, because they really are quite significant.
We also have Martin Pelletier, economy columnist at the National Post, who said, “Now that's a good idea.”
We have Steve Saretsky, realtor, who said, “No GST on new homes under $1M. That will certainly make new construction prices more competitive when competing against the resale market.”
There's more coming in all the time. That's just a small example of some of the comments made by some of these experts in homebuilding and policy.
Conservative
Kyle Seeback Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
On a point of order, Mr. Chair, I'm just wondering where I am on the speaking list.
Conservative
Kyle Seeback Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
It's Mrs. Gray, Mr. Fragiskatos, and then me. Is there anyone else on the speaking list?
Conservative
Liberal
Michael Coteau Liberal Don Valley East, ON
On a point of order, Mr. Chair, what's the topic right now? What are we talking about? Could you let us know?
Liberal
Michael Coteau Liberal Don Valley East, ON
No, I meant, can you tell us what the topic is in front of us, as the chair?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bobby Morrissey
The topic is the points that Mrs. Gray is discussing. Thank you.
Mrs. Gray, go ahead.