Mr. Speaker, I last rose back on March 10. It was so long ago that the Minister of Finance actually used to answer the questions asked of him. It has been a while, though. It is now as difficult to get an answer from him as it is to find a Tory in Alberta. It is a frustrating experience at times.
The question centred on the economy in Alberta. It was at the beginning of the crisis with the drop in oil prices, which has had a devastating impact on the local economy, and there are challenges that many of us are now being made aware of. I had a visit yesterday from the Canadian Home Builders' Association and a representative from Calgary, who gave me an extraordinarily detailed profile of what has happened to the housing market.
The housing market has gone soft in Calgary. Prices have stagnated and sales have virtually come to a standstill. This is having a huge impact on the financial security of a lot of middle-class families, who are now wondering if their major investment is going to grow with the economy or fall behind. They are very worried and are looking for action from the government, which they helped to elect, in standing up to protect housing prices in Calgary. In particular, they are looking to the CMHC.
I would remind the government that the first “C” stands for “Canada”. There is a national housing agenda and program that the government is responsible for. People are looking for the CMHC to do a couple of things. The first is to restore stability to the market.
The question that I asked at the time flowed from an International Monetary Fund report that highlighted problems in Canada's mortgage market, problems in the housing market, and, particularly, problems in Calgary. It talked about the fact that we have a fractured market, diminishing oversight, and a department that has seen cutbacks in the last year that are removing staff, removing capacity, and removing regulatory ability to stabilize the housing market. What we are seeing is that even though CMHC is generating a surplus and providing revenue to the government, the government is walking away from programming in this area.
We are seeing the government walk away from stabilizing the private housing market and walking away from sustaining housing affordability and viability. At the same time, it is also walking away from affordable housing responsibilities by allowing operating agreements to expire and allowing dollars that low-income Canadians are paying into the system to flow out of the housing portfolio and fund things like tax cuts for affluent Canadians. Literally, low-income Canadians are subsidizing high-income Canadians as part of this government policy. All the while, we are seeing the housing market start to disappear.
The question for the government is this: when is it going to re-engage on the housing file? When is it going to stop pretending that the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation is not a national institution with national responsibilities? Particularly in Calgary, when is it going to listen to the Canadian Home Builders' Association and do things like remove the federal sales tax from development charges, which means that people are literally paying a tax upon a tax?
When is the government going to do things to stabilize the housing market by utilizing CMHC? When is it going to take action to protect housing affordability and, in particular, protect the investments that Canadians have made in their homes?