House of Commons Hansard #327 of the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was need.

Topics

Opposition Motion—HousingBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

10:35 a.m.

NDP

Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet NDP Hochelaga, QC

Mr. Speaker, I could respond by simply saying that this is a motion on housing.

However, I will go a little further. First, asking the government to build housing often creates very good jobs across the country.

Second, housing is a long-term investment. Investing both financially and socially for the long term provides stability in people's lives. When people have stability, it is much easier for them to look for a job.

It is much harder for a homeless person to get a job when they have nowhere to take a shower and do not have a change of clothes.

Someone who does not have stable housing will have a harder time studying. I have seen houses in Nunavik where 14 people were living in a home with two or three bedrooms. How can children study well in a house like that?

It goes without saying that if we invest in housing, we invest in people and the economy, period.

Opposition Motion—HousingBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

10:35 a.m.

Québec Québec

Liberal

Jean-Yves Duclos LiberalMinister of Families

Mr. Speaker, I very much welcome this opportunity to speak to the motion by the hon. member for Saskatoon West. It gives me the opportunity to update the House and Canadians on the impressive progress we are making to increase the supply of quality, affordable and suitable housing, especially for the most vulnerable in our society.

From day one, our government has understood that housing matters. It is a cornerstone of our strategy to grow the middle class in Canada, to grow our economy and help more Canadians join the middle class. From day one, we have seen the challenges Canadians face in finding affordable housing. That is why one of our first priorities was to bring the Government of Canada back into housing after many years, too many years, unfortunately, of neglect. We have acted decisively with historic long-term investments. We have consulted widely. We have listened to Canadians. We have collaborated with partners across sectors and all orders of government. As I will demonstrate shortly for members, hundreds of thousands of families are already benefiting.

Investing in housing goes well beyond just bricks and mortar. As our Prime Minister said, all Canadians deserve to have a home, a place where they feel safe, where they can have confidence in their future and focus on themselves and their family.

It also means building inclusive communities for everyone and making sure that all Canadians have affordable housing that meets their needs. Unfortunately, too many Canadians simply cannot afford suitable housing. At this time, approximately 1.7 million families in Canada are in housing need. These families are living in housing that is overcrowded, unaffordable or in need of repairs. In addition, nearly 25,000 Canadians experience chronic homelessness every year.

In many urban areas, the housing supply simply does not meet the demand. The people building our communities, by which I mean middle-class Canadians and those working hard to join them, including teachers, nurses, store clerks, construction workers and so on, are struggling to make ends meet. This situation is unacceptable and must change.

My role as Minister of Families, Children and Social Development is to improve the lives of all Canadians. That is why one of our government's priorities when it was elected was to immediately increase investments in housing, and that is what it did starting in budget 2016. That budget included a $2.7-billion investment for two new initiatives to increase the supply of affordable rental housing across the country. Budget 2016 also made an additional commitment of $2.3 billion to immediately improve housing conditions for low-income households, seniors, northern and indigenous communities, and survivors fleeing unfortunate situations of family violence.

Our first budget also included nearly $112 million in new investments over two years in the homelessness partnering strategy. This significant new investment represented an increase of 50% in the funding allocated to the strategy and the first increase in federal funding to combat homelessness since the strategy was implemented in 1999.

My colleague from Saskatoon West is well aware that, since 2016, we have invested over $4.7 billion in affordable housing through various programs, including the affordable housing initiative, long-term federal-provincial-territorial social housing agreements, and the social infrastructure fund. By so doing, we have helped 945,000 households, including families, seniors, women and children fleeing domestic violence, indigenous Canadians, people with disabilities, people with mental health problems and addiction issues, veterans, and young Canadians, and that is just the beginning.

In November 2017, we announced the Canadian government's very first national housing strategy, a 10-year, $40-billion plan that will help more Canadians, starting with our most vulnerable populations, obtain affordable housing that they can call home.

The goal of this ambitious plan is to ensure that all Canadians have access to housing that meets their needs and is affordable. Our plan will produce results for Canadians. Over the next 10 years, 530,000 additional families will finally be able to afford housing that meets their needs. Moreover, during this period, we will reduce chronic homelessness by more than 50%.

My colleague from Saskatoon West also knows, and will agree, that this is an historic strategy and an opportunity to implement lasting change that only presents itself once in a generation. That is why we consulted Canadians and experts across the country when developing the national housing strategy. I am very grateful to everyone for the time and effort they spent to participate in this important but all too rare conversation and for sharing their many ideas with us. These consultations meant that developing the strategy was truly a collaborative process.

The key pillars were a collaborative effort as well. We brought all the stakeholders together so that we could address each community's unique housing needs. After all, as the member for Saskatoon West knows, solutions for the housing needs in her riding are very different from the solutions needed in downtown Toronto or in Iqaluit, for example.

In the spring, we started introducing the key pillars of this ambitious plan. For example, we launched major initiatives to build up housing stocks, including the national housing co-investment Fund. This $13.2-billion fund will create 60,000 affordable housing units, and repair or renovate up to 240,000 units. Approximately one-third of the fund will be allocated to financial contributions, and the rest will be used for low-interest loans.

Since this is a co-investment fund, the partners will play a key role. The program encourages the provinces and territories, social and community housing providers, municipalities, the private sector and indigenous governments to work with the Canadian government to come up with solutions tailored to their communities' needs. It will focus on what Canadians really want and prioritize projects that exceed the usual affordability, energy efficiency and accessibility requirements. It will be aimed at individuals, communities, and partnerships and will come with specific targets for supporting survivors of family violence, seniors, and people with developmental disabilities.

In April, we also signed a historic agreement for a housing partnership framework with all of our provincial and territorial partners, at our first meeting in over a quarter century. This framework represents $7.7 billion in funding, which will be combined with equivalent contributions from the partners and invested in programs that meet the unique needs of Canadians, whether they live in a remote community in Nunavut, an urban area in British Columbia, a small municipality in Prince Edward Island, or anywhere else across Canada.

So far, Ontario, British Columbia and New Brunswick have signed bilateral agreements based on this historic framework. We expect to sign agreements with the other provinces and territories by April 1, 2019.

We also launched an initiative to keep federally administered community and social housing affordable, a critical step in protecting low-income Canadians in housing need. Each of these steps is based on other housing initiatives and programs that our government has implemented since it was elected in 2015.

For instance, in 2016, we announced the rental construction financing initiative. Interest in the program far exceeded our expectations, so much so, that we extended the initiative in budget 2018 and increased its funding, which now stands at $3.75 billion.

By 2021, the rental construction financing initiative will have helped create 14,000 new affordable housing rental units for middle-class Canadians. This is filling a gap between housing assistance and the rental housing market, where it is needed the most.

Similarly, the affordable housing innovation fund will create 4,000 new units over a five-year period by investing more than $200 million in innovative financing models and unique designs.

Finally, to stretch our investments in new construction even further, we are making approximately $200 million worth of federal lands available to community housing providers at a discount or at no cost.

This past summer, we also launched a new homelessness strategy, a 10-year $2.2-billion plan to reduce homelessness by 50%. This plan, called “reaching home”, will give more communities more funding and tools to fight homelessness on their terms. It will lead to better solutions for youths, seniors, women fleeing violence, veterans, people living with disabilities and those from LGBTQ2 or racialized communities.

There is also new funding to improve the situation of indigenous people living in cities, who are eight times more likely to experience homelessness than other Canadians. Our plan also includes new funding for the territories so they can tackle the unique challenges of homelessness in the north.

To stretch our homelessness investment as far as possible, we have created tools to help streamline the process to get people into housing and to coordinate the support services they need stay in stable housing over the long term.

This work represents an incredible achievement over just two years. I am proud of how we have been able to collaborate with Canadians and other stakeholders along the housing continuum to launch programs that will make a lasting difference, but of course there is still much more work to do.

As I mentioned previously, we are working hard with provincial and territorial partners to sign bilateral agreements with all provinces and territories by April 2019. I know that members and other Canadians are particularly concerned about the difficult housing conditions in indigenous communities. Under the national housing strategy, $225 million has been invested in improving housing for indigenous families living in urban centres. An additional $200 million has been allocated to support urban indigenous households, through bilateral agreements with the provinces and territories. In addition, $300 million will be provided to the three northern territories to support 3,000 households in their communities.

I am also working very closely with the Minister of Indigenous Services and indigenous leaders and organizations to co-develop distinct first nations, Métis and Inuit housing strategies. These strategies would meet the unique needs of each group and will be anchored in the principles of reconciliation and self-determination.

We have also launched major research initiatives to fill data gaps that exist around housing needs and conditions. I look forward to seeing the resulting research and learning how we can continue to make progress on creating better housing outcomes for all Canadians.

Finally, we are currently writing legislation that would enshrine the human rights-based approach to housing that is the foundation of the national housing strategy. We are planning to table this vital legislation this year and are confident that it will take us further toward the progressive realization of the right to housing in Canada, as has been called for for many years in the United Nations International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. This legislation would ensure that affordable housing remains a priority for all governments and would benefit all Canadians for generations to come.

I will say again that the Government of Canada is back in housing. In fact, we are back in a big way, with ambition, with support and with a desire to collaborate. Canadians and housing leaders across Canada are on-board with our new approach and I urge all members on the other side of the House to join them. Working together, we can deliver an inclusive national housing strategy that will improve the lives of all Canadians and strengthen our communities and our economy for years to come.

Opposition Motion—HousingBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

10:55 a.m.

NDP

Sheri Benson NDP Saskatoon West, SK

Mr. Speaker, I thank the minister for his leadership and work on the housing file.

I grew up in the 1960s and my parents had subsidized housing in Brandon, Manitoba. It helped allow my mom to finish school and my dad to work and have a place to live. It was very helpful. This points to the fact that for people today, just having a job does not mean they can afford housing. That is why I agree with the minister that the government needs to help people afford housing.

Saskatchewan has a provincial government that is moving away from rental supplements and the federal government is now attempting to enter agreements. Could the minister assure me that he will advocate for an agreement with my provincial government and that rental supplements will be an important part of that agreement, and that the Canada housing benefit will build on that so that housing will be affordable for people in Saskatoon?

Opposition Motion—HousingBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

10:55 a.m.

Liberal

Jean-Yves Duclos Liberal Québec, QC

Mr. Speaker, I again congratulate and thank members on the other side, in particular, the member for Saskatoon West, for all the hard work they have done in the last years in stressing how important it is for every Canadian to have access to safe and affordable homes.

In this context, I am glad she is now aware that we will all be working together to make sure that the new partnership provided by the federal government will be felt across Canada, and certainly in her home province of Saskatchewan. I look forward to continuing my important discussions with the Government of Saskatchewan to make sure that the introduction of the Canada housing benefit in the spring of 2020 will lead to a new set of tools for people in Saskatchewan, particularly those struggle to make ends meet every day, and provide them with access to this important new benefit.

Opposition Motion—HousingBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

10:55 a.m.

Conservative

Karen Vecchio Conservative Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON

Mr. Speaker, I thank the minister for his passion on this file. I know he works very hard on this.

That said, we have very different opinions on how to get there when it comes to housing and housing needs. We talk about federal leadership, but we have to understand the barriers at both the provincial and municipal levels. We talk about developments, but we know that there are sometimes six-year delays.

If the federal government wants to take leadership on everything, what is it doing to make sure that things actually get built? There is all of this money available, but we know that housing is not getting built. Projects in my own riding and Toronto have been cancelled because of rising costs. The problem is that this is a full continuum. If we know that housing is not getting built, what is the federal government and its leadership going to do about things happening on the ground?

Opposition Motion—HousingBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

10:55 a.m.

Liberal

Jean-Yves Duclos Liberal Québec, QC

Mr. Speaker, the two key words in this conversation are “leadership” and “partnership”, “leadership” because Canadians and housing leaders and experts, for many years, have been waiting for the return of the federal government in housing, and “partnership” because, as we have just heard, these investments make sense when they are made in partnership with provinces, territories and municipalities. That is extremely important to mention.

The Federation of Canadian Municipalities is one of those important organizations that has been advocating for a long time for the return of federal leadership and partnership. It has been working very effectively with us since 2016 to make sure that this new era for housing will be as effective as possible in support of its capacity to make housing a key element of its investments in communities.

Opposition Motion—HousingBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

10:55 a.m.

NDP

Anne Minh-Thu Quach NDP Salaberry—Suroît, QC

Mr. Speaker, I thank the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development for his speech.

I just wanted to point out that many groups are telling me that in rural areas like Salaberry—Suroît, Haut-Saint-Laurent or Soulanges, it is really hard to get funding to build social housing. One of the difficulties is meeting the criteria for building social and affordable housing in rural areas. For instance, the administrative criteria require a too-high minimum number of units, and this does not correspond to the size of projects in rural areas.

What does the minister have to say to people who need social housing, such as seniors, students who want to stay in school and people who are struggling to find well-paying jobs? Such individuals need housing, but they are struggling to find it, even though they work very hard. The current federal strategy is quite limited.

How can the minister address the situation now, rather than after 2019?

Opposition Motion—HousingBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

11 a.m.

Liberal

Jean-Yves Duclos Liberal Québec, QC

Mr. Speaker, the objective of the national housing strategy is to provide safe, affordable housing for all Canadians.

I am pleased that my colleague from Salaberry—Suroît not only embraces this objective, but also wants to work hard in the coming years to implement this strategy. I invite her to get in touch with my office, because flexibility and ambition are key ingredients to the national housing strategy.

Flexibility is needed because, as she said, the strategy must consider everyone's needs and circumstances, regardless of where they are in Canada. The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation has renewed its commitment, so I know that it will be able to provide considerable support to her constituents.

Opposition Motion—HousingBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

11 a.m.

Liberal

Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON

Mr. Speaker, I thank the minister for the work he is doing to help connect communities to the needs within the community. Municipalities are a key part of this. We have to get approvals for housing at the municipal level, then go through the bidding process and then get funds released through our strategy and through the provinces to the municipalities. Some people have been criticizing the length of time it takes for the money to flow into these types of projects.

Could the minister talk to us about the need for close relationships with municipalities and with provincial and territorial governments in order for this strategy to work effectively?

Opposition Motion—HousingBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

11 a.m.

Liberal

Jean-Yves Duclos Liberal Québec, QC

Mr. Speaker, I have had the opportunity to work with the member for Guelph over the last few months, and I know how strongly he feels about the objectives of the national housing strategy. We share his desire to make sure that this makes a big impact in his riding. Again, the key words of leadership and partnership matter so much.

Partnership matters because the national housing strategy is designed in part through the co-investment fund, which means co-investing with municipalities, provinces, territories, the social sector and the private sector. It is when we have this type of partnership that the housing outcomes are the best they can be. It is certainly true that the ambitions are very significant, but it is also true that the outcomes will be very good in ridings like Guelph when we have members like the member for Guelph.

Opposition Motion—HousingBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

11 a.m.

Conservative

Harold Albrecht Conservative Kitchener—Conestoga, ON

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the minister for his work on this file, but one of the key tenets of the ending homelessness strategy of the previous government was housing first for those experiencing housing issues as a result of mental health challenges. The current government is killing that program.

Tim Richter of the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness said this:

The Housing First philosophy and Housing First programs are essential to preventing and reducing chronic homelessness, in fact, we won't prevent and reduce chronic homelessness in Canada without it.

I have had the privilege of working with groups in my riding, and they are very supportive of the housing first program that our government initiated. It is really disappointing to see the present government not making this program a priority in its homelessness strategy.

Opposition Motion—HousingBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

11 a.m.

Liberal

Jean-Yves Duclos Liberal Québec, QC

Mr. Speaker, the key to making good public policy in the federal government is the ability to listen to the views of others, which may not be exactly aligned with views we may have held for some time.

Tim Richter has been a key advocate of housing first. He has also been a key advocate of communities first because investment in communities first, in part through housing first, is what gives communities the best ability to make an impact on homelessness.

We are pleased and delighted to have been able to count on the advice of Tim and many others who make up the advisory committee in order to generate the new reaching home program. We are delighted and so grateful for their efforts, and we look forward to working with them in the coming years to make sure that chronic homelessness becomes history in Canada.

Opposition Motion—HousingBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

11:05 a.m.

Conservative

Karen Vecchio Conservative Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON

Mr. Speaker, today I will be sharing my time with the member for Sarnia—Lambton.

I am pleased to stand to debate this NDP motion. For all the viewers, I am going to read it into the record so that they know what we are debating today.

It states:

That, given that a housing crisis is raging in Canada and that 90% of the funding for the government's national housing strategy will only flow after the next election—

This is key:

—and that much of the funding depends on collaboration with provincial governments and the private sector, the House call on the government to: (a) recognize the right to housing as a human right; and (b) bring forward 50% of the strategy’s funding before the next election to invest in...housing for Indigenous communities...the construction of new affordable housing, new social housing units and new co-ops units...a plan to end homelessness...the renovation of existing social housing and old housing stock...the expansion of rent supplements...the administration of programs that meet the special needs of seniors and persons with reduced mobility.

To begin, I will address the first portion of this motion, which is something that has been widely debated with the NDP. It is housing as a human right. We have different philosophies on this, and we have all wondered which is the best.

We in the Conservative caucus have sat down to discuss this. We have talked about the housing continuum. To be honest, one of my concerns with the housing continuum is when we start talking about the legal and judicial system. Is that the right thing to do? We should actually be addressing homelessness and housing issues one way, and I am fearful any time we try to put that into the judicial system. A good plan and a good program is what we need first.

The second portion of this motion is about spending the money and bringing 50% of it forward as allocated in the first year of the 11-year program. As I indicated, we are talking about a program that has been brought forward from after the next federal election. As a reminder, we have had a majority government since 2015, and this is basically its platform. I thank the government for giving us its national housing strategy, which is part of its 2019 platform. However, unless the work is actually getting done, that is all I see this as being.

I want to go back to something else we are discussing. We are asking the government to start spending money and to start getting things done. Unfortunately, I have to remind the House and the member that this is a government that has not built pipelines, nor held judicial nominations. We have problems with trade negotiations, if anyone watched the updates from yesterday. We have immigration backlogs. We can name one thing after another. That is what we are seeing here. We have even talked about the money that Veterans Affairs has left on the table, an amount of over $300 million. Therefore, asking a government that cannot get the job done to get the job done is like blowing in the wind. I just do not know if that is going to really do it.

I started to review what we are doing, how money is being left on the table, what has been done for indigenous communities, where new affordable housing is being built, what the impact on homelessness has been, the current housing stocks and looking at the needs of seniors. These are all things that we need to look at, and they are all very important.

Therefore, by no means am I trying to say this is not an important issue. I look at housing as part of that. In first year psychology one studies Maslow and the principle that basic shelter is one of the key things. However, as Conservatives, we have a different philosophy on how we get there.

For me, a strong economy will allow for stronger programs. When I hear the NDP saying we should put the cart before the horse, I say let us put the horse before the cart. We need to have strong economic policies and a strong economic engine to drive these social programs and make sure that all Canadians have their essential needs. The cost of housing also comes into that.

Therefore, we should begin by looking at a simple business plan when we are looking at the business model of housing. It is like owning a retail store: the higher the demand, the greater the need and potentially the greater the cost if supply is low. In the case where there is too much supply, we know the costs can go down. It is one of those simple business philosophies.

Since the Liberal government has been in place, it has talked about all it has done. However, looking at the data from CMHC, we see that for a bachelor or a three-bedroom apartment there has been absolutely no change since 2015 on these figures. There have been no vacancy changes. Those rates continue. The government talks about how much it is working on affordable housing. We have seen absolutely no change in three years of data.

However, if we are looking at one- or two-bedroom apartments, we have seen that the vacancy rates for those are on the decrease. It is a 2.5% or a 2.7% vacancy rate.

I spoke to a person in the city of London who deals with affordable housing. It was an organization that was basically setting up a housing bank. We recognize that there are many ways of finding housing now. Some people go onto Kijiji, some people go into the CMHC organizations and look for things like that, or they look on social networks within their communities.

However, in the city of London this summer, only 11 affordable places were available for a population of almost 400,000. There we see the issue. It is a supply issue, so we need to get shovels in the ground. We know that.

We also know there are issues when we start talking to CREA, the Canadian Real Estate Association. We talk about the new stress test that the current government has applied for mortgages. It is not just affecting first-time homebuyers, but also the people who are trying to get in and move from that first home into a larger home. We know their hands are tied right now as well.

We have different philosophies on how that should work, but CREA president Barb Sukkau has said, “The degree to which the stress-test continues to sideline home buyers varies depending on location, housing type and price range. All real estate is local, and realtors remain your best source.” I go back to the realtors and ask them what they are seeing. We know we have seen skyrocketing prices. We know there was a high demand and we saw some things explode almost 75% over five years, with the cost of a house going up by 75%. We saw that in some of our regions.

I live in St. Thomas, Ontario and I could watch the cost of housing go up. For people in the city of Toronto, the next thing they know it is hitting Richmond Hill. Then it is hitting Guelph, then Kitchener, then London, and now it has hit Port Stanley. We saw this cycle happen, but we have to talk about what we can do about this.

We know the average price, but when we put the greater Vancouver area and the greater Toronto area into the calculations we cannot sit there and say the average cost of houses in Canada is x number of dollars. The cost of a house in Vancouver is over $1 million, and in the city of Toronto it is greater than $750,000 as well. We have to see what is affordable.

That is one thing we have really lost. What is affordable? There is not really a benchmark anymore. Is it affordable to go and buy a house for the first time that is $300,000? Possibly it is not. There may be some families who have that opportunity, but many families, many first-time homebuyers, many parents and many families who are trying to get in there with their newborn child cannot afford a $300,000 home.

Therefore, this is the housing market issue that we have here, but this is also about the continuum of housing. We have to talk about what this does. When we talk about affordability, we have to look at housing as being an entire thing. How does it all strategize together?

I know a young woman who has two jobs and three young children, and is also going to school. She has left her husband and is currently living in second-stage housing. Her goal is to find a proper affordable house. There is nothing available for her. This is an issue. She would like to move on with her family. She would like to have a new life, but none of these things are happening because we know the shovels are not getting in the ground.

After three years of the current Liberal government, we do not see anything happening. It is story after story of people trying to get into housing.

What the government needs to focus on is how we can get our economy rolling so we can make sure developers are able to go out there and develop, so that people who want to buy a house can get out there and buy a house. We know that 50% of Torontonians are now renting. This has changed the way things are going, and the whole idea of having a house as part of people's retirement plan has kind of gone out the door. People are living differently. People are living paycheque to paycheque. We know that Canadians have greater debt. A whole bunch of things are happening here.

However, when it comes down to having a strong economy, this is where the government is absolutely failing, and that is what is concerning me. We can have strong housing, but if we cannot afford to purchase those houses because we have no jobs, it does not matter. What we are going to see is the housing continuum go out of whack. We are going to see that we need more social housing because people do not have jobs. For the people who may have been in those really expensive homes, we are going to see those homes decrease in value because people are losing their homes.

The current government needs to get back on track and try to actually negotiate deals like NAFTA. It needs to stop losing our manufacturing to the United States. Manufacturing makes up about 10% of our economy, so we have to think of these things. I live in a community where NAFTA is the number one issue right now, but that has not been addressed. I could carry on and share with members some of the stories I heard when I visited a place in London. We talk about shelters being 40% over capacity. The capacity is 65 people and the shelter has 85 people.

This policy and all of the policies the government has put forward are the problems in our housing continuum. I thank the member for putting forward the motion, but the government needs to do better and make sure the economy is hand in hand with housing as well.

Opposition Motion—HousingBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

11:15 a.m.

Spadina—Fort York Ontario

Liberal

Adam Vaughan LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Families

Mr. Speaker, that was a very interesting environmental scan of the challenges we face, but I did not hear a single solution proposed for any one of the sectors of the housing market the member opposite just talked about.

I also want to correct the record on an earlier comment a member on her side made, that housing first and the use of HPS dollars to put people into housing has been discontinued. That is not true. The mandatory threshold has been changed, but the program has remained exactly the same. There is a bit of flexibility for wraparound services to keep people in the housing so that we are not just paying rent for people.

The member opposite said that a strong economy is what is required to create housing opportunities. The city I live in, Toronto, has probably one of the strongest economies right now in the country. That is exactly what is creating the housing crisis. The capacity to bid up the price of housing is creating a gap between those who cannot compete in that economy, and even those who are competing in the economy, and the finite number of houses. They are having a problem. Even though we have approved 34,000 units of housing in Toronto, my riding doubled in size in the last three years, largely as a result of decisions made at city council. The reality is that the gap in the middle is the problem. The member opposite has said that this is the area she thinks she would like to focus on. Could she provide one idea to create housing affordability that will not spur inflation and speculation in the market and make it even harder for people looking for their first home?

Opposition Motion—HousingBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

11:15 a.m.

Conservative

Karen Vecchio Conservative Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON

Mr. Speaker, this is where we start talking about federal leadership. We have to recognize that municipalities and provinces are part of this. One of the biggest issues, and he can laugh all he wants, is that we know that developments are being cancelled that have been on the books for nine months, for six years. This is what is causing some of those costs to go up. People have made down payments, and the next thing they know, the building is being cancelled. They can reinvest, but it is going to cost them $200,000 more. These are the issues we have. Are these federal government issues we can solve? They are not necessarily, but if we really have these partnerships they talk about, let us make sure that the municipalities are getting these things built. Developer fees are a huge part of the cost. How can we reduce all these fees? If we are going to be part of this, let us have those answers as well.

Opposition Motion—HousingBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

11:15 a.m.

NDP

Gord Johns NDP Courtenay—Alberni, BC

Mr. Speaker, my colleague has identified the issue in her community. In my riding, which is a rural riding, we are seeing a vacancy rate of less than .01% because of the spillover of the housing crisis in Vancouver. There is nowhere to live. The mayors and councillors in the communities in my riding are saying that the free market is not going to resolve this and that we need non-market housing. They cannot build it without the support of senior levels of government. They are saying that it is an urgent crisis. They need help, and they are calling on Ottawa to get involved and come up with the critical investments they need. In fact, one needs to earn about $140,000 a year to buy a medium house in Parksville or the Comox Valley. The Comox Valley Chamber of Commerce has said that affordable housing is the number one issue.

The free market is not working. We need non-market housing. In the 70s and 80s, the non-market housing mix was about 10%. We are at 4% right now. We can look at cities like Vienna, where over 40% of the housing market is co-op housing. Clearly, the free market is not going to create enough supply. Certainly, people who live in our communities cannot afford it. The people who are maybe going to buy that supply will be the people who have enough money. Inequality is just going to continue to skyrocket, and we are not going to have people owning homes in our communities.

Opposition Motion—HousingBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

11:15 a.m.

Conservative

Karen Vecchio Conservative Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON

Mr. Speaker, I was in Victoria during the spring, and I was talking to many of the real estate agents and developers out there. They were talking about the proposal put forward as part of the strategy so that people could have money and portable benefits. They said that this program is not going to take a chunk off the gap between what people can afford and the actual cost.

I agree that there is an absolute crisis in the greater Vancouver area. It has to be a multiple approach. However, my biggest concern is the Liberal government's approach. It has its blinders on when it comes to what happens in rural communities. I talked about it travelling down the road into those rural communities. We are seeing houses valued at $45,000 now valued at $475,000 in Port Stanley. We are seeing things like this happening all over the country.

I agree with him that there needs to be a base when it comes to social housing. We need to make sure that we help those who need help, but we also have to make sure that people can afford to have mortgages, and to do that, we need an economic driver. They have to go hand in hand. It cannot just be that we give them housing and then this will happen. It has to be a whole package, and I do not think the government is doing that.

Opposition Motion—HousingBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

11:20 a.m.

Conservative

Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON

Mr. Speaker, there is so much to talk about here. It is sad that I only have 10 minutes, but I am going to start with the priorities.

First of all, this motion calls for the government to bring forward 50% of the strategy's funding before the next election. I am glad it was put forward in this proposal. The government has a rather annoying habit of announcing funding that is only going to happen after the next election. It is mythical funding if the Liberals are not re-elected, and I am very hopeful that they are not.

We have seen the infrastructure money that was promised 10 years out. That is assuming that they will be re-elected twice, which is really scary. I think we need to spend infrastructure money in this country, and affordable housing is one of the areas that needs that funding. If I think about the promises the Liberals were elected on, they were going to run really small deficits, and they were going to spend that money on infrastructure in municipalities. However, here we are, the third year into their mandate, and less than 40% of their infrastructure money has even been spent. What a disaster that is.

In my riding of Sarnia—Lambton, we have a lot of opportunities to spend that money. It is really badly needed. The affordable housing situation we have requires $40 million in renovations for the existing affordable housing in my riding. That said, I am in a similar position as some of the other members who have testified in this House today. There is no place affordable to live for anyone looking for a house. I had one of my constituents call the office, a single mother just coming out of the women's assault centre. She had no place to live for her and her two children that she could afford, and she is working full time.

The wage base has not kept up with the increase in house prices. We certainly need to do something about that. I would love to see the government actually spend the money that was promised and put it into the affordable housing area.

With respect homelessness and the plan to end homelessness, I was on the board of a homeless shelter. We have a significant homelessness issue in Sarnia. Maybe it is not as bad as in some of the larger cities, but still it is very serious. What we find is that in many cases, there are mental health issues, addiction issues and other problems that lead to people finding themselves in this homelessness place.

Interestingly, the homeless shelter I was on the board of put in place a unique solution of coming alongside those people, befriending them and helping them. They were able to pair them up with people they became friends with at the homeless shelter, and then they were able to live independently, and we would help them manage their money, because many times they were not very good at managing the money the government was providing to support them. It was so successful, in fact, that the Province of Ontario decided to donate money to the homeless shelter, or provide funding, to continue to expand the program, because we were very successful in getting people out of homelessness and into independent living. Part of the success of that solution is finding affordable housing. We can see how affordable housing is going to be so important to achieving a number of the things that are in this motion today.

This motion also talks about the administration of programs that meet the special needs of seniors and persons with reduced mobility. I was pleased to rise the other day to speak to Bill C-81, which was about people with disabilities and how we are going to enable them to have the same rights and freedoms other people enjoy in the country. I shared an example that I think speaks to the affordable housing area.

We have a fellow in my riding who was, unfortunately, paralyzed in an accident and is in a wheelchair. He is such an inspiration in our community. He partnered with the architect for a fundraiser that the hospital has called the dream home. They sell tickets for the dream home, and it is a way of raising money for the hospital. In this case, they worked together, he, Dan Edwards, and the architect, to create a visitable home. It is a home that is totally accessible for a person in a wheelchair, who can absolutely cook and do all the things they need to do in a house, and it is a reasonable price,

I think there are ideas out there that could be incorporated into affordable housing, because many people who find themselves in need of affordable housing are seniors. Our seniors are struggling to make ends meet, and they are finding it very difficult to find places they can afford to live. The size of their pensions or their CPP and OAS is not increasing, and as the price of a place to live continues to inflate, they are the ones having difficulty. In many cases, over the years, they are going to become less able to walk and will have other disabilities that will need to be dealt with. Certainly, this is an area where, if we are building affordable housing, we should make sure that we are making it accessible and think about seniors and the needs they are going to have.

The other part of the motion I want to talk about has to do with housing for indigenous communities. There is an awful lot of rhetoric coming from the Liberal government about its nation-to-nation relationship. However, when I look at what is actually happening, there is a lot of talk but there are not a lot of results, when we think of building housing, addressing the boiled water advisories, etc.

There is a need out there, but we want to make sure that we do not get back into a situation such as what happened at Attawapiskat. Members might remember when $300 million was given to the community. There were about 80 people in the community, and they were all living in tents and horrible living conditions. In my mind, there was no resolution, because $300 million should have been enough to build affordable housing and it should have been satisfactory.

There is a need the government is not addressing within our indigenous communities. It would be great for the government to spend some of the money it futuristically planned. It should spend it now, because the need is immediate, and it is important that the government do that.

On the right to housing as a human right, I am not sure I am really on that page, because as soon as we say it is a human right for people to have housing, the question will be what kind of housing they deserve. There is no definition provided of what is acceptable. Do we think everyone should have a $300,000 house, or should we all be able to buy a house in Vancouver or Toronto? I think that is a point of discussion.

My youngest daughter recently purchased a home. They are first-time home buyers in London. The member for Elgin—Middlesex—London indicated that the typical price of a house there is probably $300,000. Well, for a first-time homebuyer, one needs a 20% down payment because of what the finance minister put in place. That is $60,000. What kind of young first-time homebuyers have $60,000? If they do not have parents who are reasonably well off and generous, they are not going to be able to get into the housing market. Therefore, another helpful suggestion I would give to the government is to get rid of that 20% requirement for a down payment. I mean, if one is going to have a mortgage of $240,000, there is not that much difference between that and one for $300,000, but it is a huge difference in terms of young people being able to have that dream of owning a home. I think that is important as well.

When we look at all the parts of the motion before us, there are many priorities the government could be doing something with. I hope it spends money on infrastructure. I hope it meets the needs of indigenous communities. I hope it provides affordable housing by letting members of Parliament who are in the House actually submit what the municipalities need in their areas. There is more than enough need to help the government spend the 60% of infrastructure money that has not yet been spent.

I do not see a plan to end homelessness coming from the government, but there are many wonderful solutions in communities, such as the one I talked about, that could help end homelessness. I am glad to hear that the housing first program was not cancelled, because it is certainly something we need. We have to have a place where people can go, because that is part of getting people back to health and back to work.

I did not talk about the expansion of rent supplements, because I did not really understand what was intended and what they would like to see in place. Because there is no affordable housing, the amount of money the government is giving for rent is not enough, which I think is fair to say, and it is worse in larger communities like Vancouver and Toronto than it is here.

Overall, I am glad to see that the motion was brought forward.

Opposition Motion—HousingBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

11:30 a.m.

NDP

Wayne Stetski NDP Kootenay—Columbia, BC

Mr. Speaker, this summer I attended a lot of farmers markets around my riding and I had the opportunity to hear from constituents on a lot of issues. I spent four hours at the farmers market, so I had lots of time to talk to people.

Unfortunately, many single seniors are women. I heard from a senior in Preston. She lives in her own home. She gets the maximum amount of OAS and GIS, which amounts to just over $18,000 a year. She is really concerned that she is going to lose her home as a result of not having enough income. The cost of utilities increase and taxes increase every year.

Would the member like to comment on the need for a special program targeted at keeping our seniors in their homes for as long as possible so that they do not become homeless?

Opposition Motion—HousingBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

11:30 a.m.

Conservative

Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON

Mr. Speaker, my NDP colleague is absolutely right. Single women who are seniors are some of the poorest in the country. What they receive as income is not increasing but everything else is inflating. Many of them face the situation of losing lose their homes. Then where will they go? We do not have enough long-term care facilities. Those are jammed up as well.

We need to come up with a solution. It does not have to be a complicated one. We already have a way to give them money. They are receiving the OAS. We could make an adjustment to the OAS. The government made a very small adjustment of $60 a month but, to be honest, it needs to be more than that. We are seeing disparities for people who live in rural areas of $500 and people living in large cities probably $1,000 a month gap.

We do need to come up with a plan and that would be a good place to start.

Opposition Motion—HousingBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

11:30 a.m.

Spadina—Fort York Ontario

Liberal

Adam Vaughan LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Families

Mr. Speaker, it is good to hear people talking about the needs of seniors and the need for housing for seniors.

I would like to bring to the attention of the member what we are doing for seniors specifically within the national housing strategy and I would ask for her opinion on it.

The projected number of new housing units will be 60,000, with 240,000 units repaired with the co-investment fund. Of that, 20% of the units are being set aside specifically for seniors. On top of that, 2,400 units will be available for people with developmental disabilities. For the first time in the history of the country, there is a defined spending program for people in that category.

As well, 25% of all new builds, that is 25% above and beyond the seniors housing of 60,000 units, must be built with universal access so that seniors can move in or age in place.

On top of that, the Canada housing benefit is a new rent supplement to make sure that people who fall below the poverty line who fall into core housing needs can be lifted up with rent supplements.

Would the member not agree that is a program to help house seniors and will she support it?

Opposition Motion—HousingBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

11:30 a.m.

Conservative

Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON

That is interesting, Mr. Speaker. I am not sure if those programs are only going on in Liberal ridings, because this is absolutely the first time I have ever heard of them and we have all the needs that he listed in my riding. It definitely is a step in the right direction but zero of the programs that he talked about have made their way to Sarnia—Lambton.

Opposition Motion—HousingBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

11:30 a.m.

Conservative

Harold Albrecht Conservative Kitchener—Conestoga, ON

Mr. Speaker, I asked this question earlier of one of our NDP colleagues but I did not receive an answer.

The motion outlines six different starting points, so to speak, but totally ignores that the private sector has a big role to play in providing the kind of affordable housing that Canadians need.

One would think the NDP could at least have included something about the private sector. Maybe my colleague will have some insight on that.

Opposition Motion—HousingBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

11:35 a.m.

Conservative

Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON

Mr. Speaker, philosophically, the NDP is always looking for the government's and somebody else's money to do things rather than looking at the private sector.

There is a real opportunity for the government to partner with the private sector. There are some innovative solutions that talk about creating smaller affordable housing units of maybe 800 or 900 square feet.

There is a program in my riding called Rebound that is looking for housing for youth, many of whom are homeless. This is an idea that would fix the homeless part of a program as well as the affordable housing problem.

In order to build that, there are people in the private sector who want to partner with the government. If the government would be willing to spend some of that infrastructure money in a program designed to build this kind of affordable housing, that would really help.

Opposition Motion—HousingBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

11:35 a.m.

NDP

Gord Johns NDP Courtenay—Alberni, BC

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Kootenay—Columbia.

It is a huge honour to rise today to speak to a very important issue.

In just three years, we have seen the cost of real estate in my riding go up 50%. We saw the housing crisis happen in Vancouver, and people sold their homes and moved to Vancouver Island, to Victoria. Then those people moved up island to our communities, which were very affordable for many years. It is affecting people in our communities. Homelessness is on the rise. More and more seniors are living in poverty. In fact, we are seeing more seniors at our homeless shelters than ever before. Young people are losing hope. Working families are struggling to make ends meet. People living with disabilities or accessibility issues are finding it harder and harder to find a place to live.

This month I held three town halls in my riding to hear from residents about this issue. They made it very clear that this is the most important issue affecting people in our riding. We were fortunate to have experts come and sit on panels to talk about the situation.

One group that was there was the BC Non-Profit Housing Association. It brought forward the housing affordability definition. We can all agree that if someone is spending more than 30% of before tax income on rent and utilities, it is no longer affordable. In my riding, over 50% of renter households are spending more than 30% of their income. In fact, a quarter of renter households in my riding are now spending over 50% of their income. This is outrageous. There is no way people can put money aside to buy a home at some point in the future, or just to meet simple needs such as clothing, medicine and food. People are struggling. They are having to work two or three jobs just to make a living, never mind setting aside money for retirement.

I think about the most vulnerable. In British Columbia, someone on income assistance receives a housing allowance of $375 a month. Thirty-six months ago, the average price of a home in the most affordable community in my riding, which is Port Alberni, was $192,000. Today, it is $303,000. People are moving into our community and commuting out because it is the most affordable place. The problem is that people have to have an income that is almost 50% higher than the average median household income to be able to buy a home now, which now costs $303,000.

More and more people are not able to buy a home and more inequality is happening. People who can afford it are coming in and buying five or 10 houses. They are renting them out and driving rental prices up. As we know, people living on low incomes struggle to make ends meet. When they cannot pay their rent, they are pushed out onto the street to find another place to live. However, when there is a vacancy rate of .01%, they cannot find a place to live. Those rents are now higher than the threshold of $375 a month. More and more people are turning to the street or shelters. They are falling through the cracks or living in precarious situations.

In a question earlier, I identified that to buy a house in Parksville or Courtenay one would need to have an income of over $140,000. Less than 6% of the people in those communities earn over $140,000. It is completely not working for people in our communities. We have heard loud and clear from local governments. They are calling on the federal government to invest in their communities immediately. This is an absolute crisis. When there is nowhere to live and young people are losing hope, it is a big problem for all of us.

We can look at where we were in the 1970s and 1980s when 10% of our housing was non-market housing. Today, it is 4%. The Conservatives' approach that the free market will resolve it and we will just build more supply has not worked. It has completely failed. The Liberals' approach that they will roll out money over 10 years if they are re-elected and house 50% of the homeless people in Canada does not work for 50% of the homeless people because they are not going to have a place to live. As well, 10 years is too long.

We have seen bold investments from the Province of British Columbia. It has shown the Government of Canada what urgency looks like. It has rolled out $1 billion this year and is going to roll out $7 billion over the next 10 years. It would be great to have a federal government that does not just give it $31 million a year in transfers but actually matches the funding. This is an opportunity to support people who are falling through the cracks, but also the local economy.

We have heard the Comox Valley Chamber of Commerce say loud and clear that this is the most important issue. Dianne Hawkins said, “Employers and their employees have been impacted by the lack of affordable housing and income inequity which exists in our area. Access to safe, quality, affordable housing and the supports necessary to maintain it create one of the most powerful social determinants of health. The Comox Valley needs a continuum, or wide range of housing solutions that target a full spectrum of population groups.” They are saying that it is actually limiting economic growth in the region for small and medium-sized enterprises.

We need to create diversity. There are countries that are doing it. In Europe over 30% of the housing stock is non-market housing. In Vienna, it is over 40%.

I was fortunate enough to live in a co-op housing project that was built in the 1970s and 1980s when the federal government actually invested in housing, before it started downloading in the 1990s. In 1993, Paul Martin cut federal transfers on housing to the provinces, downloaded on the provinces and then the provinces started downloading on local governments. I sat in local government. I remember how hard it was for us to come up with the capacity to deal with this complex situation. Most municipalities do not have the capacity, aptitude or resources to take on this problem on their own. They are relying on senior levels of government to invest and get involved.

When people cannot find a place to live, it affects their mental health. It affects child welfare. That is a huge problem in British Columbia and it is connected to housing. One of the most important determinants to health is housing. The stress this is causing families is unbelievable. Is this what we want? Is this the type of society we want in the future for our children? Do we want them to live under so much stress and have to work two or three jobs just to make ends meet? We know that 30% of single women over the age of 65 are living in poverty. We are failing them. This is an opportunity to help them.

I think about working families a lot. The most important investment one makes in life is a home. Right now, so few people are making that investment because they cannot afford to. The biggest economic leakage in people's lives is when they cannot afford to buy a home. The biggest economic leakage in communities is when people outside the communities or the country buy all the housing. That wealth is leaving. Rural communities know too well about wealth leaving their communities, something which unfortunately, we are getting far too used to.

This is the beginning of a crisis. This crisis is not going away. People who have had to move to more affordable places in my riding are now in the most affordable, and it is compounding. They have nowhere to go. There is nowhere left to go. This problem is not going away and they are not going away.

I met someone at one of my town halls and every day since that town hall, I wake up and I think about Marcy. She has lived in my community for over 30 years. She has been homeless for the past four years. With low vacancy rates and rents that are sky high, she has not been able to find a place to live. She has been living in her van. She actually upgraded to living in a trailer on a property and she is worried that the bylaw officer is going to move her out. She worries about that every day. This is what Marcy worries about. The free market is not helping Marcy right now. She needs help and it is our duty to help her come up with the solutions. We can do that. We can create more co-op housing.

Indigenous elders say that there is nowhere to live on their reserves and in their communities. There is overcrowding. Sixteen people live in one house. The government's promise to fix that has not come to fruition. There are 10 indigenous communities in my riding and I cannot name one that would say that the federal government has lived up to its promise to support indigenous housing. Verna is a 76-year-old indigenous elder who barely gets by on her pension. She was hit with a rent increase and a big hydro bill. She is like Marcy. She is concerned, not just about herself but she is also concerned about the youth.

This is a problem. I am glad we are having this discussion today. I could cite so many comments from my constituents. I am grateful they shared their experiences. We need to be vigilant. We need to work collectively and we cannot wait 10 years.

We need money to roll out the door right now. The government believed it needed to buy the Kinder Morgan pipeline, which we know was a big mistake. If the Liberals could come up with $4.5 billion for a leaky pipeline, why can they not come up with $4.5 billion for our seniors, our elders and our most vulnerable? The government needs to do this immediately and it needs to address it and get money out the door.