Mr. Speaker, it gives me pleasure to stand here on the last opposition day of the year. It also gives me great pleasure to split my time with the hon. member for Saskatoon West.
There is a housing crisis facing Canadians. Across the country, there are places where a couple with a dual income can simply no longer afford to live, where seniors cannot afford their monthly payments, and where university and college students have completely given up on ever owning property.
The average home price in Canada is $717,000. Do members want to know what it was last year? It was $606,000. That is an 18.2% increase. To put this in perspective, when the Prime Minister came into office it was $450,000. We are seeing house prices rise this year over last year by 20%. New-build homes dropped 5.2%. We have the lowest supply of homes in the G7, with the fastest-rising house prices in the G7. This simply cannot continue.
I want to highlight an example of a young couple right here in Ottawa. They reached out to me and shared their story. Tony and Amanda live in a 667-square-foot apartment. They just had a baby named Clara. A 667-square-foot apartment is a small place to raise a new baby, so Tony and Amanda are looking for a new home. They searched for months and months, and put in 26 offers on 26 different homes. All their offers were above the asking price. Do members know how many homes they got? Zero.
I also want to share the story of Samy, a nurse in Calgary, Alberta. Samy has been saving since he was in high school for his future. He told me that he grew up in a family where the values were to work hard, get a good education and eventually own a home. Samy checks realtor.ca almost every day. He says he is just devastated seeing the prices. One area of the city where he thought he would be able to afford five years ago is now selling above asking price consistently. To this day, Samy still rents, Samy still checks realtor.ca every day and Samy is slowly losing hope.
Let me tell members about another couple. They are from Burnaby, British Columbia. Ryan and Sarah both graduated from university in the last three years and have good jobs. Ryan is a financial analyst and Sarah is a teacher. Both were raised with a dream that if they work hard and study hard, they will be able to afford a home one day. However, they spent the last two years looking, put in some offers, but again, zero offers were accepted. They do not want to rent forever, but what Sarah said to me is heartbreaking. She said she has simply given up. This is a young couple on the cusp of their future together. They have the majority of their lives ahead of them, but have simply given up.
These are three of the many stories we have heard since the election across this country. This brings us to what the Liberal government plans to do. The Liberals have told us that they are going to build 100,000 new homes across this country by 2025. Do members know how many homes Scotiabank has predicted that Canada needs? It said we need 1.8 million new homes, and not in four years, but right now. Simple math tells us that the Liberals are 1.7 million homes short. The promise is 100,000 new homes. It would be almost laughable if it were not so sad when I think about Ryan and Sarah, Samy, and Tony and Amanda.
What the government seems to not understand with this promise is that we need housing supply. We can offer all the tax incentives in the world, but we need the homes for people to move into first. Essentially, what they are saying is come into my store, everything is 100% off, but then someone walks in and there is nothing on the shelves. There is simply no inventory. This is where the Liberals have failed to address the real problem of housing supply and that is where our motion comes in today.
Over the past few weeks during question period, a number of Conservative members of Parliament have raised very thoughtful solutions on what could be done, such as looking at the tremendous number of buildings and amount of land the federal government owns. It owns 37,246 buildings and nearly 41 million hectares of land. This is a substantial amount of property and buildings that it could immediately provide to the municipalities and provinces to help with supply. We can go to the Treasury Board real property report and see the countless number of buildings that are in critical condition, or the land that is in areas that could really help Canadian families find a home. This is a tangible policy solution the Liberals could take from us right here today.
Another policy suggestion is the tying of infrastructure dollars from the federal government to new housing supply. We know the government had extreme difficulty getting infrastructure money out the door, but we are hopeful that might change. We put forth a policy idea that was widely supported by a large number of stakeholders and communities. It was to ensure that we are working with the municipalities receiving federal funding for public transit to increase density near funded projects. We see projects that are not necessarily built being announced over and over again. There is no connection to the housing crisis we are facing here in Canada. Our motion helps fix that.
Our motion also touches on the issues we are facing when it comes to foreign ownership. There are 1.3 million empty homes in Canada. The Liberal solution is to tax them 1%. If it were not so sad to tax a billionaire in another country 1%, it would almost be completely laughable. I am sure they are really shaking scared. In this motion, we are generously offering another solution, which is to implement a policy to ban foreign ownership. Imagine some of the 1.3 million homes I spoke of in places like Vancouver, where a young couple can now afford to have that home, or a place in Montreal where one can dream again of the possibility of home ownership. Homes simply are not available and a lack of a plan from the other side has only made it more challenging for Canadians to buy homes.
A recent survey that came out yesterday from Sotheby's International Realty stated that the majority of young Canadians have completely given up on home ownership. According to the survey, over 80% of young Canadians aged 18 to 28 said that the possibility of home ownership in Canada is completely out of their reach. These are Canadians with their future ahead of them just simply giving up on ever owning a home. That is not only sad, but speaks to the failure of the government over the last six years to fix the housing crisis. It is not like the crisis has snuck up on it; it is something that experts have been warning about since the government came into office in 2015.
The Canadian Real Estate Association has written budget submission after budget submission offering solutions to the supply issue. The Appraisal Institute of Canada has put forth possible solutions that would get more homes into the market. Other groups, like Inclusion Canada, have submitted solutions to the government that would not only address housing affordability, but also affordable housing. These are terrific organizations that are doing their part to offer solutions to what so many Canadians have identified as a crisis. That is what we are doing here today, offering the government solutions.
The number of available homes is failing to keep up with demand and the government has simply hoped it would fix itself. It has said it had a plan all along, but the numbers speak for themselves. We are hearing from real estate agents, home builders and not-for-profit organizations. They all say that the plan will do little to alleviate lack of supply. Most importantly, we are hearing from young Canadians themselves who simply do not know what else to do.
I will end with this. We are in a position to offer a detailed plan to tackle home prices for Canadians. We are here to offer solutions for Canadians. We are here to make life affordable for Canadians. Will the Liberals join us and enact these measures for Canadians?