Madam Speaker, the other day I raised a question in Parliament based off an article from The Hamilton Spectator.
I asked, “What is happening in our country?” The Liberals' first-time home buyers plan is not doing enough to address the high cost of housing. I asked what the government was doing to actually address the craziness of the Canadian housing market.
What I am looking for are some basic answers, which the minister was unable to provide in the House last week, to these straightforward questions: How many homes has the national housing strategy actually built? Why has the failed first-time home buyer program not been completely reformed or simply scrapped? What will the government do to stop money laundering in Canadian real estate?
We have a government whose much vaunted commitment to transparency does not actually progress beyond the lip service it gives in its place. Do not get me wrong, aspirational policies are commendable. We need to aspire to much more when it comes to housing in this country, but these programs, policies and commitments must all be accounted for and defended by concrete results.
When policies of the Liberal government are clearly not working, instead of fixing them, efforts are made to change internal metrics, superficially tweak criteria and downplay failure. The Liberals' first-time home buyer incentive program is a prime example. Originally purported to help 200,000 Canadians in three years, that number was quietly cut in half to 100,000, but it has still only helped 10,000 people. Even with the recent but very delayed changes to extend the income threshold to $150,000 and the purchase price to 4.5 times one's annual income, most first-time homebuyers still would not qualify for the program in our large cities.
Have the Liberals given up on the dream of home ownership for young people in urban centres and the suburbs? Continuing to prop up this failed program suggests they have.
Then there are some topics the Liberals claim to be tackling, but their announcements are simply window dressing to distract from their complete inaction on the real problems. For instance, the effects of money laundering in Canadian real estate, which negatively affects our economy, our reputation on the world stage, and most significantly, regular Canadians trying to rent or buy homes.
The last budget did not address this at all. It did not include the comprehensive changes to the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act that are necessary. These necessary changes have been outlined by numerous reputable experts in report after official report, such as Peter German's “Dirty Money” reports on laundering 1 and 2, the report of the expert panel on money laundering in B.C.'s real estate, and the interim report of the ongoing Cullen commission of inquiry into money laundering in British Columbia.
The government has long turned a blind eye to money laundering in Canadian real estate. Why is this continuing? Why is it not taking action on this matter?
I am going to pose just one of my initial basic questions again, and give the minister or parliamentary secretary the opportunity to do the right thing and be transparent with Canadians. Again, how many homes has the national housing strategy actually built, meaning that construction is complete and families are living in them? How many are there?
Finally, where I live in Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, the cost of housing is just going up and up. In fact, since the pandemic, it has gone straight up. People have lost hope, and they are not getting straight answers from the government. We need straight answers. We need a comprehensive plan to address the high cost of housing right now, because regular families, people who went to university, cannot get by anymore. They make—