Debates of Oct. 3rd, 2023

Housing

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to announce that, recently, alongside British Columbia and the City of Vancouver, the member for Vancouver Centre announced the groundbreaking for the construction of 154 new affordable housing units close to transit. This new building in the heart of Davie Village will also house QMUNITY, a non-profit organization providing access to safe and secure services for individuals and families living with HIV/AIDS. This is what we can accomplish when we work together, ensuring Vancouverites can live close to where they work and access the services they need.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, that is yet another answer that is completely disconnected from reality.

Families who have to renew their mortgage soon are headed for a cliff. Negligence by the Liberals and the Conservatives has resulted in the loss of one million affordable housing units in the country. In the meantime, the government has given the Bank of Canada the mandate to increase interest rates without any regard for how that will impact people. That is the Liberals' record: families worried about losing their home. It makes no sense.

Why did the Prime Minister not give the Bank of Canada a clearer mandate to avoid this crisis?

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, on this side of the House, we will always respect the independence of the Bank of Canada, but we know that Canadians are worried about the cost of housing. That is why we are taking action on many fronts.

We are encouraging the construction of apartments by eliminating the GST on construction. We are removing obstacles so that more and more homes are built faster by working directly with the municipalities. We are helping Canadians save up to buy a home with the tax-free first home savings account.

We know that there is still a lot of work to be done. I invite every government across the country to take bold action with us to improve the cost of housing.

[Melissa Lantsman, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, “Interest rates are at historic lows”. That was what the Prime Minister said just three years ago. He told people to keep borrowing, while his government kept spending. Now the number of Canadians saying they are facing financial stress has jumped 20% in a single year.

The National Payroll Institute found that 63% of working Canadians said they had nothing left at the end of the month and 30% spend more than they make. It is calling it a national emergency.

When will they finally balance the budget so interest rates can come down and Canadians can keep more of their own money?

[Chrystia Freeland, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, in my first answer, let me just congratulate you in this historic role. It is historic for Canada.

While the Conservatives recite trite and misleading talking points, our government is acting for Canadians. With Bill C-56, we would be getting more homes built by lifting the GST on purpose-built rental, and we would be acting to stabilize grocery prices with historic changes to competition law that would bring competition to the grocery sector.

[Melissa Lantsman, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this is the minister who misled Canadians when she said that interest rates would stay low for a long time, and now homeowners are bracing for the shock of when they have to renew their mortgages. That is what the Canadian banks are saying.

Now there is another former bank governor raising alarm bells. David Dodge warns that the burden of past debts are catching up. Governments cannot spend their way out of the problems they have created.

When the government spends money, the bank raises the interest rates, and when the rates go up, Canadians pay more for their mortgages, so will the NDP-Liberal government finally listen to everyone, or anyone, and stop its spending so Canadians can keep their homes?

[Chrystia Freeland, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, the only people misleading Canadians are the Conservatives on that side of the House.

The reality is that Canada has the lowest deficit in the G7 and the lowest debt-to-GDP ratio. Our AAA rating has recently been reaffirmed by DBRS Morningstar. These are independent experts, not Conservative partisans.

We know we need to get more homes built. That is why we have lifted the GST on purpose-built rental and added another $20 billion to the financing CMCH has available for rental construction.

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians should not have believed the finance minister when she said to borrow as much as one wants and that interest rates will be low for a very long time.

She turned around and threw hundreds of billions of dollars of fuel onto the inflationary fire, giving Canadians the worst inflation in 40 years and the most rapid interest rate hikes, which we have not seen in the last 30 years. Anyone who took on a mortgage five years ago at 2% will now have to renew at 6% or 7%. That is an increase of more than 200%.

Will the Prime Minister rein in his inflationary deficits so interest rates come down, or does he want people to start losing their homes?

[Chrystia Freeland, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, yet again, these are misleading comments from the Conservatives. The reality is that Canada's AAA rating has been reaffirmed year after year we have been in government. We have the lowest deficit in the G7 and the lowest debt-to-GDP ratio.

We also know that we are a growing country, and a growing country needs to build more homes faster. That is exactly what we are doing by lifting the GST on purpose-built rentals and making more financing available through CMHC, with $20 billion for the financing of new rental construction.

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the rating she brags about came at the high cost of one in five Canadians skipping meals and seven million Canadians visiting a food bank in a single month. She is completely out of touch, but she is in line with her incompetent government's legacy. The finance minister was doing victory laps two months ago, saying that she stopped inflation. It went up 43% since then. What did she think was going to happen when she added $1.2 billion of debt in the first quarter of this fiscal year alone?

Will the Prime Minister rein in his inflationary spending, or does he think that this too is not one of his responsibilities?

[Chrystia Freeland, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives are hitting new lows in this question period. Not only are they are misleading, they are internally contradictory and incomprehensible.

I think the member opposite just said that our AAA rating is disadvantageous to hard-working Canadians. I beg to differ. Our AAA rating is a foundation for everything our government is doing to build more homes and provide more support to hard-working Canadian middle-class families.

It is time for the Conservatives to get that.

Carbon Pricing

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, according to a recent National Payroll Institute survey, almost two out of three workers spend all of their net pay and 30% spend more than their pay. We can help them by rejecting the second carbon tax. That tax applies in Quebec, and the Bloc Québécois supports it.

People are suffering. They are having a hard time putting food on the table. This is a serious issue; it should not be a partisan one.

The Bloc Québécois wants the Prime Minister to radically increase the carbon tax. Will he walk back his pledge to do so?

[Steven Guilbeault, Liberal, Minister of Environment and Climate Change]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to remind my hon. colleague that, during the last election campaign, his party and Conservative candidates, some of whom are now MPs, campaigned in favour of a clean fuel standard. The difference between us and them is that they talk while we take action. We created that standard, and it will reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It is resulting in lower greenhouse gas emissions in Canada and generating over $2 billion in investments across the country. That is the difference between us and them.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, when we talk about the government being out of touch with reality, this is exactly what we are talking about. The minister is completely out of touch with the reality of Canadians, people who are currently seeking help from food banks that are overwhelmed. Food banks are so overwhelmed that they are not able to provide food to all those who are asking for it right now. There are families in the minister's riding, in Montreal, who are being turned away by food banks because they cannot meet the demand. It is unprecedented. Unfortunately, even in the face of this crisis, members voted to keep the second carbon tax on June 5, 2023.

Can the Prime Minister and the Bloc Québécois set aside their ideology for once and help people in need?

[Steven Guilbeault, Liberal, Minister of Environment and Climate Change]

Mr. Speaker, what is out of touch with reality in 2023 is to be a party that hopes to form government but has nothing to say about climate change. Still today, the party's official position is to deny the very existence of climate change, while, this summer, tens of thousands of people across the country were displaced not once, not twice, but three times, in some cases because of record wildfires. There was major flooding across the country, and the Conservative Party has nothing to say about climate change.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Greg Fergus]

I would simply like to remind members that there can only be one conversation going on at a time. That is very important.

Finance

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Governor General's dry cleaning bill since 2018 amounts to $117,000. Her laundry must be clean, all right. In addition to this $117,000, we can tack on another $2.7 million in travel, $71,000 in limousines and $130,000 in clothing, all expenses fit for royalty. The cleaning might be dry, but it is raining cash on the Governor General. Dry cleaning is one of the services included with the office. If she needs extra to cover her laundry, she can always dip into her $350,000 annual salary.

When is the Prime Minister going to do something about this situation?

[Pascale St-Onge, Liberal, Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Mr. Speaker, obviously, every dollar invested must be spent conscientiously and responsibly. We will make the appropriate checks.

Official Languages

[Mario Beaulieu, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Mr. Speaker, a report by Radio-Canada reveals that the RCMP hires unilingual anglophone executives for high-ranking bilingual positions. They do not speak a word of French. They are not taking French lessons. In no way, shape or form are these people qualified for their positions, not today and not any other day. It is a blatant violation of the Official Languages Act, a violation that is so commonplace in Ottawa that even the RCMP—the police, for crying out loud—is in breach of the act.

Will the minister do something?

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Minister of Public Safety]

Mr. Speaker, first of all, congratulations on your election as Speaker. As far as my colleague's question goes, the answer is yes. Our government is constantly taking measures to make sure that federal government agencies meet their obligations under the Official Languages Act. That is what we expect of the RCMP.

I will be meeting with the RCMP commissioner tomorrow. I will definitely raise this important issue with him, because we truly believe in the Official Languages Act.

[Mario Beaulieu, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this new law was supposed to put an end to these cases of contempt for French at the federal level. Every single francophone will be paying close attention to what the new minister does.

This is the first blatant case of a federal agency thinking it is still okay to undermine French since the new Official Languages Act came into effect.

Will the minister demonstrate to the entire public service that those days are over, or will he demonstrate that it is still okay to undermine French?

[Randy Boissonnault, Liberal, Minister of Employment]

Mr. Speaker, congratulations on your new role in the House.

This year we are celebrating the modernization of the Official Languages Act, but we must also set the record straight and talk facts. The principle of bilingualism is a fundamental principle of both our country and our government. We expected the RCMP to live up to these principles and to fill bilingual positions with bilingual personnel.

Housing

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the housing crisis is hurting hundreds of thousands of families across Canada. TVA recently reported the heartbreaking story of one Lanaudière family: a single mother and her three children who had to leave their home and move into a garage. We are a G7 country. This is outrageous. It is small wonder that the woman said she was living through “hell” at the moment.

Now the government is proposing to introduce a new tax. Even the Bloc Québécois is sold on the idea.

Does anyone think it is right to introduce a new tax when hundreds of thousands of families are struggling?

[The Speaker, Liberal, Greg Fergus]

The hon. Minister of Housing.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Minister of Housing]

Mr. Speaker, let me begin by offering my congratulations and all the success in your new role.

With respect to the hon. member's question, I will not diminish the very serious challenges that families are facing across this country. In order to address Canada's national housing crisis, we are taking a number of different measures. We are investing in affordable housing in a way that no government has over the course of my entire life. In addition, in order to contribute to the ability for builders to build more homes, we are cutting taxes and changing the way that cities build homes through the housing accelerator fund.

When I compare our plan to theirs, members can trust that we will get more homes built, and that has been confirmed by finance officials at committee.