Debates of Oct. 5th, 2023

Affordable Housing and Groceries Act

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Madam Speaker, the Bloc Québécois has been calling for a reform of the Competition Bureau system for 20 years or so. For years, we have been asking that the Competition Bureau have the authority to prevent mergers and acquisitions regardless of any efficiency gains they might generate if, at the end of the day, it means higher prices for consumers. That is what happened in the case of grocery stores. Mergers and acquisitions took place. This made them more efficient, but it also enabled them to drive up prices. This measure is specifically covered in in Bill C-56.

I would like to know whether my colleague thinks that this Competition Bureau reform is a good thing for consumers.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Madam Speaker, every time we can give more power to the Competition Bureau to actually do its job and create more competition in the marketplace, consumers win. The rules around the efficiencies defence have to be addressed. Efficiencies usually mean fewer jobs, and we know efficiencies that have been applied in the past have meant we have had more concentration of the market and fewer and fewer players, and that has not helped the consumer.

Although there is all this talk about the affordable housing and groceries act, the change that is suggested here, as it was by the member for Bay of Quinte, addresses the entire Competition Act. It goes beyond food production as well as grocers and it talks about every part of the industry so we can have this opportunity to apply a new lens when we are looking at acquisitions and mergers.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Madam Speaker, in the member's intervention today, he spoke a lot about how seniors are impacted. I 100% agree with him. I spoke to one of my constituents, Laura, who is really struggling to make ends meet.

Would the member not agree that increasing OAS for seniors across the country, making sure that seniors 65 to 75 get the same amount as seniors over 75 and making sure that, particularly in Alberta, the CPP is protected for seniors are very important things? Would he support our calls for an increase to OAS so that 65-year-old seniors get the same treatment as those who are older, and for CPP to remain in seniors' hands?

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Madam Speaker, I too hear from my constituents all the time, from seniors, that a disparity has been created by the Liberals between those who are 65 to 75 and those 75 and over in the amount of money they receive through their pensions. That does need to be rectified.

I forgot to mention that one of the seniors from my riding, Bill from Beausejour, wrote to me that the big bonuses given out by the Liberals to Bank of Canada executives and CMHC executives appear to be very plainly a slap in the face to Canadians struggling to house their families.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Minister of Housing]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise in this House to debate Bill C-56. Perhaps I will start with my conclusion: I intend to support the bill, and I encourage all members in this House to do the same.

Bill C-56 is about making life more affordable. It is the affordable housing and groceries act, and of course, given the nature of my position as the Minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities, I will focus more on the aspect that will lead to more home construction across Canada to help address the supply gap that is contributing to the relative lack of affordability that we are dealing with.

I think it is important to acknowledge that Canada is experiencing a housing crisis. In order to restore affordability, we need to build homes and we need to build them by the millions. This is going to require us to pull every lever at our disposal to get Canada building at a rate that it has never built before. However, if we are going to succeed, we have to understand the nature of the obstacles that stand in our way and introduce specific policies that are designed to overcome those challenges.

Over the course of my remarks, I hope to identify the scale of the challenge we are facing, highlight the problems that we need to overcome and demonstrate some of the solutions that are starting to have a positive impact today. I do not mean to suggest that the job is done; we have a long way to go. However, I am very optimistic in light of the response from the home building sector to some of the policies we have put forward indicating that they are having the desired impact.

There are currently about 16.5 million homes in this country. We are on pace to building a few million more over the next number of years, but we have to increase the pace of building significantly if we are going to restore the level of affordability that existed in Canada just 20 years ago.

The reality is that the impact can be felt not only in the statistics outlined in CMHC's reporting, but in the lives of ordinary people who are struggling with the cost of living. The experiences that I hear about include too many young people who are trying to get ahead in life and trying to get their first job in a community they want to live in, but nevertheless find themselves in a position where they simply cannot afford a place to live. Too many people do not have that option. Even young professionals in a two-income household are sometimes unable to find a place to live in the community where they found meaningful work, one they can afford given their rate of pay.

When I talk to students from across the country, they tell me that it is very difficult to find a place to live in a college town that is safe, affordable and near the place they go to school. I have had too many conversations with young people studying on college and university campuses across this country who have told me that they are now sometimes living an hour commute away from their studies. At a time in their lives when they should be focusing on learning and developing skills that will contribute to their well-being, knowledge base and employability, they are focused on figuring out how they can get to class.

There is an opportunity for us, if we continue to engage with the people who are feeling the brunt of the housing crisis, to learn from them the solutions that will allow them to find the kind of place they want to live in.

When I talk to seniors who live in our communities, they want nothing more, as they downsize from the family home where they raised their kids, to find a place that is more manageable for them in the same community where their grandkids are being raised. I do not think that is too much to ask, and we need to realize that the importance to a person's life cannot be overstated when we are dealing with the place they call home.

I have talked to people who have a job that helps them get by in this country, and they tell me that, despite having a respectable income, they cannot find a place to live anywhere close to the place where they work. We need to make sure that we address the needs of workers in this country by working to ensure not only that their wages go a little further and they have a home they can afford, but that they have the kind of home they can raise their family in, with access to the services their family relies on and employment opportunities in their community.

Of course, I would be remiss if I did not also draw attention to the serious challenges facing Canadians who do not have a place to live at all, people who do not have housing security and people who are sleeping rough. We need to continue to do more to support some of Canada's most vulnerable people.

There are a number of challenges that we need to overcome. Primarily, I want to focus today on the need to change the financial equation that home builders are dealing with as they make an assessment as to whether they should green-light a project or let it sit on the shelf. As a result of the recent increases in the cost of supplies and materials, the cost of labour and the cost of land, and of course as a result of rising interest rates from global inflation, too many builders have projects sitting on the shelf that have been approved and could go ahead if the economics of the projects worked.

This is where the GST measure we have advanced through Bill C-56 comes in, and we are seeking support for it from members of Parliament. If we remove the tax on constructing new apartments in this country, we are going to see more apartments go up.

When we made the announcement that we would reduce the GST on new home construction among rentals across Canada, we saw certain provincial governments step up and say they would do the same. I want to thank in particular British Columbia, Ontario, Newfoundland and Labrador and my home province of Nova Scotia. We are starting to see movement to different degrees in other provinces as well. In some instances, this has reduced costs by 15% overnight when looking at the combined impact of the federal and provincial measures.

What we have seen as a result is that developers are publicly stating they are moving forward with projects that will provide homes for thousands of Canadians that otherwise would not have gone ahead. In particular, I point to Dream Unlimited Corporation's plans to advance several different projects in Ottawa, Saskatoon and Toronto that are going to lead to 5,000 homes being built. I look at Fitzrovia, which announced that it would be moving forward with developments totalling 3,000 homes. I look at Tricon's announcement after the GST measures were revealed. It announced it would move forward with 1,000 new homes.

The reality is that there are many examples of projects, as I have heard from different colleagues and from the home building sector, in every part of this country that are now going ahead that otherwise would have just stayed on the shelf. This policy is having the desired impact, and I am looking forward to seeing many, many thousands of homes be constructed as a result. That is why I am supporting Bill C-56. It would allow the private sector to justify going ahead with the construction of thousands of homes.

However, we know there are many other areas where we need to continue to advance policies if we are going to overcome the challenges facing home builders, communities and people who have housing needs. We need to fundamentally change the way that cities allow homes to be built or sometimes do not allow homes to be built in this country. We need to encourage cities to legalize housing. In too many communities across this country, it is literally illegal, as a result of municipal bylaws, to build the kinds of homes that people need if they are going to live and thrive in our communities.

Members may have seen that over the course of the last few months, I have been engaging directly with municipal councils and mayors, encouraging them to change their laws so they can permit more housing to be built, can speed up the process of permitting those homes and can make the kinds of investments that will lead to more density in downtown cores, more homes near transit stations so people can access the services or employment opportunities they need and more homes near college and university campuses so students have a place to live as they undertake their studies.

I cannot say how excited I am about the early signs of success with the housing accelerator fund. We have seen a positive announcement by the City of London, which is going to be increasing its ambition as a result of its access to the fund. We saw today the City of Vaughan announce that as a result of a $59-million investment, it will be able to add, over the next 10 years, 44,000 homes to that city.

We are going to continue to do more to get low-cost financing on the table by increasing the valuation of the Canada mortgage bond program, which is going to add 30,000 homes a year. There are a number of other measures we need to address, but if we change the equation for builders, change the way that cities build homes and continue to make the kinds of investments we have been making since 2017 under the national housing strategy, we have an opportunity to make massive progress in the attempt to address Canada's national housing crisis.

I would be happy to address any further issues, if members in this House wish.

Let me conclude with a final thought. It is not enough for different parties in this House to throw ideas at the wall, as some have done. We need to address the very specific problems that have given rise to Canada's national housing crisis. By having a thoughtful policy approach and by advancing measures like the removal of GST on new rental construction across Canada, we can change the way that homes are built in this country, increase the pace at which they are built and put an end to Canada's national housing crisis. We can do this by having the private sector and governments co-operate to build homes that Canadians can actually afford.

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Madam Speaker, the minister gave a great speech.

You touched on a lot of important subjects, after being been in power for the last eight years. I just want to go over these different subjects. You talked about—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I want to remind the member to address questions and comments through the Chair.

The hon. member for Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa.

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Madam Speaker, the member talked about a lot of subjects that are near and dear to my heart as well.

He talked about students. They do not have anywhere to go when they go to school, and now they have to take transport for over an hour. I heard, at the science committee, that some science students are sleeping in bus shelters just to be able to go to school during the week, and then they go back home and try to get some sleep. That is one thing. The Liberals have had eight years to fix that.

I have heard that many seniors are not able to afford a place to move into. Sure, they can go ahead and sell their home, but they cannot even downsize because there is absolutely no supply. It is good the minister is talking about seniors and does recognize there is a problem. It is very critical, though. These people are in their senior years. Time is ticking, and the government does not have time to address these things.

With respect to young workers and young families, he is talking about a 10-year horizon. The children will be off to university by then and they will still be sleeping in shelters. The Liberals have had eight years to fix this and they have not done a thing. He is still talking about another eight years.

Of course, my biggest question is about the GST exemption. How are builders going to be passing on the savings from the GST that they are getting? Is it—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

The hon. member has taken quite a bit of time. I want to remind members to keep their question to a minute.

The hon. minister.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Madam Speaker, regarding the concern around students who have inadequate or no housing options, I think we have to recognize that everyone should be advocating for more support for people who have inadequate housing options, students or otherwise. I am very proud that the government has doubled the investments in the Reaching Home program to address homelessness, and that we are going to continue to do more, as I outlined in my remarks, to build more stock that will help address the student housing challenges more broadly.

When it comes to seniors, I think we are aligned in our identification of the problem. Where we differ is that the policies we have advanced would actually yield a higher number of homes than the plan the Conservatives have put forward.

With respect to the GST, the most important point in my remarks is that we have to address very specific problems. The GST measure we put in place is designed not only to pass on savings to renters but also to build more supply, which, over time, will bring the rate down as more stock becomes available. I am happy to elaborate in future answers, given that I have run out of time.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Madam Speaker, the Bloc Québécois will support Bill C‑56, but, as it has said, we need to go much further than the bill does.

Currently, when the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, or CMHC, manages a parcel of land, it must sell it at the going market price. To my understanding, the minister has the power to authorize the CMHC to give away the land or sell it at a lower price. Can the minister confirm that he has that power? Currently, there is a situation in Joliette for a social housing project on an enclosed parcel of land. The municipal assessment is not so bad, but the market value is $1 million and the project is blocked because of that.

Does the minister have the power to authorize the CMHC to sell the land at a lower price or give it away? Ultimately, that would free up social housing projects in Quebec.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Madam Speaker, before I begin, I would like to thank my colleague for giving me the opportunity to discuss this very important issue and to practise my French. When I started my work on the Standing Committee on Finance, I did not speak French, but the member was supportive of my efforts.

I do not know the details of the situation in Joliette, but I will make an effort for my colleague. We can always work to find possible solutions for his community. Generally speaking, CMHC programs can be flexible. I will continue to work with my colleague. I also thank him for the Bloc's support for this bill.

[Branden Leslie, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Madam Speaker, it is an incredible honour to rise for the first time in debate in the House of Commons since being elected this summer.

While I will certainly get to the substance of Bill C-56, I would first like to take a few moments to express my appreciation to the residents of Portage—Lisgar for placing their trust in me to be their representative in Ottawa. It is a great responsibility to be their voice and I am humbled by the support they have shown me. I, of course, have some very big shoes to fill in succeeding the Hon. Candice Bergen. I appreciate her friendship and her mentorship over the years, and I will do my best to follow in her footsteps in fighting for our riding and our rural way of life.

I need to thank my wife, Cailey, for her unwavering support, her patience and her love. The life we have entered together is not an easy one, as all my colleagues know, but I am lucky to have her by my side. I would also like to thank my parents, Jim and Shauna-Lei Leslie, for their guidance, their encouragement and their unconditional love.

I need to thank many friends and neighbours who supported me in the nomination and in the by-election. I wish I could name them all, but I have only 10 minutes here today. To all those who played a role, big or small, in helping me over the past six months and throughout my entire life, I want them to please know how much I appreciated their help in becoming their member of Parliament. Together we have proven that when individuals come together with a shared vision, unwavering determination and a commitment to change, we can achieve the seemingly impossible.

The chamber is made up of people from diverse regions, experiences and backgrounds, each working to represent their community and our country. As I said many times during the campaign, I am just a farm kid from Portage. I say “just” because far too often, that is what I would hear folks say, folks like my dad and many others who, when asked what they do, say, “I'm just a farmer.” Farmers are so much more than that and should give themselves credit, as should all Canadians. Farmers produce the high-quality, nutritious food that feeds Canadians and people all around the world. They quite literally bet the farm, every single year, while facing countless factors outside of their control and, currently, a government that is making their job harder. They provide for their families. They help their neighbours and they support their communities.

It is not just farmers who fall into this “just” trap. It is not “just a plumber”. I am not “just a construction worker”, “just a welder” or “just a teacher”. People are more than just that. People are the foundation of our country and are our future. People work hard. People play by the rules, give back to their communities and support their families. They should be proud of it.

In the case of my riding, families choose to live a rural way of life. We live with and appreciate nature. We hunt, fish, sled and quad. We know our neighbours because, during a Manitoba blizzard, even a truck can get stuck in the middle of a gravel road on a windy night, and we might need a helping hand. It is also because we want to know our neighbours. We support our churches, our local businesses, our sports teams and our charities. I am proud of my family, my community and my country. I will be a steadfast advocate for our riding, our province and our way of life.

Today, that starts with speaking to Bill C-56. This bill claims to address two very pressing issues: affordable housing and access to affordable groceries. I can tell members, after knocking on thousands of doors throughout the campaign this summer, that these are two issues that were front and centre at the doorsteps.

In the first six years of the Liberal government, housing prices went up 43% in Manitoba, and it has only gotten worse in the last two years. I cannot tell members how heartbreaking it is to walk up to knock on a door and see a family loading up their half-ton truck with a couch in the back, or they open the door and there are some boxes behind them. These people are moving out of their homes because they can no longer afford their mortgage. Worse, they are moving and paying almost as much in rent for much smaller accommodations elsewhere. Countless people, moms and dads, told me they were being forced to stop buying healthy food for their kids because they just cannot afford it and because Kraft Dinner is cheaper. That is not the Canada that I want to be fighting for. People expect government to improve their life, or at least just stay out of it. Instead, after eight years of the Liberal government, they can barely afford to live any more. It is hard to express just how fed up and frustrated people are at the doorsteps.

I found it funny that yesterday, during question period, the Prime Minister confidently stated that he had been speaking with rural Canadians this past summer and that they supported his carbon tax. It was such an absurd statement that I could only shake my head in disbelief, because I can confidently say that my constituents want to scrap the carbon tax. If the Prime Minister had spent time talking to any everyday people in my riding during the by-election, he would have heard that message loud and clear. The common sense of the common people recognizes a tax when it sees it. They know that this costly Liberal-NDP coalition is driving up the cost of everything. It is time to axe the tax.

Recently, the Liberals did begin recognizing that reducing taxes does spur economic growth, and Bill C-56 seeks to remove the GST on new rental housing construction across the country. I am glad to see the Liberals are starting to come around to Conservative ideas. Just a day before the Minister of Finance announced the legislation, our leader introduced Bill C-356, the building homes not bureaucracy act. Its goal is simple: to make life more affordable for Canadians. Bill C-356 would provide a 100% GST rebate on new residential rental properties for which the average rent payable is below market rate. We can talk about actually trying to accomplish affordable housing, but I do suppose that imitation is the highest form of flattery.

However, our leader's legislation would do much more. It would eliminate CMHC executive bonuses if housing targets are not met, and reduce their compensation if funding for new construction is not completed within 60 days. It would create a home completion target and give bonuses to cities that increase the number of new builds completed. It would utilize incentives to build things again in this country and not build bureaucracy. It has to be about results. It is about putting forward policies that get homes built in this country, and it is high time we had a government that focused on outcomes, not process.

Speaking of that, the second component of Bill C-56 is a prime example of process. The Prime Minister promised Canadians that he would somehow magically lower grocery prices by Thanksgiving, and I guess we can chalk that up as another broken promise on the long tally. Canadians are not holding out hope that, by allowing his bloated bureaucracy to conduct another lengthy study, their grocery bills will start to go down any time soon. When we tax the farmer who produces the food, the manufacturer who processes the food, the trucker who ships the food and the grocer who sells the food, how on earth can we honestly expect prices not to go up?

However, there is an easy solution. We can axe the tax. Instead, we have a tired Liberal government touting the legislation before us as a saving grace for Canadians who cannot afford to live anymore. Copying ideas from our Conservative leader is a good start, but the reality is that there is still much more to do.

The Liberal government's inflationary spending has driven up prices, inflation and interest rates, and it has worsened the lives of so many families, seniors and small business owners. While the Liberals will blame international factors for the current mess we find ourselves in, they cannot bring themselves to take any responsibility for their inflationary deficits that have only poured more fuel on the fire. Even Bill Morneau, the former Liberal finance minister, has admitted that fact, and the government has dramatically grown the bureaucracy and created more red tape. It is abundantly clear that more process does not deliver better outcomes. Instead, the Liberals have frustrated businesses, added costs and headaches for municipalities and not-for-profits that are applying for funding, ignored the priorities of stakeholder groups and provided worse service to Canadians.

After eight long years, the Liberal government has run out of ideas. Everything in Canada feels broken, and we know exactly how we got here. It is time for a new Conservative government to come in and fix it. It is time to bring homes that people can afford. It is time to bring home powerful paycheques and lower prices for food, fuel and home heating. It is time to bring home prosperity for Canadians. Let us bring it home.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Minister of Housing]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate sincerely the hon. member on his election to the House.

When I listened to his description of the Conservatives' housing plan, it was clear that he has been reading a different document than I have. When I reviewed their plan, it was the most bizarre series of suggestions. It would literally raise taxes on home builders and cut funding for homebuilding. If the member is concerned about bureaucracy, the Conservatives are proposing a Kafkaesque, Byzantine process to identify which homes would qualify. They would cut out middle-class homes from their GST relief, and they were talking about hiring bureaucrats to run a snitch line on people who have Nimbyist attitudes, which is not defined anywhere in their plan.

My question to the hon. member is this: Why is he supporting a plan that would raise taxes on homebuilding, cut funding for homebuilding and actually, according to finance officials at committee the other day, result in fewer homes being constructed than we were already on pace to build?

[Branden Leslie, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. colleague across the way for the kind wishes.

In 1972, we built more homes than we did last year. That is the record. That is what we are dealing with.

We may be reading different documents, but I am very confident with the plan that our leader has put forward. It is a plan you thought was so good that you would snatch parts of it to put in your own announcement. I do not think we need to take any lessons from the option across the way on how to get homes built in this country.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

While it is great to see new colleagues in the House of Commons, I would ask that they make sure their questions go through the Chair and not directly to members on the opposite side. The word “you” is always used very sparingly in this chamber.

The hon. member for Berthier—Maskinongé.

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my colleague on his first speech in the House. I have a very specific question for him. I hope he will be the type of colleague who answers questions in specific detail. That would be helpful.

The government is announcing a housing measure that consists of removing the GST on construction without any guarantee that it will be used for social or affordable housing. We are currently fighting to get the federal government to release the $900 million owed to Quebec, but the federal government stubbornly insists on imposing conditions on that money, even though housing is not within its jurisdiction.

Does my colleague agree with the Bloc Québécois position that the federal government should transfer this money as quickly as possible so that we can finally have social housing back home?

[Branden Leslie, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for the well wishes.

The challenge with the question is that it is, of course, best aimed at the government, but the reality is that the government has set up such poor relationships with our provincial leaders across the country that it comes as no surprise that there are ongoing battles over these sorts of challenges.

The challenge here is to ask what affordable housing is. I think we need to undertake our very best efforts to make sure we are providing all types of new housing builds to make sure that those who are currently homeless or living in housing poverty are able to upgrade their way of life. The easiest way we could do that is by lowering the cost of living for all them, allowing them to keep more of the money that they earn and take home more powerful paycheques so that they can live the high quality of life that all Canadians deserve.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, let me welcome the member for Portage—Lisgar to the House. I also offer my sincere congratulations to him on the election of an NDP government in the wonderful province of Manitoba.

The member talked about the carbon tax a lot. We are very familiar with this at the agriculture committee. He knows as well as I do that there are exemptions in the existing act. He also knows that there is room for improvement, which is why I voted for Bill C-234.

However, what I never hear Conservatives talk about is that, over the last three years, we have seen the oil and gas industry increase their profit margin by over 1,000%. Why do Conservatives never talk about the gross profiteering of the oil and gas companies off the backs of working families right across this country from coast to coast to coast?

[Branden Leslie, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his sincere words. In a past life, I had the pleasure of working with him, and I look forward to working collaboratively with him here.

The legislation the member mentioned is an important piece. There are currently exemptions, but so many costs are passed on to the farmers, who are at the bottom of the totem pole when it comes to this. I appreciate his support for Bill C-234, and I would encourage my hon. colleagues in the other place to quickly pass that legislation to expand the carbon tax exemption for farmers across Canada.

The last thing I will point out is that profits are not a bad thing. I think wealth creation is a good thing, and given that we are invested heavily in all of our pensions, we should want Canadian companies to succeed.

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise to speak on behalf of the folks from Kitchener Centre with respect to Bill C-56, the signature measure of which would involve removing the GST from rental home construction.

I will start by saying very clearly that I certainly support this bill, as does my colleague from Saanich—Gulf Islands. It is an important and good measure. However, it is not nearly the kind of ambition we need to meet the moment we are in, and that is a very deep and protracted housing crisis.

Specifically, in my community, in the last three years alone, the number of people living unsheltered has more than tripled to over 1,000 people. Let us compare home prices. In our community, back in 2005, the average house price was around three times the average person's income. Today, it is over eight times. House prices have gone up 275% and wages have gone up 42%. It is pretty clear that wages are not keeping up.

We are also losing 15 units of affordable housing to rent evictions and the financialization of our housing for every one new affordable unit getting built. What that looks like, day to day, is that the shelter system in my community is overflowing. The week before we returned here, I showed up to a community meeting at an apartment building in downtown Kitchener. More than 40 people showed up on that night, invited by their councillor. I was there, as was bylaw enforcement.

We heard from folks there about the living conditions in their building, everything from cockroaches to bedbugs. The residents of that building were clear in telling us that they knew they did not have any other options. There was no recourse. There are insufficient recourses. We could talk about the Landlord and Tenant Board and the backlog there. However, the fact is that, because we have not building the kind of social housing we need in this country, people are left with no other options.

As I have heard from other colleagues here, I could talk about what I heard when I was knocking on doors this past summer. I spoke with a young man who is engaged. He is working in the trades, living at his parents' house. His fiancé is a teacher, and she is doing the same. They do not know when they will ever be able to afford a place of their own.

To help restore affordability, CMHC is telling us that we need to build 3.5 million more units than planned by 2030. If we are going to do that, we need to be looking at two sides of this. The first is significant transformational investments in housing. This has been done in this country before. Back in the 1970s, 40% of all building starts across the country had federal assistance. That went down to 8% by the 1980s, and today, no surprise, if we look at the total stock of social housing across the country, we are way at the back of the G7 at 3.5%.

Even a call as bold as saying, “Let us double the social housing stock” would only get us to 7%, which is only the middle of the peer average amongst G7 countries. To do that, though, we need to get serious about having CMHC get back into building housing the way that it used to. Many colleagues have been talking about an acquisition fund, which non-profits across the country have been calling for, a fund that would allow non-profits across the country to preserve what are currently affordable units to avoid losing them to the financialization of housing, and in so doing ensure that those might remain affordable over the long term.

In my community, for example, I spoke with a leader from a local non-profit organization. She was able to share with me, and sent me afterwards, 12 different properties that they have already identified. Should an acquisition fund, such as the one being called for by ACORN Canada and many others, be made available, they would be so keen to jump in and preserve those units. This is an organization that has operated in my community for decades, focused on ensuring that we preserve affordable housing, and it is ready to go. However, they are going to need the federal government to step in and ensure that the funds are there to help them preserve those units.

We could also talk about, for example, investments in the rapid housing initiative. It is a fantastic program. It is not that the government is not doing anything. The issue is that it was in budget 2022, and we have not heard anything since about the next round of rapid housing. We need to see sustained, permanent, ongoing funds that organizations across the country can count on.

It is the same when it comes to co-op housing. I was one of the first to cheer when we saw $1.5 billion of new money invested in co-op housing in budget 2022. Unfortunately, none of those dollars have actually rolled out yet to build co-op housing. We need to see that money get spent, but we also need to see ongoing, year-over-year investments so that we can get back to where we used to be before the early 1990s, when we saw federal and provincial governments pull out of the really critical role they have to play in building affordable housing.

This crisis did not happen overnight. It is decades in the making. I appreciate how clearly the Minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities has articulated that. He said very clearly multiple times that multiple parties at the federal level have led to this housing crisis. If that is his admission, we are going to need to see investments today reflect the reality of the crisis we are in.

The second thing we need is to be honest that homes should be places for people to live. They should not be commodities for investors to trade. That is what is different between folks who are looking to rent and buy homes today versus my parents in the 1980s. When they were looking to buy a home, they were competing with other people. Today, people in my community are competing with massive corporations, and that has been incentivized.

As members may know, I have spoken many times in this place about one example that I see as a bit of a litmus test. If we were honest about addressing the financialization of housing, we would not have tax exemptions for the largest corporate landlords in the country, but that is exactly what we have. Real estate investment trusts have almost exclusively been buying existing units, the reason being that it is more profitable for them to do so. One of the CEOs of these real estate investment trusts was in the news this past summer for saying exactly that, that it primarily buys existing units to get the best return possible. Why are they are tax exempt? What is the social value of that exemption?

If the government were serious about addressing the financialization of housing, why not take what the PBO has now told us and spend $300 million over the next five years? It is not going to solve the housing crisis, but it is pretty clear that, if we are going to address financialization, we would start by removing the incentives that corporate landlords are currently benefiting from, which only accelerate the financialization of housing. We would obviously move into things like ending the blind bidding process and increasing vacancy taxes. Right now, it is a 1% vacancy tax, which likely is not going to really influence the behaviour of a large corporate investor in the housing market. If we were to increase that, it might change. We also need to move towards more meaningful protections for tenants. If we are going to build this volume of housing, we need to also be doing it with the climate in mind.

We will continue to advocate for the federal government, when it is looking at the new building code in 2025, as I know it is, to accelerate that building code to ensure that provinces and territories can follow the federal government's lead in bringing more resiliency into the code and ensure we are building the kind of housing that is resilient to the climate crisis we are already in the midst of.

As I shared earlier, I am happy to support Bill C-56. I am glad to see this measure moving ahead, and I am looking forward to seeing the federal government step up far more quickly when it comes to addressing the housing crisis we are in.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, a great deal of emphasis in the member's comments was on housing. This is the first time in generations, since 1993, which was when there were constitutional changes to the Charlottetown accord, and all political parties, with the exception of the Greens, wanted the provinces to play a role and marginalize Ottawa. Since 2016, when we first came to office, this government has invested hundreds of millions to billions of dollars into a housing strategy, support for non-profits such as Habitat for Humanity and the expansion of housing co-ops. Local and provincial governments want to co-operate in investing in non-profit housing.

My question to the member is fairly straightforward. Would he not acknowledge that Ottawa plays a very important role, but it is going to take a lot more than Ottawa alone to resolve the problem? Does he agree that we need municipalities, non-profit groups, many different stakeholders and the provinces to all get on board so we can tackle this issue in Canada today.

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will agree with the member for Winnipeg North on this point any day of the week: We need all levels of government to step up.

However, we also need to be honest. With respect to the investment the member mentioned for co-op housing, which is one that I mentioned in my speech, I am really glad. The fact is that there were zero dollars for co-op housing in budget 2023. In fact, it was not just co-op housing; there were zero new dollars for housing at all in budget 2023 if not for one line item on indigenous housing that is not going to be starting for a few years still. No level of government can take a year off from funding housing. If the Region of Waterloo did the same, it would have people lining up outside the doors. The federal government cannot either.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the member from the governing party just reminded us that the government has reinvested in housing. However, the federal government prefers the concept of affordable housing over that of social housing, which includes co-operatives. For us, the concept of affordable housing is vague, which means that the money earmarked for it is often not used to build affordable housing.

Would my hon. colleague care to comment?

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from Joliette for his question, which is so important.

The definition of affordable housing differs from one government program to the next. If one definition of affordable housing applies to just 80% of the market, we are not really talking about affordable housing. We therefore need to push the government to establish a definition of affordable housing that is truly affordable.