Mr. Speaker, I have been talking about almost nothing but making housing affordable for the last three years. When the NDP and the Liberals and the entire establishment were dismissing me, I told the country we were headed for a housing crisis. Now everybody is playing catch-up.
Here is the problem for the NDP: The facts are that, when I was housing minister, one could rent the average one-bedroom for $950. Now, under the NDP-Liberal government, it is almost $2,000. One could buy an average home for a mortgage of $1,400 a month. Now it is $3,500 a month. The needed down payment for the average new home was $20,000; now it is well over $50,000.
The NDP has been in government now at least two years and supported the Prime Minister for long before that. Since they signed the coalition agreement, rent inflation has been at its worst in Canadian history. We do not need more bureaucracy. We need my common-sense plan to clear away the red tape and the gatekeepers to build millions of new homes Canadians can afford and allow them powerful paycheques to pay for them.