House of Commons Hansard #266 of the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was ukraine.

Topics

Fall Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2023Government Orders

5:05 p.m.

Conservative

Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON

Mr. Speaker, maybe I will make a few more that will add up to an hour, and then the member will have something to do with himself when he is away on Christmas break. Maybe that will be the Christmas gift that appears under the member's tree when he wakes up and opens his phone.

We have seen an absolute meltdown by the bought-and-paid-for media. First of all, they were furious that I went around them. How dare I communicate directly with Canadians, they asked. They proceeded, with no success, to try to poke holes in the documentary, which introduces a new fact roughly every 20 or 25 seconds for the entire 15-minute period. The media was desperate to find an error or a problem, and they could not find a single factual error in the entire documentary. They tried.

Let me review some of the undisputable facts, because they are all publicly sourced, with proof to show where they come from. For example, one headline said, “Nine out of 10 Canadians believe they will never own a home, survey shows”. That is right out of the Milton Reporter on April 25, 2022. It is so much worse now than it was back then. This headline was in The Globe and Mail: “This 57-year-old grandmother didn’t choose the van life. The housing crisis chose it for her”. That was in May 2023. Imagine the miserable life of this wonderful grandmother after eight years of the Prime Minister. Another news headline was that students are forced to live under bridges.

One might ask why I am quoting the media, of which I am critical, and it is because they fail to mention in any of these articles who the Prime Minister is who presided over the housing hell. They fail to assign blame to the person who actually caused the problem in the first place.

CBC/Radio-Canada, desperately flailing around trying to find fault with my documentary, recently said that I had no proof that it takes 66% of an average family's monthly income to make payments on the average home. The report comes from RBC, in its quarterly housing affordability calculation. It has been doing it for 40 years, and it is now higher than it has ever been in its recorded history. That is because housing costs have not only grown but have also vastly outgrown our very poor and miserable wage growth under the Prime Minister.

CBC/Radio-Canada then went on to its next excuse, claiming that Canada's housing hell is just part of some global phenomenon. That is an easy claim to dispute and disprove because, of course, our housing hell is so much worse than that of any other country on earth. For example, Toronto is rated by UBS Bank as the worst housing bubble in the world. Vancouver is the sixth. Both of them were rated as moderately expensive only 10 years ago.

If one wants a different measure, go to Demographia, which has a very simple formula. It divides the average house price in a country or a city by the average income. Based on that measure, Vancouver is the third and Toronto the 10th most overpriced housing market in the world, worse than Manhattan; Los Angeles; Chicago; London, England; and even Singapore, a country with 2,000 times more people per square kilometre than Canada has. Look at the comparison with the United States. The average American housing prices, depending on the measurement, are 25% to 40% cheaper. In border towns, house prices on the Canadian side, 15 minutes away, are often double or even triple the prices of those south of the border.

A two-bedroom house in Kitchener now costs more than a castle in Sweden. In fact, the OECD did a measurement of the growth in house prices relative to the growth in incomes in all of the roughly 40 OECD countries, and Canada saw the second-worst deterioration of housing affordability since the Prime Minister took office in 2015. No, one cannot blame it on some global phenomenon; it is a uniquely Canadian hell and a uniquely here-and-now hell. The Prime Minister is responsible.

I find they say that the Prime Minister really has nothing to do with housing—

Fall Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2023Government Orders

5:10 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker Chris d'Entremont

The hon. member for Elmwood—Transcona is rising on a point of order.

Fall Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2023Government Orders

5:10 p.m.

NDP

Daniel Blaikie NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB

Mr. Speaker, I noticed the time. Of course, the leader of the official opposition is entitled to take as much time as he wants, but some of us are beginning to wonder whether he is running out the clock so he does not have to take questions, if he is afraid to take questions from the floor, or whether he will be leaving some time for members to ask him questions about his dissertation.

President of the Public Service CommissionGovernment Orders

December 12th, 2023 / 5:10 p.m.

Winnipeg North Manitoba

Liberal

Kevin Lamoureux LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order.

There have been discussions among the parties and if you seek it, I think you will find unanimous consent to adopt the following motion:

That the motion standing on the Order Paper in the name of the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons related to the appointment of Marie-Chantal Girard as President of the Public Service Commission, pursuant to Standing Order 111.1, be deemed adopted.

President of the Public Service CommissionGovernment Orders

5:15 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker Chris d'Entremont

All those opposed to the hon. member's moving the motion will please say nay.

It is agreed.

The House has heard the terms of the motion. All those opposed to the motion will please nay.

(Motion agreed to)

Fall Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2023Government Orders

5:15 p.m.

Carleton Ontario

Conservative

Pierre Poilievre ConservativeLeader of the Opposition

Mr. Speaker, we then went on to demonstrate in the documentary another indisputable fact: that Canada has the fewest homes per capita in the G7 after eight years of the Prime Minister, even though we have the most land to build on, and that we built more homes in 1972 than we built last year. In fact, in 1972, there were 22 million Canadians. Last year, there were 39 million. In other words, we have doubled the population while reducing the number of homes we are building, because of the massive bureaucracy the Prime Minister continues to build up. As a result, the number of homes relative to the number of families who need them is in stark decline.

What do colleagues think is causing the rising cost of building a home? In Vancouver, for example, what would colleagues think is the leading cost of building a home? Is it land, labour, lumber or even the profit of the builder? No, it is the government: the cost of permits, delays, consultants, red tape and taxes. All of these costs add up to more than all of the other costs combined. They add up to $1.3 million for every newly built home. In Montreal, the city has blocked 25,000 new homes in the last two years. In Winnipeg, the courts had to shoot down a decision by the city hall to block 2,000 homes right next to a transit station that was built for those homes. Why was that? It was because the city councillor said his constituents did not want neighbours. Many Ontario municipalities have raised development charges 900%. Have the costs of servicing communities gone up 900% over the last several decades? I would like to see why.

Granted, those decisions are municipal, but they are federally funded because the Prime Minister happily forks over billions and billions of dollars more, rewarding bureaucracies for blocking the way. For example, he has created the new housing accelerator fund. After two years and $4 billion, it has not completed a single solitary home. Recently, the minister had a great photo op in the city of Halifax, in your province, Mr. Speaker, and boy, did we ever need a housing announcement there, because, after eight years of the Prime Minister, there are now 30 homeless encampments in that city. Can people imagine that?

Mr. Speaker, you are from Nova Scotia. Would you ever have imagined that there would be 30 homeless encampments in Halifax? Eight years ago, if I had told you that would have happened, you would not have believed me. This is after eight years of the misery and poverty that the Prime Minister has imposed on our people. We were all a little bit relieved when, all of a sudden, the minister decided he was going to show up and do something on housing. He announced millions of dollars for the Liberal mayor. What did we find out the money was for? It was for hiring more—

Fall Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2023Government Orders

5:15 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker Chris d'Entremont

We have another point of order from the hon. member for Elmwood—Transcona.

Fall Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2023Government Orders

5:15 p.m.

NDP

Daniel Blaikie NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB

Mr. Speaker, I asked whether the leader of the Conservative Party was trying to run and hide from the Q and A, but I did not get an answer. Will he be leaving time for us to ask him questions about his dissertation?

Fall Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2023Government Orders

5:15 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker Chris d'Entremont

That is not a point of order, but we know that we will be moving on to the next item at about 5:42 p.m., so the hon. member does have unlimited time.

The hon. leader of the official opposition.

Fall Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2023Government Orders

5:15 p.m.

Conservative

Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON

Mr. Speaker, not only would I be prepared to answer that member's questions, but I would also like to up the ante. I am prepared to put partisanship aside and put on a multi-party screening of my documentary, “Housing hell: How we got here and how we get out”. I know that I have offered that before, but what I am prepared to do is up the offer and make myself available for an hour of questions and answers after the screening is done so the member could come and enjoy. I have only an hour. I am very busy, but I would be happy to have the member come and enjoy the documentary. We will be showing it in both official languages, of course.

We will show it in both official languages. The members from the Bloc Québécois can come. I know that they are allergic to common sense. It is going to be tough.

We do not want them to get an allergic reaction to the common sense in the documentary, but we will be inviting them all to join in the spirit of camaraderie as we build homes and reverse the housing hell that this Prime Minister, with the help of the NDP, has caused Canadians. They cannot say that I never did anything for them.

The facts of this documentary continued as we went through it to demonstrate that Canada has really no excuse to have a housing crisis. We have the second-biggest land mass in the world. We have by far, by many orders of magnitude, the most land per capita of any country in the G7 and the sixth-biggest supply, give or take, in the world per capita. If we spread Canadians out evenly, we would have something like 33 NFL-sized football fields for every single Canadian. It would be the perfect place to be a hermit. People would never see another person because we have so much land.

Obviously, critics will say, “Well of course we have all this land that is far away and nobody can live there.” That is nonsense. We have land all around and even inside our big cities. We have land right along the strip of the Canada-U.S. border. People can take a drive around Ottawa and see all of the land that is undeveloped, or the tiny government buildings on thousands of square metres of land that is unused, which could be used for housing if the federal government would unlock it. There is no excuse. The only thing stopping the construction of housing is the government.

By the way, if members doubt this, they can explain this to me. The United States has most of its population concentrated in large metropolis centres like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, etc., and yet somehow, housing is 25% to 45% cheaper there. How is it that housing in Tokyo is more affordable than it is in Vancouver, if the issue were just that we are all crunched into small metropolitan spaces? That is totally false. It is yet another excuse that government-funded media makes for government failure.

We know it is a failure that can be fixed, because look at the incredible work of the Squamish people. Because they did not have to worry about the bureaucracy at Vancouver City Hall, they were able to approve and begin building 6,000 apartments on 10 acres of land. That is 600 units per acre. If they had to go through city hall, it never would have happened, and those 6,000 wonderful families and couples would not have those homes. They have demonstrated that if they get the government out of the way and let builders build, then they have more apartments. Unfortunately, that is exactly the opposite of what this—

Fall Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2023Government Orders

5:20 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker Chris d'Entremont

I have a point of order from the hon. member for Milton.

Fall Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2023Government Orders

5:20 p.m.

Liberal

Adam van Koeverden Liberal Milton, ON

Mr. Speaker, I am also eager to ask questions, but I am also eager to point out that it was a $1-billion CMHC loan, the largest ever from the federal government, to the Squamish Nation.

Fall Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2023Government Orders

5:20 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker Chris d'Entremont

We are falling into debate. Do not forget that once the member is finished, there will be an opportunity for questions and answers.

The hon. leader of the official opposition.

Fall Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2023Government Orders

5:20 p.m.

Conservative

Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON

Mr. Speaker, I love how when the first nations people do extraordinary things, Liberals show up to take all the credit. The member reminds me of the rooster who thought that just because he crowed when the sun came up, he made the sun come up. He did not make the sun come up; he just crowed about it. It is actually the first nations people who are building this project, and it is a shame that Liberals try to take credit for it.

If we could just get the Liberals and the government out of the way, we could do many more great things because we know that, prior to the current government, housing was affordable in this country, taking a fraction out of a family paycheque to afford a home. The good thing is that housing was not like this before this Prime Minister and it will not be like this after he is gone.

The second cause of the housing hell, which I pointed out in my documentary, was the rampant money printing that the government unleashed. While it was technically done by the Bank of Canada, it was clearly in total collaboration with the elected government and with the total support and the lack of discipline from the government to print $600 billion. The government has created 32% more cash in a period of time when the economy has grown by 4%. In other words, the cash is growing eight times faster than the stuff the cash buys.

The Liberals did this through a program called quantitative easing, where the government sells bonds to the private sector and the Bank of Canada buys them right back at a higher price, profiting the financial institutions, freeing up easy money for government to spend, but also flooding the financial markets with easy cash that is lent out to wealthy investors.

In my documentary, I use a Bank of Canada graph demonstrating the total liftoff in the number of homes bought by investors that happened exactly—

Fall Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2023Government Orders

5:25 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker Chris d'Entremont

I believe we have a point of order from the hon. member for Elmwood—Transcona, and I am hoping that it is a point of order.

Fall Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2023Government Orders

5:25 p.m.

NDP

Daniel Blaikie NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB

Mr. Speaker, I would like to give an opportunity to the member. I thought that somebody trying to be prime minister might want an opportunity to answer questions, but I see instead he is practising avoiding answering them.

Fall Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2023Government Orders

5:25 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker Chris d'Entremont

That is not a point of order. The hon. member has unlimited time on this.

The hon. member for Jonquière.

Fall Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2023Government Orders

5:25 p.m.

Bloc

Mario Simard Bloc Jonquière, QC

Mr. Speaker, I am sad to see what is happening with my NDP colleagues.

I want to hear the leader of the official opposition tell us about cryptocurrencies. I would like to hear his thoughts on that. Cryptocurrency is very interesting. It is probably in this documentary.

I would like him to share his simplistic reasoning—

Fall Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2023Government Orders

5:25 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker Chris d'Entremont

That is also a matter of debate.

The hon. Leader of the Opposition has unlimited time to make his presentation. At 5:42 p.m. we will proceed to the next item.

The hon. Leader of the Opposition.

Fall Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2023Government Orders

5:25 p.m.

Conservative

Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON

Mr. Speaker, there is no limit to my speaking time, just like there is no limit to Canada's potential, if only we had some common sense.

The reality is that when we create $600 billion of cash and we flood it into the financial system, that money is then lent out to those who have connections to that system, and those people bid up the cost for everybody else. That is why, in the early months of the pandemic when everything was crashing, the billionaires were suddenly getting richer.

Why were they getting richer? The economy was crashing. Well, of course, all of their asset values were being inflated by insane money printing supported by every party in the House except for ours. Ours was the only one that worried that this crazy money printing would do exactly what it has done every single time it has been tried.

When I produced the evidence of this in the documentary, all of the “bought and paid for” media said, “Oh, this is an outrageous explanation”, but they have not once provided a shred of evidence that it is not true. Look at the graphs the Bank of Canada itself produced. It demonstrates there was a massive flooding of cash into the real estate market through the vector of the same financial institutions that had profited off of quantitative easing.

I find it interesting that the NDP, which claims to be so concerned about the gap between rich and poor, saw absolutely no problem with the government creating all of this cash and pumping it into a select group of financial institutions, which happen to have the privilege of being members of Payments Canada. They had been eligible to receive the cash before anyone else and before it lost its value, and saw all of their net worth explode all of the stock values artificially pumped up. Then the resulting consumer price inflation chewed up the paycheques of the working poor. It was a direct transfer of wealth from the have-nots to the have-yachts, and the NDP supported it 100%.

NDP members talk about these little, itty-bitty wealth taxes that they claim to want to bring in that amount to $100 million here and $1 billion there when we are talking about $600 billion that was flooded into the financial system to the benefit of the wealthiest—

Fall Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2023Government Orders

5:25 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker Chris d'Entremont

There is a point of order from the hon. member for Kings—Hants.

Fall Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2023Government Orders

5:25 p.m.

Liberal

Kody Blois Liberal Kings—Hants, NS

Mr. Speaker, I am looking for some clarification. I have sat here intently, hoping to ask the leader of the official opposition a question.

I will get to the point. There has been a lot of actual points of order that have delayed the time for the leader of the official opposition to continue his unlimited time. However, does that time continue and extend out? When does Private Members' Business actually start?

Fall Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2023Government Orders

5:25 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker Chris d'Entremont

As I said before, at 5:42 p.m., Private Members' Business will start, but the length of speeches pursuant to Standing Orders 43 and 74 have the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition with unlimited time.

The hon. leader of the official opposition.

Fall Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2023Government Orders

5:30 p.m.

Conservative

Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON

Mr. Speaker, every time I get interrupted, I think of something else to say. It just prolongs my remarks. In fairness, maybe that is the goal of the members across the way who seem to be, in fairness and I appreciate it, quite enjoying the presentation. I thank them for being part of this today.

As I was saying, I find it incredible that the NDP, which claims always to be so concerned about the gap between rich and poor, has expressed zero concern with the central bank ballooning the asset values and the net worth of the super-rich by creating cash and burning the purchasing power of our working-class people. Taking money from wage earners to give to billionaire asset owners is not exactly what we would expect in the name of a working-class party.