Debates of May 15th, 2023

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation—Main Estimates, 2023-24

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Chair, for almost a decade, the party opposite, when it was in government, revelled at attacking civil servants, denigrating them and calling them partisan names. We do not do that on this of the House. We respect the independence of Crown corporations.

The hon. member, as an hon. member of Parliament, knows or should know that Crown corporations are responsible for determining the compensation of their employees, and I am not going to get into a debate about the independence of a Crown corporation. He knows better than that. He can ask all the questions about that, and I will keep repeating.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Mr. Chair, what is the criteria for good performance at the CMHC under this minister?

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Chair, the CMHC is an independent Crown corporation and no minister of the Crown will determine the compensation of employees of an independent Crown corporation.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Mr. Chair, he signs off on the estimates, and the CEO is right in front of him here tonight. However, with $27 million in performance bonuses at a time when our housing is in a crisis, is that $27 million in bonuses for good performance good money spent, yes or no?

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Chair, according to the logic of the hon. member, the Crown corporation that is responsible for delivering almost half a million repairs and new homes as part of the national housing strategy is not entitled to determine its own compensation for its employees.

We are not going to play that game on this side of the House.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Mr. Chair, it is my pleasure to have the opportunity tonight to speak about one of our government's top priorities and that is building up our housing supply.

We have made this a priority because we believe that everyone deserves the dignity of a home.

Having more supply across the board is the best way to make homes affordable for all. Demand for types of homes has continued to surge across Canada. It is greatest in our large urban centres but we now see it even in small cities that surround them, cities such as the one I live in.

The result is that nurses, teachers, shopkeepers and office workers, the people who make our cities run, can no longer afford to live in the communities where they work. Some of the most affected are our most vulnerable neighbours. Some of the 1.7 million families do not have a home that they can afford or that meets their basic needs.

Unlike the Conservative Party opposite, we believe that the federal government must play an active role in getting more homes built. That is why our government's national housing strategy is laser-focused on supply and working with our partners, our municipalities, provincial partners and community partners.

The strategy is a 10-year, $82-billion plan to give more Canadians a place to call home. The strategy aims to eliminate chronic homelessness, reduce or eliminate housing need for 530,000 households, create 160,000 housing units, repair or renew more than 300,000 existing homes, protect 385,000 community housing units and expand Canada's community housing stock by 55,000 units.

These are ambitious goals but we will have heard from other colleagues speaking today that we are well on track to meeting them, despite the pandemic, despite the difficult economic conditions that have come since and knowing that we have to build partnerships to have a pathway to creating homes.

Today, I would like to use my time to talk about two of the main pillars of the national housing strategy that are driving this boost in the housing supply.

First of all, I would like to start with the $13.7-billion national housing co-investment fund, the largest program of its kind in Canada's history. The co-investment fund tackles supply challenges in two important ways.

It helps upgrade affordable housing that is aging or in disrepair. It also helps to build new housing close to public transportation, jobs, schools and other services that families depend on.

Because it is a co-investment fund, it supports projects that involve contributions from multiple partners and, in fact, as members of Parliament, we can help to facilitate those partnerships.

We all have responsibility to our communities for these successes to drive deep into our communities. It encourages all orders of government and community housing providers, indigenous governments and organizations in the private sector to work together to propose solutions that meet the needs of their communities.

Who is in a better position than the members of Parliament to champion programs like this?

This fund is true to the national housing strategy's focus on vulnerable populations. It includes specific targets to support survivors of violence, seniors, people from racialized communities and people with developmental disabilities.

Because it is grounded in partnership, we have also made changes to the funds since its launch, in response to feedback from the people who use it, people who sit at roundtables to create community solutions and then have the minister come to town to hear their needs, so that adjustments can be made.

That has happened in Guelph, I am pleased to say. Our minister has always supported our community as we develop solutions that are community based. We have adapted the program to respond to specific areas of housing need in different parts of Guelph and in different parts of Canada.

For example, some of the co-investment fund has been specifically carved out for projects that benefit indigenous people living in urban areas and in northern communities.

Some has been carved out for projects that benefit Black households and some has been reallocated to launch a new co-operative housing development program that is being co-designed with the Co-operative Housing Federation of Canada.

Since we have not had co-operative housing developed in Canada for so many decades, it is up to us to look for those opportunities to bring together boards of directors to create those housing solutions through the co-op investment fund.

Already, $6.93 billion in loans and contributions has been committed through the co-investment fund. It includes commitments for close to 29,000 new housing units and more than 123,000 repaired or renewed units across the country. Let me tell members about the partnership we are really excited about, through the co-investment fund. We are working with Habitat for Humanity to build more than 1,100 homes in communities across the country. We have had those meetings in my community, and I hope other members of Parliament are having similar meetings. Habitat for Humanity homes are energy-efficient, and one in every five homes is built to meet accessibility standards. They serve vulnerable populations, including single mothers and their children, indigenous peoples, Black families, recent immigrants, persons with disabilities, seniors and our veterans.

Next, I would like to talk about another major supply-oriented pillar of the national housing strategy, the rental construction financing initiative. This program is different from the co-investment fund in that it focuses on those who do not qualify for assisted housing but still cannot afford the escalating prices of market rents. It encourages a stable supply of rental housing for middle-class families in expensive housing markets. This includes many of the people who are essential workers and play an invaluable role in our communities. As with other programs, we have continued to adapt this initiative over time to leverage opportunities to deliver the most impact. For example, we plan to reallocate a portion of the fund to support co-operative housing projects, and some to help convert vacant commercial property into market-based rental housing. To date, more than $14.7 billion in loans has been committed through the rental construction financing initiative, to create more than 41,000 new homes. Projects funded through this program are making a difference for middle-class families in communities across the country.

Let me give members an example of a project that is doing all that and also advancing Canada's reconciliation goals, the Sen̓áḵw development by the Squamish Nation, which will create nearly 3,000 homes on traditional lands in Vancouver. This project is the largest first nation economic partnership, and the largest CMHC loan in Canadian history. It also aims to be the largest net-zero residential project in the country. It is all made possible through $1.4 billion in low-interest loans through the rental construction financing initiative.

I have provided a quick overview of the two pillars of the national housing strategy. It is clear that, through these programs, we are making progress.

I would like to ask this question of the minister. Could he please tell us a bit more about what we are doing to create more supply in our communities?

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, Minister of Housing and Diversity and Inclusion]

Madam Chair, we are investing in more supply of affordable housing through the new investments for new co-op units to the tune of a $1.5-billion investment, bringing forward future investments in the national housing co-investment fund.

However, the big program is the housing accelerator fund, with $4 billion going to local communities to increase housing supply, as well as building up to 15,000 deeply affordable units through the rapid housing initiative.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Madam Chair, with respect to the importance of partnerships and working together, we see a lot of confrontation and criticism of our civil service, municipalities and mayors when we are trying to build things together. The minister has given us access to CMHC, which has been a key part of our success in Guelph, bringing those grassroots opportunities to CMHC so it can take over the wheel and steer to a successful conclusion.

Can the minister mention how important it is for members of Parliament to be able to work together to bring their communities toward successful projects working with professionals at CMHC?

[Soraya Martinez Ferrada, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Housing and Diversity and Inclusion (Housing)]

Madam Chair, I am glad my colleague asked that question, because I am a former city councillor who is now in the House. I was duly elected as a municipal councillor, and, for the first time in the House, we hear a leader attacking municipalities and the leaders of the municipalities who were duly elected. We do not get things done by insulting people but by supporting them and making sure they can be at the table with the tools they need to partner with all provincial and federal governments to get more houses built in this country.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Madam Chair, tonight we have heard several questions about exactly how much a house costs in this part of this community on this date. We are looking at a continuum of time during which the federal government really has not been involved in housing for a number of decades and is now building up and rebuilding relationships, knowing how important it is that we continue to be focused on the results and the future success of housing in Canada.

Could the minister tell us how important it is for us to work to be active and patient, but also, at the same time, insistent on getting results?

[Soraya Martinez Ferrada, Liberal, Hochelaga, QC]

Madam Chair, after more than a decade of non-existent leadership on housing, the government was back at the table, not only with a plan, which is the national housing strategy, but also with money to support it, making sure we would leverage that money to get municipalities and provinces to also partner with the federal government, because it is a collaborative jurisdiction. We all have responsibilities, and the leadership of the government needs to be at the table to make sure we can support those projects.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Madam Chair, last week, I was speaking with home builders who were visiting Ottawa. I was talking to a home builder about accessing the building codes using tablets, making it easier and faster to build homes by supporting our builders through new technologies, working with those technologies through our municipalities and how that might be facilitated through the housing accelerator fund.

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Madam Chair, the housing accelerator fund will incentivize more supply and will incentivize more density, but it will also incentivize the building of climate-resilient, dense, walkable and accessible communities. How do we do that? We do it by incentivizing inclusionary zoning, transit-oriented development and more affordable housing.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Madam Chair, I am also talking with the builders about the supply chain issues they have had that have increased the cost of home building, the cost of homes in the market and the market influences of the externalities from the pandemic, where the supply of goods, materials and labour have all increased the cost of our housing.

Could the minister talk about how we are working to offset those external costs by supporting Canadians trying to buy houses?

[Soraya Martinez Ferrada, Liberal, Hochelaga, QC]

Madam Chair, as my colleague was saying, we must work on the entire spectrum of housing supply, from the most vulnerable, those who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless, to those who want to buy homes.

We have to try to find solutions to narrow the generational gap that we have in this country. There are several measures we can use to get there. That is why the national housing strategy addresses several of these measures.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Madam Chair, there is a saying that applies to home building, which is that when we think that every problem is a nail, the only tool we have is a hammer. The problems that we are trying to solve need all the tools in the tool box because they are all multi-faceted.

Are there any further comments that could be made on how complex the issue is that we are tackling, and how important it is to do that together?

[Soraya Martinez Ferrada, Liberal, Hochelaga, QC]

Madam Chair, increasing supply is the best way to address the price of homes and rents. That is what the national housing strategy aims to do: make sure that every province and municipality is a partner in making that happen, and increase supply all across this country.

[Scot Davidson, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

Madam Chair, I will be splitting my time this evening with two of my colleagues.

I would like to ask the minister if he knows the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Keswick.

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, Minister of Housing and Diversity and Inclusion]

Madam Chair, I would like to know why the party opposite does not believe the federal government should help renters.

[Scot Davidson, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

Madam Chair, I would like just the number, please.

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Madam Chair, I actually want to know why the Conservatives voted against the Canada housing benefit, which is helping renters directly.

[Scot Davidson, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

Madam Chair, I will make it easy for the minister. I will ask more broadly if he can tell me the average in York Region, please.

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Madam Chair, York Region is facing a supply shortage. We are investing in the housing accelerator fund and the hon. member voted against it. I wonder why.

[Scot Davidson, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

Madam Chair, this is what frustrates Canadians. We ask a question and we expect an answer. This minister should know the answer to that, so I am going to try one more time. I am going to make it really easy for him because I know he can answer questions. What time is it?

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Madam Chair, it is really difficult to take the party opposite seriously on this issue because it has no plan. What little ideas that the Conservatives bring are something that we have been doing for the last number of years.