Debates of May 2nd, 2023

Opposition Motion—Home Ownership and Renting Affordability

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

I will read it again.

It is my duty to inform hon. members an amendment to an opposition motion may be moved only with the consent of the sponsor of the motion, or in the case he or she is not be present, consent may be given or denied by the House leader, the deputy House leader, the whip or the deputy whip from the sponsor's party.

Since the sponsor is not present in the chamber, I will ask the deputy whip if he consents to the amendment being moved.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Grande Prairie—Mackenzie, AB]

Mr. Speaker, we do not consent.

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

There is no consent. Therefore, pursuant to Standing Order 85, the amendment cannot be moved at this time.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Fleetwood—Port Kells.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary gymnastics demonstration was very good.

As a fellow resident of Metro Vancouver, we have also seen a lot of pressure on industrial land. In fact, Vancouver is almost out of it. Does the member see the motion by the Conservative Party as further complicating or disrupting the balance we need between industrial land and residential land?

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the motion talks about housing and not industrial land. There is another whole debate I would love to get into about industrial land, but for the purpose of this discussion, what we need to focus on is the housing crisis.

I call on the Liberal government to do the right thing and show leadership by investing in social housing back to the level when the government was doing it in the seventies and the eighties. The other thing I say to the government is to stop the corporate sector from fuelling the housing crisis, stop the special treatment that real estate investment trusts get and make them pay their fair share. The government should make them pay the corporate tax rate and reinvest that money to non-profits into an acquisition fund.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am a fellow B.C. member, but I need to contest some of the rationalization the NDP has, the virulent hatred of real investment trusts. In places like Westbank First Nation, real estate investment trusts have offered some of the most dense purpose-built rentals that allow for workers to stay in our communities so we can have places for nurses and long-term care aides, and it is all very affordable.

It seems like the NDP is somehow saying that Westbank First Nation should not be able to put on this stock. DCCs, or development cost charges, rising taxes and CMHC raising the cost of insurance only make housing more expensive. Why does she want to stop real estate investment trusts in places like Westbank First Nation, or does she somehow believe she knows better than Westbank First Nation does?

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, what I am saying, and the member knows this, is that real estate investment trusts should pay their fair share of taxes. They should not be given special tax treatment and not pay the corporate tax rate. They should be paying the corporate tax rate. Canadians are losing close to $2 billion in taxes that should have been collected and could have been invested into housing.

No wonder the Conservatives would oppose my amendment, because they always want to benefit the corporate sector and not make them pay their fair share. When I say to make them pay their fair share, in what terms? It is for that investment to go back into the community. By saying no to my amendment, the Conservatives are saying that they do not want to ensure, by giving land value with the upzoning, the return is returned to the community in the form of more social housing, green space, child care and other community benefits. That is wrong.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, there is not much point to this debate if we do not address the real problem. I am not a great economist in life, but to me, it boils down to supply and demand. According to 2016 numbers, we should be building 100,000 more housing units and, in this area too, Canada is the worst in the G7.

We are going to need to invest in housing, especially social and affordable housing, including in rural areas. That should be the real priority. The vacancy rate in Rouyn‑Noranda is around 1%. The same goes for other towns in Abitibi—Témiscamingue. This inflates prices significantly. There is nothing in the recent budget for building housing in rural areas. There is funding for indigenous housing, and I applaud that, but there is no construction planned for rural areas.

How can we address the issue of building housing in a generous and clear manner as a government policy? I would like my colleague's thoughts on that.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I absolutely agree with the member that we need the federal government's leadership in investing in housing.

That is why the NDP calls for the government to build at least 500,000 units of social housing, co-op housing or community housing, because the community deserves housing and housing is a basic human right.

As long as the approach by the Liberal government or the Conservatives is being taken, we will always have a housing crisis.

Real investment needs to be made and it needs to be done now.

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Mr. Speaker, off the top, I want to note that I will be splitting my time with the member for Hastings—Lennox and Addington.

We have heard today that adequate, suitable and affordable housing provides stability and security, and contributes to the well-being of a person, yet that sense of security that comes with appropriate and stable housing is becoming further out of reach for many Canadians. This is particularly true when it comes to young Canadians.

Eight years into the Liberal government and its inflationary policies, we find ourselves in a genuine housing crisis. We just have to look at the facts to see how broken housing is here in Canada. The motion we are debating today clearly lays out how desperate housing has become under the Liberal government’s leadership. The average rent for a two-bedroom apartment in the 10 biggest cities has almost doubled since it has taken office. Monthly mortgage costs have also doubled in that time. The cost of owning a home is, on average, 60% of a person’s income, making home ownership out of reach for even more Canadians. In fact, nine out of 10 young Canadians have given up on the dream of home ownership entirely.

With inflation soaring at a 40-year high, it is cutting into the paycheques of Canadians, driving up costs and limiting purchasing power. Let us not forget the Liberal government’s inflationary carbon tax, which is also driving up the cost on everything and constraining household budgets. Of course, the government's deficits are driving up mortgage rates. With higher interest rates, many families are struggling to make their mortgage payments. The current reality is that, under the Liberal government’s leadership, rent has become ever more unaffordable and home ownership ever less attainable.

The critical need for housing exists across the continuum of housing. Because this shortage exists in every stage of housing, there are Canadians living in housing that is not suitable to their circumstances, but they are unable to transition. Supply is simply not meeting demand, and existing programs have not closed the gap.

When it comes to chronic homelessness, the Auditor General’s report from last fall portrayed a very bleak assessment of the effectiveness of the Liberal government’s policies and leadership on the housing file. The Auditor General found that CMHC could not determine whether or not its programs were improving housing outcomes for vulnerable Canadians and preventing chronic homelessness. The reason for that was it did not know who was benefiting from the initiatives.

In that same AG report we found that Infrastructure Canada and Employment and Social Development Canada could not assess the success of their programs either. These departments were not using up-to-date data on homelessness to assess their effectiveness. The report makes clear there is minimal federal accountability on the goals set out by the Liberal government in its national housing strategy, and it is not clear who the lead is on these files. ESDC and CMHC are not coordinated, and the disconnect between these two entities is a recipe for failure.

We know the Liberal government loves a good photo op and a big announcement. Of course, big targets and ambitious goals sound great, but all the targets in the world will not achieve results without a plan and real leadership as a driving force to bring them home. The Parliamentary Budget Officer reported that six of the main national housing strategy programs have barely spent 50% of their budgeted amount. If the funding envelope exists but is not being utilized, that gap points to a problem in the structure and delivery of these programs. We hear about how long it takes for applications to be processed. A lengthy processing time can negatively impact the viability of a project. Inflation is soaring, costs are going up, taxes are going up and labour is limited.

All of those factors have a direct impact on project costs and their timelines. When we delay getting shovels in the ground, costs go up and, at some point, projects are no longer viable.

We also often hear about unnecessary red tape and the bureaucratic hoops that are required to access CMHC programs. There is certainly a red tape problem when applicants need to hire high-priced consultants to successfully navigate the application process, and that is an issue. It means smaller communities and community groups are at a major disadvantage because they do not have the resources needed to navigate the bureaucracy that is CMHC. In practice, this is yet another obstacle in increasing the supply of housing in Canada. The lack of housing supply is driving up prices and directly contributing to the lack of affordable housing options.

The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation has said that Canada needs 5.8 million new homes by 2030 to restore affordability. To build those new homes, we need to have skilled tradespeople to do the work. Unfortunately, there are significant labour shortages across industries and sectors. Whether it is health care workers, child care workers or tradespeople, workforce shortages are a recurring priority that comes up in just about every single meeting that I have in my office.

With the shortage of skilled tradespeople, the construction industry is not immune. A targeted workforce strategy that has immediate and also long-term solutions is critical. There needs to be a comprehensive plan in place to ensure we have the necessary skilled tradespeople to build new houses. That strategy should include a plan to work with provinces to ensure that our federal immigration system is attracting immigrants with skills in the trades. However, it also needs to include a plan to work with the provinces to speed up the credential recognition process so they can fill those immediate needs in our economy and relocate as needed.

Every level of government has a role to play in addressing the current housing crisis in our country. Certainly, all levels of government need to work in co-operation to achieve meaningful results. That requires strong leadership at the federal level. It is time for a federal government that is less focused on announcements and more focused on results. We need to remove government gatekeepers who are blocking home building.

Municipal governments are on the front lines of housing and have direct impact on the construction of new homes. The federal government can help remove municipal gatekeepers by creating greater incentives for municipalities to build houses.

The federal government is providing billions of dollars annually to municipal governments. Those federal infrastructure dollars should mean a result of the new construction of homes. A system that rewards construction and discentivizes delays will ensure progress.

The federal government also has thousands of buildings that are being underutilized, buildings that could be better used to meet today’s housing demands. The Conservatives have proposed selling off 15% of underutilized federal buildings to increase the supply of affordable housing. These Conservative solutions will help make real progress and close the gap between the growing demand and the shortage in supply.

As the housing crisis grows, we need to see focused and effective leadership at the federal level. The housing minister is always quick to stand in the House and talk about the Liberals' big announcements, but the facts speak for themselves. The demand for housing is growing and the supply is not keeping pace. Rent and mortgages are becoming more and more expensive and the Liberal government has failed to deliver efficient and effective programs.

The Conservatives have a plan. We have proposed practical solutions to address the growing housing crisis. It is time for effective federal leadership that will remove gatekeepers and cut unnecessary red tape so we can get houses built.

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

Mr. Speaker, I find it somewhat interesting how the Conservatives have brought forward a motion today that, for the most part, the government is already doing. It is almost as if the Conservatives are looking for some policy ideas, reviewing what is happening and is now trying to amplify them.

I wonder if the member can give a clear indication of something that is truly unique, something the Conservatives are saying that is not a bumper sticker saying.

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Mr. Speaker, when the Conservatives were in government, nine out of 10 young Canadians did not give up on the dream of home ownership.

CMHC has come plenty of times to the committee on which I sit. The data is not being collected. If the member listened to my speech, I asked who was in charge. Is it ESDC or CMHC? There is no federal leadership from the government.

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

Mr. Speaker, my colleague dwelt at length on how difficult it is for small municipalities and organizations to deal with red tape so they can access various housing funding programs.

Today's motion adds more conditions for gaining access to these programs in order to get the necessary funding to move forward with plans that are already on the starting line and just need money to get going.

How can the Conservatives say that there is too much red tape and then impose conditions that create even more red tape? Would it not be better to give the municipalities and the provinces free rein in their own jurisdiction and release the money?

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I have been listening throughout today's debate and it seems like the Bloc wants to be dependent on Ottawa. What the Conservatives have proposed is to empower municipalities and the provinces. This would give them the opportunity to just get it done. The Conservatives will stop the privileged gatekeepers who are preventing houses from being built and empower municipalities and provinces to get it done, so Canadians have a place to call home.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I always enjoy hearing the member speak, but we cannot neglect the deplorable Harper regime record where we lost over 300,000 affordable housing units. These were units to which seniors, people with disabilities, families and youth all had access.

The Conservatives today have presented a motion that would not give one blue cent to housing, and they have just rejected the NDP amendment that would ensure there would be a role for co-operative housing, social housing and community housing.

My question for my colleague is simply this. Is this just the performative arts by the Conservatives, that they are not actually seeking to find the solutions and to put in place the funding that is so critical to ensure that every Canadian has a roof over his or her head at night?

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Mr. Speaker, there is something fundamentally different between me and my colleague: I do not believe that government has all the answers. I do not want Canadians to feel that they have to knock on the door of whatever elected official at whatever government level to answer, help and give them what they need. Canadians are resilient and they are strong. We need to cut the bureaucratic red tape that is preventing Canadians from achieving their dream.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I posed a question in the chamber earlier, and it has been talked about. The government likes to throw a lot of money at programs, but it does not measure outcomes. As I have said already, when I asked the Minister of Northern Affairs, he said that the department did not follow incomes; it did not track the data.

However, the member knows all too well that the NDP could do a great thing and bring down the government at the earliest opportunity to see a good government take over. What can the NDP do to really cause positive change in Canada today?

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Mr. Speaker, frankly, the NDP could have some principle and a backbone, withdraw from its confidence-and-supply agreement and stand up for the Canadians who elected those members as opposition to the House.

[Shelby Kramp-Neuman, Conservative, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, since the government came into power, the cost of housing has doubled. Nine out of 10 young Canadians believe they will never have home ownership. Families from coast to coast to coast cannot even afford the interest on their mortgages. Numerous rankings regularly list Vancouver and Toronto as among the most unaffordable cities in the world. To put that into context, they are worse than those notorious for their high cost of living like New York. Perhaps the most illustrative comparison is that with our neighbour down south.

The United States has just shy of 332 million people living on 9.8 million square kilometres. In contrast, Canada has 38 million people living on 10 million square kilometres. In no world does it make sense that housing should cost twice as much here than in the U.S. despite its density being nearly 10 times our own.

The simple reality is that the government's mismanagement coupled with local NIMBY gatekeepers block development and drive up mortgages and housing costs. This is the only explanation of the fact that we have the fewest homes in the G7 per capita despite having the most space.

The Prime Minister has enabled municipalities that block development and rob our future generations of a chance of home ownership. A Conservative government would put an end to that. We would remove the bureaucratic gatekeepers from the equation, free up land and speed up the accreditation and permit process to get more shovels in the ground as soon as possible. This is a dire necessity that needed action yesterday, not tomorrow.

In eastern Ontario, a recent report stated that our region needed to build upward of 14,000 rental units just to meet demand. This does not include any actual growth, but solely takes into account what we need to build to meet the demand. This is ludicrous and a direct result of the failure of governments at all levels that acquiesce to activists.

This crisis is not just limited to housing. Just last week, I received an email from the Food Sharing Project, which serves Hastings—Lennox and Addington and the Kingston area by providing food and equipment to schools. It said:

The 2022-2023 school year has been unprecedented for The Food Sharing Project. Due to increasing demand and the skyrocketing costs of food, we are facing a significant budget shortfall as we are now sending out over $25,000 in food every week. We need your help to ensure that students do not go through the school day hungry.

This is the reality of the Prime Minister's Canada: kids who cannot eat and parents who cannot afford shelter.

Inflation is at a 40-year high. Canadians are sacrificing on food for shelter. Mortgages have doubled since 2015, averaging approximately $3,000 a month. Mortgage interest costs rocketed up to 26% in March alone. Red tape is costing an additional $200,000 on new homes. Average rent has nearly doubled for a two-bedroom apartment since 2015, increasing to $2,200 from $1,171 a month. Our youth have lost their dream of home ownership.

The current housing crisis is affecting every single riding across Canada. Each and every one of us in the House is elected to this place to represent our constituents. We have all been contacted by our constituents. On this side of the House, we have a plan to fix the housing crisis, with six simple solutions for Canada.

Canada's Conservatives would require large urban centres where the cost of living is particularly egregious, like Vancouver, to substantially increase home building in their borders. Those that cannot comply would face penalties in the vein of withheld federal funds. This is completely in line with existing legislation regarding provincial governments under the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act.

We would crack down on everyone's most annoying neighbours, the NIMBYs. We would implement a system for residents to raise concerns about the pedantic obstructionism. Should the decision body decide the complaint is well founded, we would supply infrastructure dollars to get those housing units built. In short, we would out-NIMBY the NIMBYs.

We would incentivize municipalities to increase their housing capacities by rewarding those that take the necessary steps to build homes in the form of a building bonus. This would give the latitude to municipalities to decide how to best address their individual needs instead of a cookie-cutter approach, which so often fails in a nation as large and diverse as Canada.

Further, we would require any municipality that seeks federal funds to pre-approve high-density and employment applications on available lands surrounding areas such as bus and subway stops. This would allow common sense residential zones to be built around accessible, walkable areas so residents will not need to choose between living downtown so they can walk to work and living in the suburbs but requiring a car. This is good policy, not only for the pocketbook, but also for the environment.

We would take advantage of the recent remote work paradigm by selling off 15% of federal buildings and have them turned into affordable housing. These buildings are generally already located in urban centres and are already built. The only construction would be converting them and rezoning them to be residential. We expect this would result in 5,500 new residential buildings capable of housing dozens, if not hundreds, of units each.

However, perhaps most importantly, we would stop printing money. Taking inspiration from the Harper era's one-for-one rule regarding red tape, we will require every dollar that we spend to be matched by a dollar saved. This would end the constant cycle of inflationary bubbles caused by out-of-touch central bankers who, on occasion, have helped created the current housing and market crisis.

I would also like to take a moment to address a somewhat different housing crisis affecting some Canadians, our armed forces. The federal government recently implemented changes to the post living differential. This is essentially a top-up for CAF members based on where they live. The government rightly sought to update the formula to better address the current economic climate of the posting areas, as the initial computation was done years ago.

While the formula was due for an update, the government completely revamped the benefit in a manner that has massive financial implications for longer-serving members. They get penalized for being promoted, changing bases, being married to CAF members and succeeding. They are, quite literally, being more penalized the longer they serve. This is having massive consequences for troop morale in a time when retention is quite literally an institutional crisis that cannot be understated. This will add to the already ongoing dearth of long-serving members, as they are looking to transition out of the armed forces. This is unacceptable, and it needs to be addressed. Those men and women who are serving, or who are thinking of serving, should know that a Conservative government would have their backs.

Canada's Conservatives will build and bring it home.

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

Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the member could tell us why, when the government, in an attempt to help Canadians, brought forward the housing support program, the one-time payment, which ultimately helped over half a million Canadian renters, the Conservatives voted against it.

I look at the resolution today, and it seems to be more about trying to convince Canadians that the Conservatives genuinely care about housing. The member spoke of “taking inspiration from the Harper era”, which did nothing for housing. That was the reality of it. Harper did nothing to expand Canada's housing market.

I wonder if the member could provide her thoughts on those two points.

[Shelby Kramp-Neuman, Conservative, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, with all due respect, in the Harper years, there was half the rent, half the mortgage and half the down payment to pay. Right now, we have a costly coalition that is continuously making it more difficult for Canadians. Houses are built of beams. Right now, the government is cancelling any dreams of home ownership.

The member opposite is suggesting that the Harper government was not putting Canadians ahead. The numbers talk. Facts talk. The continuous lacklustre announcements from the government are failing Canadians, and Canadians have caught on.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my question is going to be simple.

With all of the solutions it is proposing, I think the Conservative Party motion is suggesting that we keep doing things that are not working. It is not a question of construction. Housing is being built, but the problem is access to social and affordable housing. That requires specific strategies, not a construction strategy. Construction is happening in both urban and rural areas. These units are offered up to market forces, but the market will never succeed in making housing affordable, because that is not its mission. Meeting long-term needs is not part of its mission either. If we want affordable housing, we need a paradigm shift. We need to redirect that money out of the market.

Does my colleague agree with this analysis?

[Shelby Kramp-Neuman, Conservative, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the paradigm shift that we need in this place is to have people in government who are fighting for the Canada that we once loved.

I got an email from an individual in my riding who is concerned with the price of the variable interest rates. She wrote that she is listing her home because her variable payment has gone from $2,000 to $4,000 a month. She has to sell because she cannot afford it. This is a couple in my riding who saved and saved. They finally got a home that they love. They renovated it beyond their expectations, and now they have to sell it.

This government is failing Canadians, and it needs to step up.

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

Uqaqtittiji, I would like to ask about affordability, which the member started talking about but did not really discuss in the rest of her intervention.

The NDP feels that there needs to be assurances that projects are meeting the core housing needs of Canadians. Does the member agree that infrastructure funding should be tied to specific affordability criteria?

[Shelby Kramp-Neuman, Conservative, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, after serving on a municipal council for 15 years, I completely understand where the member is coming from, but what we need to recognize is that the indication of our housing situation is getting worse. It is not getting better.

The government is extremely crafty at announcements and reannouncing an announcement. It is not working.