Debates of June 13th, 2023

Information Commissioner

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

It is my duty to lay upon the table, pursuant to subsection 40(1) of the Access to Information Act, the Information Commissioner's report for the fiscal year ended March 21, 2023.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(3)(h), this report is deemed permanently referred to the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics.

Government Response to Petitions

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

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8)(a), I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the government's response to five petitions. These returns will be tabled in an electronic format.

Agriculture and Agri-Food

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the 10th report of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food, entitled “Grocery Affordability: Examining Rising Food Costs in Canada”.

Pursuant to Standing Order 109, the committee requests that the government table a comprehensive response to the report.

Let me recognize the hon. member for Cowichan—Malahat—Langford. He brought the motion to the committee, and we unanimously agreed to move forward. It was a great illustration of cross-partisan support. I would like to recognize him here in the House. I like having him sit on this side; maybe we should get him over here.

While I have the opportunity, I want to note Nick Taylor, who won the Canadian Open. This is the first time a Canadian has won the Canadian Open in golf since 1954. I want to take this opportunity to congratulate him here in this place.

[Lianne Rood, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to table the supplementary opinion of the Conservative Party of Canada for the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food's report on food price inflation.

While we appreciate the work done by the committee and the study for this report, we believe more information must be made available to Canadians in terms of the Liberal government's policies and its contribution to food inflation in Canada. It was made abundantly clear throughout that the Liberal members of the committee purposely avoided discussion or inclusion of politically inconvenient facts and recommendations related to the carbon tax, out-of-control spending and inflationary deficits, which drive up the cost of goods we buy, including essentials like food and fuel.

We understand that food loss and waste come at an enormous economic cost to businesses, society and the environment. The Conservatives recommend that the Government of Canada remove the carbon tax; complete a comprehensive study on the economic impact of the carbon tax and clean fuel regulations; study how increases affect the cost of food production, the price of food and the entire food supply chain; and immediately reverse its policy on front-of-package labelling.

Government Operations and Estimates

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, two reports from the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates, also known as the mighty OGGO.

I table the seventh report, in relation to Bill C-290, an act to amend the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act. The committee has studied the bill and, pursuant to Standing Order 97.1(1), requests a 30-day extension to consider it.

I also table the eighth report, in relation to the motion adopted on Wednesday, May 17, 2023, regarding the consideration of Bill C-290, an act to amend the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

Pursuant to Standing Order 97.1(3)(a), a motion to concur in the report is deemed moved, the question deemed put and a recorded division deemed demanded and deferred.

Pursuant to order made on Thursday, June 23, 2022, the recorded division stands deferred until Wednesday, June 14, at the expiry of the time provided for Oral Questions.

Liaison

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, Humber River—Black Creek, ON]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 107(3), I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the sixth report of the Liaison Committee, entitled “Committee Activities and Expenditures: April 1, 2022 - March 31, 2023”. This report highlights the work and accomplishments of each committee, as well as detailing the budgets that fund the activities approved by the committee.

It is a very thorough document outlining the work of the House and its committees for the last year. It is a very important document that I would encourage all members of the House to look at.

Canada Pharmacare Act

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-340, An Act to enact the Canada Pharmacare Act.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to introduce the Canada pharmacare act, with thanks to the member for Burnaby South for seconding this legislation. He follows in a long line of great NDP leaders, from Tommy Douglas on, who have built and are building our great public health care system.

No one should have to face the impossible choice of paying rent or filling a prescription, yet every year millions of Canadians go without their prescription medications because they cannot afford them. This legislation would establish a framework for universal, comprehensive and public pharmacare across Canada.

It is modelled on the Canada Health Act and based on the recommendations of the Hoskins advisory council. Like the Canada Health Act, the Canada pharmacare act specifies the conditions and criteria for provincial and territorial prescription drug programs to receive federal funding. This includes the core principles of public administration, comprehensiveness, universality, portability and accessibility.

After decades of delay, Canadians cannot afford to wait any longer. It is time to add medicine to medicare. I call on all parliamentarians to support this long overdue initiative.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

Inquiries Act

[Yves-François Blanchet, Bloc, Beloeil—Chambly, QC]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C‑341, An Act to Amend the Inquiries Act.

Mr. Speaker, this is bigger than those in the spotlight at the moment. Current events are a good example of how frequently democratic institutions have come under attack during this Parliament and since the Liberal regime came to power.

One of the most important elements of democracy is, of course, accountability. When accountability is lacking, there are statutory tools that task people with setting up commissions of inquiry. This latest situation is an extreme example, of course, and it could benefit from this act, but beyond that, institutions must be strengthened.

Accordingly, the purpose of this bill is to ensure that, from now on, when a commission of inquiry is set up under the Inquiries Act, Parliament will determine who the commissioners of such an inquiry will be. I think getting this process under way now is essential, not only so it can help with the current conversation about a commission of inquiry into Chinese interference, but also so it can benefit democracy in the long term.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities

[Scott Aitchison, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I move that the fourth report of the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities, presented to the House on Wednesday, October 19, 2022, be concurred in.

I will be splitting my time with the member for Calgary Nose Hill.

We have a housing crisis in this country. To restore affordability, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation has reported that we need 5.8 million homes by 2030. That works out to 760,000 new homes per year until 2030 for us to restore affordability. The best we have ever done in Canada is to build about 260,000 units of housing a year.

We are now faced with this massive undertaking and all the challenges that go with it to get these units built, whether it is the labour shortage, the skilled trades shortage or, of course, dealing with all the different levels of government involved in the housing space. Municipalities are on the front lines of the housing crisis, and the provinces are very much on the front lines as well.

As for the federal government, some years ago, the Prime Minister, with great fanfare, launched this national housing strategy, describing it as a transformational housing plan and saying the federal government was back in the housing business. All we can see today is that rents have doubled, home prices have doubled and mortgage rates are skyrocketing. People's variable rate mortgages, and I happen to be one of them, have skyrocketed in a year. There are an awful lot of Canadians who do not have a variable rate mortgage who will be going to the bank maybe this summer or fall, and they are going to find out they cannot afford their house anymore. That is all in the midst of a housing crisis where we need to build 760,000 units a year to restore affordability.

We have a government that is long on talking points and long on photo ops but very short on delivery. We do not see a lot of ribbon cutting for new housing. Frankly, we do not need to see any ribbon cutting to know that the situation is only getting worse. Members could ask a student in Toronto if they can find a place to live. Covenant House Toronto reports that a huge number of people living there are students at local universities and colleges. That is completely insane in a country like Canada.

We have heard the Leader of the Opposition talk about young people being stuck in their parents' basements because they cannot find a place to live. They have done everything right, they have a good job and they cannot find a place to rent or maybe even buy one day. We need literally all levels of government working together to solve this crisis, and we need to hold those on the front lines accountable for what they are or, in most cases, are not doing to make housing more affordable.

We have heard the Leader of the Opposition talk about holding municipalities to account. He talks about firing the gatekeepers. He is absolutely correct. As a former mayor, and before that the chair of the planning committee in Muskoka, I am quite used to dealing with vested interests on expensive waterfront properties, but also vested interests in the urban towns of Muskoka. Pushing for higher density in some of these smaller communities is not always easy. I talk a lot about the challenges we see in larger centres, but they also happen across the smaller communities in this country.

As mayor and as chair of planning, I always fought the good fight and made sure that we had more density and more homes built. The Leader of the Opposition, and hopefully the soon-to-be prime minister, will challenge all municipalities and all cities in this country to make decisions to increase density, particularly when the federal government is on board and assisting larger centres with massive investments in transit infrastructure, for example. It is insane to me that the federal government is happy to support municipalities with transit infrastructure, with dollars for new SkyTrain stations and new subway stations, but it does not require the land around those stations, the land around the multi-billion dollars transit infrastructure, to be pre-emptively rezoned for high-density residential housing.

This makes sense. It makes sense for the public investment of federal dollars. It makes sense for the public investment of municipal dollars as well. It is a green way to live, as higher density is better for the planet. Frankly, it is better for the municipalities as well.

A lot of people do not realize that single-family detached residential homes do not actually pay enough tax to cover the cost of the services the families who live in those homes demand. Municipalities need higher density residential housing. It makes more sense fiscally. It is more sustainable. As the Conservative Party, we are calling on municipalities to get on board and for everybody get on the same page to work together to increase the density of our urban centres for the sake of the planet and for the sake of young people who are desperate to get started in their lives and maybe start a family one day.

The housing spectrum is a continuum, and people move through that continuum as their needs change and adjust. Right now, the biggest gap or the biggest blockage in that continuum of housing is purpose-built rentals. We know that purpose-built rentals have not been constructed in a meaningful way since the late seventies. That is because the government of Pierre Elliott Trudeau had an ideological problem with the tax treatment for the construction of rental units, as it thought it was making landlords rich. As a result of that change in policy, purpose-built rentals stopped getting built. Members will notice, if they go around any of the larger centres such as Toronto or Vancouver, or even smaller cities such as Winnipeg and Halifax, those purpose-built rentals are starting to get pretty old. We need some major investment in those rentals because they are all over 50 years old now, and they are getting pretty tired.

Therefore, along comes the condo construction business because the developer does not have to carry the capital costs of a rental building, so condo owners start buying up condos and they start renting those out. CMHC changed the rules so people can put 5% down, not just on their first home but maybe on their second and third as well. In many ways, we should be really grateful, frankly, that this happened because the vast majority of landlords in this country now are families who maybe bought a second property and tried to fill a gap. However, it is not enough. We need more purpose-built rentals in this country, and we need a federal government that is working with provincial governments and municipalities to make sure that the private sector is incentivized to build specifically what we need.

With trillions of dollars of investment required in the housing space in this country, there is no way government can do it all on its own. Every nickel of government spending at this level should be focused on those most vulnerable in our society, and we should get the private sector on board to build everything else. The biggest gap is purpose-built rentals, so a federal government working with provincial governments and municipal governments could work with the private sector stakeholders to direct them to build those purpose-built rentals.

Freeing up space in rentals would free up movement within the housing continuum to bring the market back into equilibrium. People could then move through. Adult children would not have to live in their parents' basement anymore. They could go through this transition more naturally into a rental property and then maybe buy their first home. Then folks who are aging and do not really want to stay in their big house anymore, as they need something smaller, would have something they could move to as well. The flow of people moving through housing in this country can happen again.

However, it is not going to happen without federal leadership, which we are not seeing from the current federal government. We have a Minister of Housing who does not really believe that the situation is a crisis, and we have a Prime Minister who loves photo ops, announcements and speaking points, but none of them really seem to know how to get the job done.

That is why Conservatives are focused very much not only on talking points, but also on real results, and on making sure that municipalities are working in lockstep with the provinces and the federal government to ensure that we close the gap with purpose-built rentals and make housing more affordable again. Once we fix housing in this country, we can literally fix everything. The absolute foundation of our society and our economy is housing, and we are failing right now. I am sorry, but the federal government is failing right now.

Therefore, as Conservatives, we have proposed some very common-sense ideas. It is common sense for the common people to hold other levels of government to account to make sure that every nickel of public investment is creating results, not just photo opportunities.

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

Mr. Speaker, housing affordability is a major problem in Canada. In my riding of Nepean, we have 98 affordable housing units built by the Multifaith Housing Initiative. We have another 47 units being built at the Christ Church in its Bells Corners location. We have Ottawa Community Housing, which will start building new units of affordable housing.

Canada has grown in population. In 1980, it was around 24.5 million. In 2023, it is 38.8 million. However, the housing starts in 1980 were just 130,000, and in 2020 it was just 213,000. In fact, the ratio of housing starts to population growth has reduced from 0.55 in 1980 to 0.3 in 2023. The supply, in my view, is the major problem, and the biggest problem for the housing start supply is the regulations at the city and municipal levels.

I would like to ask my hon. colleague for his comments on that.

[Scott Aitchison, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague is quite correct. A big part of the problem is municipal regulation, and frankly, it is not so much even the regulations.

When I was mayor, we made the rules a little tougher to develop in Muskoka and Huntsville particularly, and the development community was okay with that because, at the same time that we made the rules a little more restrictive, we also made them clear. We made the guidelines very clear, and then we applied them evenly. There is no shortage of examples of a municipal councillor getting a little scared because their neighbours showed up and were upset, so the councillor gets worried they might not win the next election, but I made it very clear to those councillors that we could not change the policies on the backs of an application, and that is because investment likes stability.

As such, we applied the rules evenly, and then we made decisions. What is really wrong at the municipal level is that local politicians are afraid they might not get re-elected, and they delay and delay. It is criminal that someone can come in and ask for a rezoning application to rezone a piece of land to what is on either side of the property, and it can take three years. That is wrong, and it is making housing too expensive.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, with whom I sit on the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities, for moving concurrence in this report.

At committee, we produced a few reports on housing. One is recent and could be submitted to the House. It deals with the financialization of housing. I would like to have my colleague’s opinion. I think there is a lot of emphasis in that report on the fact that it is important that the national housing strategy make every effort to support affordable housing. There is a housing crisis and it must be feasible to provide support.

Does my colleague agree that the measures and programs under the national housing strategy need to be strengthened in order to prioritize the idea of affordable housing?

[Scott Aitchison, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

Mr. Speaker, generally speaking, yes, I would agree with my hon colleague's comments that the national housing strategy needs to be strengthened, but the problem with the national housing strategy is that it is not really national. It is the Liberal plan. We need to be working with all levels of government to make sure we are all on the same page of the hymn book, and we are not right now. Efforts by the federal level can be easily wasted because a municipality just delays too much. We all need to be working from the same page.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, there is no question that there is a housing crisis from coast to coast to coast. In my own riding, Vancouver East, we had one of the largest homeless encampments, and when the encampment came about, there was neither a plan nor housing available to put people in. Consequently we were just moving people from one homeless space to another homeless space, which does not solve the problem.

Part of the issue of the inaffordability of housing is the fact that people are treating housing as a commodity. They use it as an investment tool instead of recognizing that it is a basic human right. Would the member support the call for what the housing advocate is recommending to the government, which is to treat housing as a basic human right and not a commodity?

[Scott Aitchison, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for the question. Her record on the housing file is well known. However, where I fundamentally disagree with her is on the fact that, when the federal government of Pierre Elliott Trudeau got out of incentivizing the construction of purpose-built rentals, which I spoke about earlier, the private sector picked up the slack. Mom and Pop bought a second place, maybe because they had a little money to invest, so they did.

If that is the financialization of housing, then yes, I guess it is, but without them doing that, there would be no rentals at all. Therefore, we need a federal government that is focused on what needs to be focused on so that we can get more rentals built, period.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, for those who are watching this morning, we are seized with in Parliament the recommendations of a report that relate to building housing.

My colleague for Parry Sound—Muskoka just outlined some of how we could potentially build more housing in Canada. What I would like to do this morning is hopefully, for everybody who is here, outline why, with stories from my community and a personal story

If members look at CBC News this week, there is a story, which was posted on June 8, entitled “'Kind of dehumanizing': What it's like trying to find a decent place to rent in Calgary these days”. In January of this year, Calgary saw rents increase by 22%, which was the largest increase in the country. Now, if we look at my riding, there is virtually nothing to rent that is under $2,000, unless one is looking to rent a room.

We can think about somebody, such as a single person, who is trying to find a room, but they cannot find it and then their rent is increased by 22%. It is pretty crazy. It is dehumanizing. When people talk about crime and that we need to address it, or that we need to address addiction, if we are not affording people the dignity of a safe place to live that they can afford, we are never going to address those problems.

I want to speak today to my colleagues in the government to implore them that they have to use their jurisdictional power to lean on municipalities to make right and just decisions for building housing. I also want to implore to my colleagues in my own city that they also have a responsibility to look beyond pandering for NIMBY votes to do the right thing to change policies so we can build housing.

I will start with a personal story. When I went through a divorce about a decade ago, so this was when rent was still reasonable in Canada, I had a hard time finding a place to live. I was going through an extremely emotional time. It was really hard, and I had to figure out how I was going to pay the bills. Right now, in every part of our country, there are women like me who are making choices of whether or not to stay in a relationships based on whether or not they can find a place to live. That is the reality of this situation. There are also people with families who are trying to figure out how they can come together in a very small living space because they cannot afford to live separately, and in those situations, nobody wants to rent to them.

When we are talking about homelessness today, I think all of us have this sort of Hollywood notion of what homelessness means. However, we are now living in a country where homelessness is pervasive. It is across every demographic and every gender, and it is in every one of our backyards. When I hear colleagues or supporters say things like “Well, we just need to look at brownfield development”, I wonder of they are kidding. These are our neighbours. These are our fellow humans. There is also who say, “I think those townhomes would change the character of my community”. I live in a multi-family unit in Calgary, and I rent. I live surrounded by people from new Canadian communities, families from all different walks of life, and I live safely and happily. Do members know why? It is because we all have a place to live and a roof over our heads.

Will housing change the character of a neighbourhood? Members can bet it will. It would make it more just, more equitable and give people a sustainable future. When I hear from municipalities, as my colleague for Parry Sound—Muskoka talked about, “Well, we need to consult for another three years on whether or not we could have an extra parking space here and there”, I think it is fundamentally the wrong approach. It is an inhumane approach that does not recognize the national crisis we are in and the hopelessness that our shared constituents feel. Again, it is reaching out to people. It is pandering for votes from people who only had the privilege of getting into the housing market at a time when housing was affordable, and that is rapidly changing.

In Alberta, we do not have rent control. What that means is that people may be renting from people who have bought an investment property on spec, on a variable rate mortgage, and cannot afford to pay that mortgage with the rent they were charging. That is why we are seeing 23%, 24%, or 30% increases. Do members know what it means to have a 30% increase in someone's rent in a year? It means they are homeless; that is what it means.

I am sorry, but at this point, when we cannot house our families, an esoteric debate about parking is ridiculous. I am saying this as a Conservative. Everybody needs to wake up. The federal government has its onus of responsibility to ensure that it is not funding the bad behaviour of municipalities that cannot figure this out, because when the federal government does that, it is actually incenting and empowering NIMBYs. I know that, for people in communities who have lived there for a long time, change is something that we have to bring them along with. I get that, but that is what we should be doing. We should be making the case that, if people are concerned about a stabbing that happened on the LRT yesterday or an increase in addiction, we have to find people places to live. How we change the character of our communities for the better and stop them from descending into crime, poverty and hopelessness is by building more houses, period.

I know, and I believe firmly in my heart, the compassion and caring of the people in my community who, even though they may have concerns about building townhomes, will come along when leaders stand up and ask them to please come along with us because there is so much at stake for us not to do that. However, leaders have to stand up and do that first. I am standing up here and I am proudly saying we need to build more houses. We need to look at every idea.

We have to work across different levels of government, but it has to start with the federal government's acknowledging that what it is doing is not good enough. When I see the Minister of Housing stand up in the House of Commons and I hear him use rote talking points, I see his colleagues cringe behind him. It is an acknowledgement that the course the government is on is not fast enough. It is not good enough and it is not leveraging that pressure and that incentive on municipalities. NIMBY cannot be how we build houses. NIMBY cannot be our housing policy anymore. That is what our party has been saying. This is at crisis-level proportions. Everybody in every place in the House has a story like the one I just read. This is not just one part of our country; it is every part of our country.

I just want to emphasize the anxiety that people are feeling right now because they do not know whether their landlord is going to sell their townhome. That is the other thing; in a rent control situation where mortgage rates are super high but the housing prices are staying high and there is no more stock coming in, people are going to sell. The level of affordable housing stock is going to continue to decrease. Come on; we have to get our act together. This report has some recommendations, but it does not get to the heart of the matter, which is that, as leaders, we all need to wake up to the anxiety, the panic that people are feeling about where they are going to put their families. How can somebody go to work, go to school or do anything productive without a place to live? That is what we are dealing with here.

From the bottom of my heart, I implore my colleagues in the federal government to talk to the Minister of Housing, to say, “Hey, bud, the talking point binder? Scrap it. My community, we have got to do better.” When we stand up in the House of Commons and say we are investing, if investing means that the housing stock is not getting to where it needs to be, then things have got to change. That is what we are arguing for here this morning.

This is too important for us to screw up. We have to understand and be compassionate toward people who are making life decisions not out of want or desire but because they have to, because they do not have a place to live. That has got to change. I hope we can all work together in this place and do something that actually reduces this anxiety because the rent is too high.

[Leah Taylor Roy, Liberal, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member opposite's speech was very personal and compelling. I cannot imagine there is a member of the House who does not feel the same way about this being a crisis and about the need to work on it. This applies to constituents in my area as well.

However, attacking municipalities and saying it is all their fault is not the correct way to go either, in my opinion. We do, for the first time, have a national housing strategy. Part of that is a housing accelerator fund and a rapid housing initiative, working in concert with the municipalities. Often I hear across the way, and from many people, that this is about jurisdiction. Certainly in Alberta and Quebec, we are not to interfere with anything the provinces have jurisdiction over.

I noted in your speech that you talked about your concern that Alberta does not have rent control. Are you advocating for the federal government to get involved in provincial jurisdiction in Alberta, for example, to ensure that there is rent control for people like yourself and others who are facing rental property rent increases?

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

I remind members to run their questions through the Chair. Even though I would love to answer some of those questions, I cannot, so I will let the hon. member for Calgary Nose Hill answer.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is right; it is not all the municipalities' fault. It is her government's fault. It has had eight years and has spent hundreds of billions of dollars, and all it has to show for it are anxiety and panic among people who cannot afford rent. It is not just because of the lack of affordable housing, and that is a big part of it, but it is also because deficit inflationary spending has increased interest rates so much that people are selling off affordable housing stock because they cannot afford to pay the interest rates on their mortgages. This never used to be a problem under a lack of rent control.

My colleague opposite stands there and is not being introspective. Yes, there is a fault of municipalities. I am going to be the first one to say it, and I dare her to have the courage to say the same thing. There are people on my city council who share my political persuasion and who need to hear this message, and I am going to stand up and say it. I have not heard a single Liberal do the same thing, and that is the problem here. The federal government is rewarding municipalities that are not building houses fast enough and are not changing regulations fast enough

Problem one and problem two are that Liberals have created this economic condition by spending out of control. People's lives are worse and interest rates have gone through the roof. Any backbencher in the Liberal Party who does not look at themselves and look at their cabinet has a big problem and is part of the problem too.

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

Mr. Speaker, this debate is timely. Just this morning, at 9:45 a.m, I received a communiqué from the Abitibi—Témiscamingue CEGEP.

It states that, in the midst of a housing crisis, applications for residence at the CEGEP have never been as high. The college is therefore calling on everyone to find additional apartments or rooms to rent to put a roof over the heads of the future Abitibi—Témiscamingue workforce. It also states that, as part of a short-term approach, several options have been proposed by the organization, including an internal call to members.

We have reached that point. This has major repercussions on the development of all our communities, particularly when it affects the education of youth and access to housing. I would like to know what recommendations my colleague from Calgary Nose Hill is personally making and what recommendations are made in this report to ensure we can finally get our heads above water and make housing more accessible.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague just described a situation that is endemic across the country. The housing crisis is affecting everyone. There have also been many stories in the news of universities and colleges across the country where students cannot go anymore because they cannot find a place to rent. There were stories in the news about the deplorable living conditions students were facing. This week, there were stories as well about how new Canadians, people who have moved to Canada from other jurisdictions around the world, have said they cannot stay here because it costs too much live. We are literally turning people away who should be part of our workforce, and they are suffering indignities because they cannot afford to live.

My colleague from Parry Sound—Muskoka outlined recommendations. This is a systemic problem. It comes from the fact, within our scope here in the House of Commons, of a housing strategy led by a federal government that is not delivering. If it were delivering, we would not be having this debate. The proof is in the pudding here.

The government has to, for solution one, acknowledge that there is a problem and that what it is doing is not working. Number two is that we need to make sure government programs are not rewarding municipalities that are putting in place regulatory processes that preclude housing from being built at the rate it needs to be built. Number three is that we need to have compassion in this place and understand we all have a responsibility to push the federal government and hold the federal government to account on its lack of success, and ask it to do better. That includes the backbench in the Liberal Party.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would say it is a pleasure to be able to rise and speak today, but I was actually expecting that we would be debating Bill S-8. Bill S-8 deals with sanctions on foreign nationals.

A member from the Conservative Party yells, “Surprise.” It is no surprise. This does not surprise me. What it does is really, once again, just demonstrate the Conservative Party of Canada's lack of respect in terms of what Canadians expect of legislators, which is to be able to deal with issues that are important.

Today, the Conservative Party says, “Well, housing is an important issue.” Yes, we concur. There is no doubt that housing is an important issue. In fact, we have been dealing with this issue for years now, unlike the Conservative Party. The reality is that this is just an attempt at a filibuster coming from the Conservative Party. It is interesting that Conservatives say housing is an important issue, yet they had 10 opposition days when they could have decided on the kind of vote or question. They could have had the “whereases” explaining the issues. Out of the last 10 opposition days, what did they choose? They chose to talk about the price on pollution, opposition day after opposition day. Now they try to say, “Well, know what? We are concerned about housing.” Where was that concern on opposition days? It did not exist. That was the reality for the Conservative Party, but today it says it does not want to address the government legislation, so what it will do is bring in yet another concurrence report and will say it is about housing. This way, government members and other opposition members will say that housing is an important issue and that we should be debating it today. I would argue that we could have been debating from an opposition perspective on many of the other opportunities by which the Conservatives could have brought it forward.

Let us talk about hypocrisy. I think most Canadians would be somewhat surprised that, during the 90s, we had the Charlottetown accord, and, within the Charlottetown accord, we had every political party in the House of Commons ultimately advocating that Ottawa should not be playing a role in housing, that it was provincial jurisdiction. I know that because I was in the north end of Winnipeg debating Bill Blaikie, advocating that we needed to have a presence in national housing. Only one political party has consistently, over the years, advocated that the federal government play virtually no role in housing, and that is the Conservative Party of Canada. That is the only party. Through the last eight years, as we have been bringing forward numerous housing policies, we have seen the Conservative Party continuously arguing or voting against them. Understanding jurisdictional responsibilities and understanding what role the federal government can actually play in housing is, I would suggest, relatively important. I have not witnessed that from the Conservative Party of Canada, and I do not say that lightly.

I was first elected in 1988. My first responsibility was as the official opposition whip, along with having housing as my critic portfolio. Even through those years, every year I invested a great deal of my energy into the issue of housing. I have seen the rises and the falls of the industry. I understand what it is that the federal government can and cannot do. I also see the lack of interest from the Conservative Party.

Now, Conservatives understand and they see the anxiety that is out there because of issues like interest, because of the demand there is for housing, and now they want to make it an issue and they want to blame everything on Ottawa, as if Ottawa were to blame for the housing crisis. I hate to think what issues and crises there would be if it were not for Canadians' kicking Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party of Canada out in 2015.

Let us take a look at some of the things we have done in the last five to seven years. In the history of Canada, never before have we seen more money invested into the housing file than by the current Prime Minister and government. We have adopted the first national housing strategy, which not only establishes a framework but also invests billions of dollars into housing. Every region of our country has benefited from it.

If we look at the province of Manitoba and the makeup of housing there, most people would be surprised. It has been a while, but I would guesstimate that we are probably talking somewhere in the neighbourhood of 20,000-plus units that the federal government directly subsidizes every month to ensure that housing is more affordable.

These are the types of commitments that have been made over the years, even by previous governments, to support non-profit housing. This is complemented by the national housing strategy, which is there to support not only expanding the housing stock in Canada, but also to improve its quality.

A good example is a program that I think we underestimate the true value of, which is the greener homes grant. There are homes that are in need of repair throughout our communities, whether urban or rural, in every area of the country. We have a program that provides encouragement for people to fix up their homes. Every time there is a grant issued, a home is being repaired, jobs are being created, the home is becoming more energy-efficient and the quality of Canada's housing stock is improving. This is something we should all be concerned about. At the very least, I can assure members that the government has demonstrated this by bringing forward the program.

There are other aspects. I love the program that deals with the multi-generational home renovation tax credit. I look at the community I represent and the number of families that choose to support their parents, grandparents or children with disabilities as dependents. They are not forced to do it. We are providing them the opportunity of a tax credit to create a special space to accommodate them. Again, this is something that complements the housing stock in Canada. We do not hear about it much, but I think it is important for us to emphasize it. I would suggest that it is part of the solution.

The Minister of Finance, who is working with the Minister of Housing, and is supported by members of this caucus, has recognized the true value of housing co-ops. Housing co-ops are a viable and healthy alternative to buying a home, because they are co-operatives.

I am a big fan of housing co-ops. During the eighties, I played a role in the community of Weston in developing the Weston housing co-op. There is a difference between someone who lives in a housing co-op and someone who lives in an apartment. The biggest difference would likely be the word “profit”, but the real difference is that the person is not a tenant; they are a resident.

Once again, under the Prime Minister, we have a government that is committed to looking at ways we can expand housing co-ops. By doing that, we are expanding the housing supply. We can encourage individuals and groups to look at ways in which housing co-ops can be established, so that individuals will be able to have that joint ownership. That is something we never heard about under Stephen Harper and the Conservatives.

There is the idea of supporting infill housing in a non-traditional way, and that would factor in Habitat for Humanity. I have said this before. Habitat for Humanity has likely done more for infill housing in the city of Winnipeg than any government program has. I suggest that governments, at all different levels, need to support organizations like Habitat for Humanity. It has built hundreds of homes in the province of Manitoba alone, and it is a national organization.

In advocating with other caucus colleagues, we have seen federal support go towards Habitat for Humanity. I do not recall seeing that under Stephen Harper. This is building homes and making homes available for people who would never really get the opportunity to own a home. They do it through sweat equity, as well as the work and efforts of the community as a whole.

It is far better than the infill programs the government used to support during the nineties. I still think we could probably support municipalities in looking at ways of doing that. I think all sorts of opportunities are still there. For the first time in a generation, we have a government that is proactive and is looking to support the industry with things like infill houses.

When listening to the Conservatives, we find they are now saying that they need to pass the blame on to Ottawa or the government, even though the current government and Prime Minister have done far more on the housing file than any other government in generations has. Of the ideas that come from the Conservatives, the only one that comes to mind is in the last election, when they said they would give tax breaks to our wealthiest landlords.

The Conservatives stand up and say that wherever we subsidize or provide funds for public transit, where there are hubs, there should be residential housing, with a higher concentration and density of people. They have been saying this for a while. Of course that should be happening. In fact, it has been happening. It is working with municipalities.

Someone does not have to be a genius to understand the concept of having a hub, where a subway, train or high-speed bus will stop, and the advantages of having towers or a higher density located there. It only makes sense to do that. This is the irony: How much money did the Conservatives and Stephen Harper invest in supporting public transit compared with the current government?

Once again, where the Conservatives failed, the current government has risen to the occasion. We continue to invest hundreds of millions of dollars into public transit. We continue to work with municipalities, in particular, our bigger cities of Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal and Winnipeg, as well as the east coast, to support public transit. I suspect that we will continue to see higher-density housing where it makes sense.

The Conservatives take an approach in which they have to be negative and hit hard on what they call the “gatekeepers”, which are the municipalities, mayors, reeves, city councillors and so forth, for not doing what they should be doing. I believe, as the government believes, that the federal government needs to demonstrate leadership, as we have, and work with provinces and municipalities, large and small, to ensure that we can build more homes and improve our current housing stock. That has been amplified, given the crisis situation we are in, through programs like the rapid housing initiative. I have seen the Minister of Housing stop into Winnipeg on several occasions. I have made announcements and dealt with press releases in Manitoba, both in urban and rural areas, dealing with things through the rapid housing initiative. We continue to work with the provinces and the municipalities on these types of programs, because they are making a difference.

We need to be able to support municipalities and encourage areas that can be developed in a relatively quick fashion. We have indicated that it is our objective to see the number of new home constructions double over the next decade. In provinces like mine, in Manitoba, we want to see more immigration come into our province and an expanded economy. To succeed in this, it will take all three levels of government working together. That means that, on certain files, it is absolutely critical that there is a high sense of co-operation. I would suggest that housing is one of those files. I can say that we do not get that co-operation if all we are doing is consistently slamming another level of government. Yes, there will be disagreements at times, and there is a negotiating process in many different ways. However, on the housing file, I believe that what is expected of the national government is actually being delivered, especially if one compares us to any other government in the last generations over 50 years. We have shown that we are greatly concerned about this issue.

My colleague asked about Alberta and the issue of rent control. We appreciate that rents are going up in many areas of the country. We are concerned about that, but, as has been very clearly demonstrated, that area is in the provincial jurisdiction. It is great that the member raises the issue here, but she should also be raising it with the Alberta government. As I said, we have a role; we are fulfilling that role, and we are constantly looking at ways in which we can enhance our leadership role, but all levels of government need to be working together in order to properly deal with this crisis. I am confident that we are doing all we can as a national government. However, we are always open to listening to what Canadians have to say on the issue.

[Marc Dalton, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member finished by saying that the Liberals were doing all they could to get this under control. It seems to me that they are missing an essential element, and that is keeping the debt under control. This has led to a ballooning of the inflationary fire.

The Bank of Canada has been forced to raise interest rates, which is having a tremendous impact on homeowners who are renting to other people. They are forced to raise how much rent they charge or else sell their properties.

Does the member not recognize the impact of their policies on housing stocks?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, that is just it. The Conservatives are more concerned about increasing the anxiety levels of Canadians, causing them to be upset, than they are in the reality of the everyday life we have to face.

We understand that inflation and interest rates are challenging issues. We do what we can to support people, such as providing the first-time Canada housing benefit, a direct subsidy for rentals. The Conservative Party voted against that.

What the member does not say is that we should take a look at inflation rates and interest rates outside of Canada. Comparably, Canada is doing exceptionally well, whether we are compared to our neighbouring countries or to some of our allies. However, that does not mean we cannot do things, and we are doing things. It is unfortunate that the Conservative Party does not support many of those initiatives.