Debates of June 6th, 2023

Canada Early Learning and Child Care Act

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

Madam Speaker, the choice is to do the right thing and provide the flexibility for parents to do what it is best in their family situation.

That would mean expanding the opportunity and the eligibility for assistance beyond not-for-profit and public centres, offering home care as an option that is in people's homes, a couple of blocks away, in their neighbourhood. It means providing the choice and that funding to go towards people who are shift workers in health care and factories, in rural and urban areas alike.

The problem, time and time again, and I agree with the NDP that doing something is one thing, but they are not doing enough. They are not providing the flexibility or the choice for parents to actually make a difference, using those tools and those options that work for best for their choice, not what the Liberals and NDP tell them are the best.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Madam Speaker, I always enjoy the member's interventions, and now I do not know that I can ever not call him “Unkie Dunkie” for the rest of his life.

What the member does so well is articulate and elevate the voices of his constituents. Are there are other stories that he would like to share with the House that really highlight the gaps that have not been closed by these Liberals and the NDP?

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

Madam Speaker, I would be happy to. I want to add, in the name of personalization, one of my best friends, Emily Strader, a childhood friend is actually an ECE, working in Ottawa, in child care, and enjoys what she does.

I had many conversations with her and her colleagues at work about the day to day, trying to do what they can to address the massive wait-lists that they have and the frustration they have in this program.

Time and time again, they do not see the announcement, and the flashiness of what is being said, and the actual follow-through. Time and time again, it comes up short. We are seeing way too many women and men working in child care leave, because there is a broken system.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, I am glad to have the opportunity to speak to this bill that seeks to create some permanence around the progress that has been made in respect of funding child care in Canada. I want to talk first about the policy, and then I want to talk a little bit about the politics of it.

We have heard a lot of stories here in the chamber tonight. I could add personal anecdotes about the challenges of child care. I will not, because I think we have heard many, and I think we all know that these experiences are common enough that Canadians can appreciate just how stressful it is for families, both in terms of financial stress and just the stress of having child care fall through. We had our kids in home day cares and then we had our kids in centre day cares. Especially when they were in home day cares, if the child care provider at home got sick, that would often mean scrambling the night before, or the morning of, to try to find replacement care. I think that one of the advantages of investing in not-for-profit centre spaces is that they do provide a degree of reliability that one cannot always get when it is one person in their home trying to provide care. It is still a valuable service, and I was grateful to be able to avail myself of that as a parent, and my wife was grateful, but we have also really appreciated the reliability that has come with transitioning to centre-based care.

Why is it that we need public investment in child care? Again, I think we have personalized the issue well enough. The fact of the matter is that, for a lot of parents, what they earn when they go to work is not enough to be able to pay a child care rate that is sufficient to pay people what they need in order to be able to make a living as an early child care educator. It is a classic case of market failure. If it were not, then at some point over the last 40, 50 or 60 years, we would have seen very successful businesses crop up to meet demand, but demand is not being met. It has been chronically unmet because there is a structural problem in the child care market, which is that too many parents cannot make enough money going to work to be able to pay fees that provide enough salary to attract, train and retain qualified early child care educators. That is really why it has been so important for so long for government to get involved.

Of course, provincial governments across the country have gotten involved in various ways. Quebec is, I think, the best example of organized publicly funded care. It is still not perfect, but it is certainly the best that is available in Canada. I come from a province, Manitoba, that has had a lot of investment over the years by NDP governments, frankly, in child care, and we enjoy the second-lowest child care rates in the country. We are one of very few provinces to have a pension plan available for early childhood educators. That was true even before this latest round of bilateral deals, which is not, by any stretch, to say that Manitoba is some kind of child care paradise. It is hard to find a space. It is still a big expense for families. It is hard to attract and retain workers in the field. All those problems still persist, despite being in a province that, on the numbers, is functioning relatively better than some other places in the country in terms of affordability and accessibility.

We need public investment in child care because the market is not satisfying persistent, long-standing demand. Not only that, but that demand for child care comes with a number of other problems for the larger economy, and that is why I heard some members earlier tonight reference studies that have been done. I have read similar studies. They show the economic activity generated by allowing those parents who want to go into the workforce to do so, by governments investing in child care, making more spaces available and making them more accessible by making them more affordable. Women, predominantly, without any kind of government subsidy for the rate they pay, cannot make enough at work to justify paying child care costs and still have something left over at the end of the day.

The amount of extra economic activity that generates would more than pay for the program. It is an important part of satisfying the demands we constantly hear from employers who are saying they need access to more workers. This is how we do it.

One of the ways we do it is by ensuring that the parents who do want to work can go ahead, get a job and know they will be able to get a spot at a rate that empowers them to go to work, take home enough of their paycheque after child care fees, and know it is worthwhile for them to do that.

It is not that these recent deals are a panacea. They do not fix all the problems. It is just a good start to something the government should have been doing decades ago.

I remember when I first ran for office in 2015. I was very proud to run on the idea of a national child care strategy. I watched as Conservatives dismissed the idea out of hand. They said it was not the business of government to be supporting child care or funding child care. Liberals, frankly, ran against it too. They said the provinces would never agree. It was just a pipe dream, it was silly NDP thinking. I am glad to see the thinking around that has changed.

I know we are debating this particular legislation and not just resting on our laurels with the bilateral deals that were signed because of the supply and confidence agreement that the NDP has with the government. It is a CASA item. There is a reason it is there.

It is because we did not want this to be a five-year experiment that would get truncated. We wanted this to be the first five years of an ongoing commitment to building up a child care system that adequately provides for the Canadian workforce so everyone who wants to go out, get a job and provide for their family, but needs child care to be able to do it, will be able to access a space. We are not there yet. We are not even close to there yet.

I know Conservatives would like to say that somehow the New Democrats are pretending that everybody has a spot now. It could not be further from the truth. We are very aware of the problems. Incidentally, I do not know how Conservatives could be blaming this legislation for the current state of affairs. It has not even passed yet. The bilateral deals were only signed about 12 months ago.

The idea that somehow this approach is to blame for the shortage of child care spaces is just a farce for anyone who is paying attention. This approach has not got off the ground yet. I do not want to just see this get off the ground as some kind of five-year trial period, and then the federal government wipes its hands and walks away.

What I want, and why this legislation is so important, is to see this as the first five years of an indefinite program that continues to deliver spaces for Canadian workers on an ongoing basis, not just for the workers' sake, but also for the employers' sake and for the sake of their families.

Yes, there is still a shortage of space. There will continue to be a shortage of spaces for a long time because we cannot just snap our fingers and create a child care system overnight, just as we cannot snap our fingers and create enough housing overnight to meet the demand that is out there.

It is why it is so important that we not waste time debating the value of having a strategy at all and jump full on into talking about what kind of strategy we should have. It is fair game for the Conservatives to disagree with certain elements of the strategy.

For my part, I think it is really important to emphasize non-profit care. Why is that? It is because what I do not want to take hold is the corporate model of child care. There are a few reasons for that.

One is that I think we will get better value for money if we are not already starting out from the point of view that 10% or more of the public dollars that we spend on child care are going to have to go to paying corporate profits. When we look at the corporate track record in long-term care and we compare it to non-profit long-term care, what we see is an appreciable difference in the nature of the care provided. We get better care at non-profit, long-term care centres.

I believe that the same incentive structure that is there for for-profit, long-term care centres to cut corners will also exist for for-profit child care centres to cut corners, and that is why it is important that we put an emphasis on not-for-profit care.

I have more to say, but unfortunately my time is up. Hopefully I will get to more of this in the question and comment portion.

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

Madam Speaker, I want to pick up on part of the member's concerns. I am very much concerned that the Conservative Party, given its track record, has no intention of supporting the type of program we have negotiated with our provinces. That is the primary reason we see Bill C-35. It is because I do not believe the Conservatives can be trusted on the issue.

Does the member have any thoughts on the importance of this child care issue? How important is it that the agreements continue on into the years ahead?

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, I certainly share that concern. As members have referenced already, we saw in 2006 that when the Conservatives had the opportunity to upend child care agreements that had been signed with the provinces, they did not hesitate for a moment; they went ahead and ripped those up. Then they instituted the $100 a month for parents, which presumably was the model they endorsed to create the kind of choice they are talking about tonight. However, we saw that this was not sufficient, and that was at a time when $100 a month went a lot further than it does now. That was not conducive to creating the kind of child care system we need in order to meet demand.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Madam Speaker, I want to point out for the member's riding that 76% of children are in a child care desert in Manitoba.

I just got an email, and it says, “Dear Michelle, it's 11:45. I'm sitting watching CPAC live, as you are there yourself. Please mention and ask about ECE workers that are still out of work due to vaccine mandates and would like to get back to work.”

My question to my hon. colleague is from Bonnie Bon, who is watching at home. Will he help ensure this?

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, I would remind the member that the vaccine mandates that put ECE workers out of work in Ontario were done by the Conservative government of Doug Ford. I would encourage her to contact her colleagues in the Conservative government there to talk about what kind of redress might be available for ECE workers who had to leave their job as a result of Conservative-imposed vaccine mandates in Ontario.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, at a basic level, I struggle to understand the fairness of taxing all families and subsidizing some child care choices and not others. People make a variety of choices, and they have a variety of approaches to child care. Some of those reflect their circumstances, the kinds of jobs they have, their choices about the division of labour and these sorts of things. How is it fair that a family that does not use or is not able to access state day care should have to subsidize somebody else who made a different choice? Why do we not simply give support equally to all families and allow them to make their own choices and use those resources to facilitate those choices?

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, there are two things I would say.

One is that the Harper government did do that with $100 a month, but it did not create the kinds of spaces that are required to meet demand, both for the sake of Canadian working families and for employers who want to see more workers available in the labour market.

I would add that one of the biggest beneficiaries of the child care program is actually employers. The New Democrats have been arguing for some time that Canada should not have a bottom-of-the-barrel corporate tax rate of 15%. We are quite open to the idea of having a higher corporate tax rate and ensuring that it is the employers who will be benefiting from having more workers available in the economy who are helping to pay for these child care investments.

A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 38 deemed to have been moved.

Democratic Institutions

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am speaking tonight about the inconsistencies between the government's claims about the Trudeau Foundation and the actual facts of what has happened in terms of the relationship between the Prime Minister and the Trudeau Foundation.

There are a couple of key points that are, I think, not disputed. The Trudeau Foundation was founded with a $125-million grant from the Government of Canada. It is not a normal charity. It has a close relationship with government. It is considered a government institution in various statutes, which brings it under the Federal Accountability Act, access to information and privacy laws, etc. It is defined as a public institution.

The Trudeau Foundation also has a close relationship with the Trudeau family. The Prime Minister continues to be listed as a member of the foundation. Inevitably, the member opposite will get up and say that the Prime Minister has not been involved for years. Well, he is still listed in the annual report. Pre-emptively, let me say that the member should read the annual report and he will see that the Prime Minister is still listed as a member of the Trudeau Foundation.

The Trudeau Foundation's governance involves a certain number of members, and members of the board of directors as well being appointed by the Trudeau family and a certain number being appointed directly by the Minister of Industry, as well as a number of other members. Therefore, the structure has a privileged role in decision-making for the government as well as for the Trudeau family. That is not in dispute. That is in the governing documents of the Trudeau Foundation.

The Prime Minister has said he built a wall between himself and the foundation when we know, and I raised this in my previous question, that the Trudeau Foundation hosted a meeting in the Prime Minister's own office, which was attended by five deputy ministers. This is quite significant. It suggests that there was not a wall built at all. We have clearly this close relationship between the Prime Minister, the Prime Minister's family, the government and the Trudeau Foundation.

Then there are attempts at foreign interference that are going through the Trudeau Foundation and foreign donations coming into the Trudeau Foundation spiking significantly after the current government took office. The Trudeau Foundation member was saying in one case that they had returned a donation that they had not returned. There were mass resignations of the board, etc. This raises significant questions about foreign interference and about the government's and the Trudeau Foundation's vulnerability to foreign interference, even while the government members continue to say that there is nothing much to see here.

Then we have this situation where all of the people the government has been able to find to investigate foreign interference have been people who have been involved with the Trudeau Foundation. Just today at committee, we had David Johnston appearing. In multiple cases the government members have said that they need someone to investigate foreign interference and the only people they have found to be available have been people at the Trudeau Foundation. I would put to the government that we are not such a small country that the only people available to investigate foreign interference are those connected to the Trudeau Foundation.

It is clearly far too convenient for the government because it has not built a wall between the Prime Minister and the Trudeau Foundation. Trudeau Foundation meetings, at least one that we know of, occur in the Prime Minister's office. Despite whatever bluster we hear, it is in the annual report that the Prime Minister continues to be a member of the Trudeau Foundation. The Minister of Industry as well as the Trudeau family have the power to appoint boards of directors and the Trudeau Foundation was clearly a target for foreign interference.

Will the government put aside the bluster about claiming things that are verifiably not true? Will it acknowledge there is a problem here and recognize the importance of having somebody who is not a member of the Trudeau Foundation providing an independent investigation oversight on the issue of foreign interference as well as what happened at the Trudeau Foundation?

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

Madam Speaker, try as often and as hard as the member opposite does on an ongoing basis, in terms of what I have suggested, on many occasions it is the whole concept of character assassination. They just do not want to let up on that particular issue. As much as the Conservatives want to continue their focus on that, on the personal stuff and the personal attacks, the Government of Canada and in particular the Prime Minister are committed to Canadians in terms of remaining focused on the needs of Canadians. We will continue to do that.

With respect to the Trudeau Foundation, the member knows full well, and he even implied it in his question, that the Prime Minister has had no communication and has not been involved with the Trudeau Foundation for well over a decade now. The member knows that.

The member talks about how the Trudeau Foundation had a meeting in the Prime Minister's office. I would suggest that he is trying to give a false impression. The member opposite is trying to give an impression that we have a little office, the office where the Prime Minister sits at a desk, and maybe there are a couple of other chairs around it and some other office furniture, and that this is where the Trudeau Foundation met. The PMO, the Prime Minister's Office, is an entire building. There are all forms of groups that meet with deputy ministers, and there are other types of meetings inside there. He tries to give the perception that we had the Trudeau Foundation going into this small little office of the Prime Minister, and that this is a conflict of interest because they met with deputy ministers. In fact, we are talking about a building, a building that has all forms of different meetings with all forms of different groups, both for-profit and non-profit. All sorts of stuff takes place in there.

The member then makes reference to David Johnston. David Johnston was a Conservative prime minister appointment, as the former governor general of Canada. David Johnston has the experience in terms of what he has been tasked to do on behalf of the people of Canada in doing an investigation and reporting to the House.

The Conservatives do not like what the former governor general is saying. The former governor general said that if someone wants to understand why there is no need for a public inquiry, they should take a look at the annex. The annex is top secret. It is something for which the hon. member's leader, the Conservative leader, would actually have to get a proper security clearance. He would know that. He was a federal minister at one time. By getting that, he would be able to see why it is that David Johnston ultimately said there was no need for a public inquiry.

The leader of the Conservative Party does not want that. He wants to continue to be ignorant of the facts. This way, he can do and say whatever it is he wants. He does not want to know the truth, nor does the Conservative Party appreciate, in any fashion, the reality of the situation in regard to the Trudeau Foundation, because it does not fit the narrative they are trying to give Canadians, which is nothing but misrepresentation.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, I would just again commend to this hon. member the reading of the annual report of the Trudeau Foundation, which will testify to all the points I have made with respect to the organization's structure and the continuing membership of the Prime Minister on the foundation.

I would put to the member, as well, that, yes, the Prime Minister's Office is a four-storey building. We are not talking about a small cubicle, but we are also not talking about a massive office complex. It does send a clear message when an organization like the Trudeau Foundation is able to meet right inside the Prime Minister's Office. It is not as if any advocacy organization, any charity or even any Crown corporation can be in a meeting at will in that office.

This is the Prime Minister's family foundation. He remains a member of it. It was subject to efforts of foreign interference. The board of directors all resigned, yet the government continually goes to this foundation for people to investigate the foreign interference. That is the problem.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, I would argue the problem is the Conservative Party not wanting to let go of an issue and its members wanting to grossly exaggerate any form of conflict of interest. They tie together anything they can, so they can point the finger and make allegations in order to generate media attention. In that way, they can be critical of and assassinate the character of the Prime Minister or anyone else if they feel it is to their political advantage. The best thing the Conservative Party can do is recognize that, for some issues that come up in this House, Canadians would be better served if the Conservative Party were a little less political and more wanting to protect our democratic system by being a bit more apolitical. Foreign interference is completely unacceptable—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

Next is the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands.

Climate Change

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Madam Speaker, as I rise this evening during the Adjournment Proceedings, most of what I want to say about the climate science is that we are running out of time and the hour is late. Both of those things are literally true, as I rise to speak after midnight.

I am raising a question that I put to the Prime Minister on March 22 of this year in question period in response to the most recent and sobering report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. This is a large institution that was created by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme. It is not too much to make the proud claim that Canada had a lot to do with setting up the IPCC back in 1988.

Although we talk about the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change a lot, it actually does painstaking work that takes years. This is the sixth assessment report, which came out with its final volume on March 20 of this year. We will not see another major review of the science from this eminent scientific body that has been created by governments, which appoint the scientists, for some time. It is a massive peer-review process. We will not see another report until sometime after 2030.

The receipt of this document, and the warnings in it, could not be more urgent. As many said when the report was tabled, this is really the last report when we have a chance to make a difference. What the IPCC says very clearly is that global greenhouse gas emissions must be arrested and begin to fall rapidly before, and this is important, 2025.

While the government has a target that it describes as ambitious, the target the government chose of net zero by 2050 is out of sync with the science. It is out of time with the reality that, in order to control and avoid runaway global warming, we need to act now.

When I asked the question on March 22, Canada was not on fire. We had lived through a lot of extreme weather events across Canada, whether it was hurricane Fiona, the wildfire seasons that have plagued British Columbia year after year or the heat dome over four days in 2021, late June to July 1, in British Columbia, where 619 people died. We have gone through fires, floods and extreme weather events, yet we are still here talking about when we will get serious about climate action.

The answer I had from the Prime Minister was to talk about the concrete actions the government has taken. As ever, the Prime Minister, or his Minister of Environment, talks about monies committed. Some of that money has been committed to things that will not address the climate crisis and may in fact worsen it. These things are disguised subsidies of fossil fuels, such as carbon capture and storage.

The closing line from the Prime Minister was, “As the Minister of Environment and Climate Change said this week, we will be looking very closely at that report.” One does not even have to look at the report closely. If one makes a cursory review of that report, one knows we have not done enough to avoid exceeding 1.5°C, shooting right past 2°C and putting human civilization at risk within the next half-century.

We need to do more, and we need to do it now; that is why I am back here tonight.

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health and to the Minister of Sport]

Madam Speaker, thank you for being here this evening and into the wee hours of the morning. I would like to thank my friend and colleague, the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands, for her question this evening, but not just for that. I want to thank her for her decades of service and her leadership. I would also like to thank her for being an incredible steward and spokesperson, a voice of reason in this House, an extraordinarily knowledge parliamentarian, and a great friend. I thank the member very much for engaging in the debate this evening.

Moving on to the substantive question, indeed, since 2015, our government has, as the member pointed out, invested a lot of money in climate action. We can be proud of this, collectively. We got elected, three times, on promises to take strong climate action, and since 2015, over $120 billion has been invested in over 100 various measures to support climate action and to address the climate emergency that we are all experiencing, highlighted today by many members in this House, who had noticeable differences in their voices. I cannot help but wonder if that is as a result of the smoke outside because of the nearby forest fires, which are not even really that nearby. They are just so big that the smoke has arrived here in Ottawa.

I saw some social media posts from people who have lived in Ottawa a lot longer than the time I have spent in Ottawa, some for over 50 years, saying they have never seen the sky look like it has today. It is really tragic that we find ourselves here.

We must continue to take bold action and be leaders on this issue for the world and for other countries to take note. We have a lot of common ground in the House. There are quite a few members, I would say the vast majority of the House believes in climate changes, believes it is an emergency and believes that we must take action.

It is still alarming to hear members, and I did today, say things such as, “It is weather. It is normal. There has always been climate change.” It is challenging, to be honest, to be in this place, to be a progressive politician and to care so much about climate action, and recognize that there are some of these very antiquated views that are persistent, primarily in the Conservative Party. I have never heard a member from another party in this House falsely describe climate change as “weather”.

We agree that oil and gas emissions must come down. To do that, we must introduce a cap on those emissions for the industry and for the sector. We have also taken action on the consumer side. It is well known and it is extremely well documented that pricing carbon and pricing pollution does result in lower emissions in the long run. It is shocking that we spend so much time in the House debating whether or not a price on pollution is effective, given that 338 members of the House, every single Conservative, NDP, Bloc Québécois, Liberal and Green member, campaigned on a promise to price carbon, yet we find ourselves, in 2023, debating the veracity and legitimacy of a price on pollution.

On this side of the House, including the Green side of the House, we agree that pricing pollution is one of the many ways that we can fight climate change, but we know that there is more that we must do. We have a bold price on pollution, but we also have to take more environmental action and more climate mitigation, as well as adaptation strategies.

I can see that I am nearing the end of my speech, and I will have time for a follow-up, so I will pass it back to the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Madam Speaker, this is a really worthwhile discussion the hon. parliamentary secretary and I are having.

Here is the problem, for the answers the Prime Minister, or anybody standing up for the Liberal Party, gives, it is not good enough if we are going to put the planet at risk, continuing the trajectory we are on, which threatens the survival, and this is not hyperbole, of human civilization.

We have a window in which to ensure we avoid going past 1.5°C, where we would go way past 2°C to 3°C to unstoppable, self-accelerating, runaway global warming. That is what we are trying to avoid. We cannot avoid the weather we are having now. We will continue to have very unpleasant, extreme weather events. The goal is to hang on to human civilization and arrest the climate crisis so our kids can survive. Liberal policies do not do that.

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Milton, ON]

Madam Speaker, in fact, I would go a step farther in saying my goal is not just so that my children, knock on wood, as I do not have any yet but I would like to one day, could survive.

My goal in the House of Commons, and one of the main reasons I put my name on a ballot, and I know I share this with many of my colleagues in the House, regardless of party stripe, is so that my future children thrive in this world. It is not enough to have a planet that is survivable. This planet needs to be one that allows our species of humans to thrive.

To do that, we need an ambitious and achievable plan. I am confident that we are on the right track. I know the member shares an admiration for Jean Chrétien. He says that, if the Conservatives are telling someone they are being too socialist, and the socialists are saying they are being too conservatives, they might be getting it right.

I do not want to suggest that we have to strike a balance on climate action. We need to be an example for the world, an example for economies around the world. When there is investment in green technologies, investment in the future and growth in the economy, climate change can be fought and—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

The hon. member for Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry.

Housing

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

Madam Speaker, we are in a housing crisis in this country, plain and simple, and the key figures demonstrate exactly that. Housing prices in this country have doubled to over $700,000; mortgages have doubled to over $3,000 a month; rent has doubled to over $2,000 a month; and the amount needed for a down payment has doubled to over $40,000. The problem is that, because rent has gone up so much, people cannot save for a down payment that has doubled. It is an absolute vicious circle, when it comes to the eight-year record of the Liberals in Ottawa.

This is a uniquely Canadian problem. The Liberals would have us believe it is a global challenge, but the perfect example we have in eastern Ontario, when it comes to housing affordability and housing supply, is looking at us across the St. Laurence River. There was a report recently done that talked about the contrast from one side to the other. The median asking price for a home in Watertown, New York right now is $217,000 Canadian. Meanwhile, in Kingston, just a 40-minute drive north here in Canada, the median asking price is $602,000. It is nearly triple the price of a home, between Canada and the United States, from one side of the river to the other.

That is despite Canada having more land on which to build houses and the United States having 10 times the population and demand to keep up with new homes.

The Liberals have created this housing crisis in this country and, while housing prices have increased around the world, none have to the degree of what we have seen these past few years. It is inflationary spending and it is the printing of new money that has gone in and bloated the prices and bloated the real estate market and that has seen this doubling in the past couple of years.

I am zoning my questions in on the federal agency and the federal minister who is responsible for housing. The CMHC continues to get very negative reviews. Members should not take just Conservatives' word for it; I know members from all parties have major frustrations on the performance and operation of this agency that literally has a mandate to make housing more affordable in this country. I have just outlined how the absolute opposite has happened and continues to happen.

We have a housing minister who shows zero leadership and zero ability to change the performance and quality of work at the CMHC. Every time we ask a Liberal a question about what they are doing for housing, they say they are spending a record amount of money: $90 billion. They have never spent so much money to make a problem so much worse.

Members should not take my word for it. As well, the Auditor General of Canada has come out and said many negative things about the performance of the CMHC. In their recent report last year, they said that the CMHC was the lead for the national housing strategy, that $90 billion the government tries to take credit for, in saying houses were often unaffordable for low-income households, when it came to investments in rental housing units, the report said that the CMHC is not directly accountable for any of its actions and it was not working in any coordinated way.

The performance standard of the CMHC is terrible. At a time when we need the private sector to increase building houses and getting more shovels in the ground, according to the CMHC's report, they are actually seeing a decrease.

My follow-up question is this: What performance measures are Liberals using to determine success at the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation?

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health and to the Minister of Sport]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to talk about something that I care very deeply about, and that is affordable housing in Canada.

Before I get to the substantive question, I note that in an earlier debate this evening, we were talking about child care. Since we are talking about home finances, I think it prudent to put down that there is a calculator on the federal government's website where we can calculate benefits. It was suggested by members of the Conservative Party that there is no benefit for stay-at-home mothers and that somebody on this side of the House suggested at some point, fallaciously I would add, that single parents or mothers who stay home are less valued by this government. I would challenge that assertion. The Canada child benefit is an example of something that does support parents who choose to stay home if they earn less.

I ran a scenario through the website. I used a scenario where there is a $70,000 earner and a $45,000 earner in a household with two children eligible for child care. When the $45,000 earner stays home, they receive $250 extra a month. That is $3,000 a year, which actually meets that family halfway on the child care subsidy they would receive otherwise. Given that child care would be available to the family if they are paying more tax, the program pays for a lot of itself, and I think it is quite prudent.

On the substantive question regarding housing, while the member opposite was speaking, he talked about how housing was so much more expensive on his side of the river than on the other side. I found some classifieds on both sides, from Malone, New York, and Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, and I found that apartments were actually a very similar price. Sometimes Conservatives just throw out prices and say that a one-bedroom apartment is now $2,500. The veracity of those claims should be analyzed by people listening. I found apartments in Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry anywhere from $400 for a single room explicitly for a female student to $1,200, $1,500 and $1,600 for a three-bedroom apartment. At the same time, I found two-bedroom apartments for $1,320, or $900 U.S., in Malone, New York, just across the way.

The reality is that Canada needs more homes, and any member of this House who is serious about the issue would agree that we need to focus on getting more housing built, including affordable housing and purpose-built rentals. While some in this House, like the member for Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, say that the federal government has to do less and pull back from investing in housing, we fundamentally disagree. I think most Canadians would disagree as well. Quite frankly, we know we need to do more.

Since 2015, this government has invested more than $36 billion to support, create and repair half a million homes across this country and help nearly two million individuals and families get the housing they need. I am a co-op housing kid. I grew up in a co-op, and I am proud that this government has also invested $1.5 billion in a restart to the federal co-op strategy.

We have made housing affordability a central pillar of recent budgets. For example, budget 2022 pledged billions to boost supply and put housing within reach of everyone in this country, and our most recent budget has provisions to build on that momentum, particularly for indigenous housing, with over $3 billion invested in recent budgets. There is also the housing accelerator fund, a $4-billion fund that intends to yield over 100,000 net new housing units over five years.

I can talk about the leadership demonstrated by the minister, who was in Milton, Oakville and London meeting with the mayors of those communities. He talked about the importance of the housing accelerator fund and how municipalities across this country can step up, find solutions and cut some of the red tape that the member opposite has referenced this evening. Since the member opposite has served in a municipal capacity, he would know that much of that red tape is, in fact, municipal. I would love to hear some solutions rather than just slogans and criticisms of things that have not worked. He is an expert on municipal affairs, and he could probably provide this House with some recommendations on how to cut municipal red tape in the housing sector.

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

Madam Speaker, I have a great solution to start: Let us tie performance bonusing to actual performance results. Call me crazy, but at the federal, provincial or municipal level, whatever the level is, far too often we have groups and organizations, like the CMHC, and the federal housing minister making a great big announcement promising more money and more results and the opposite happens. It is like this line: We are here from the government and we are here to help. Canadians do not buy it, and $90 billion later, the problem has never been worse.

Regarding the referencing back and forth, rent prices have doubled in Cornwall, in eastern Ontario and in this country. One-third of income is what an average family should budget to spend on housing, but it is now over 60%. The more the Liberals spend, the worse it gets. They do not tie the rhetoric and the announcements to actual performance results. It is not unreasonable to ask that performance results be based on performance.

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Milton, ON]

Madam Speaker, once again, the member opposite just pulled numbers out of thin air, stating that 60% of somebody's paycheque is going to housing. Those are examples, not statistics. We are driven by evidence on this side of the House to make sure that we are investing where it is needed.

For example, recently the federal government and Ontario's provincial government came together to find an infill solution in Milton. I rushed home from Parliament in order to do a housing announcement with the minister, a former member of Parliament here in this House, who is now in Doug Ford's Conservative government, Parm Gill. I will give a quick little shout-out to my Conservative colleague down there.

We worked together to find solutions. Thirty-four new units were built for just under $5 million for residents. They are already occupied. They are already tenanted. We are finding solutions because, regardless of our parties' stripes, we are working together, not just making accusations across the way, or making up numbers and throwing wild figures around about doubling and tripling, and how a supposed cutting of the price on pollution is going to solve everybody's problems. That is not true—