Debates of Oct. 30th, 2024

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

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, no, I will not. People who are living in an encampment or in their car do not care whose jurisdiction it is, nor do those who are being renovicted and who do not have housing. I am telling the government, right now, that what they are doing is making people homeless. There is no fix for it other than stopping this financialization of housing. People are losing their homes, and the government is behind it. It is involved, and it is encouraging it.

I would ask the member to go take a look at some of the annual reports of some of their investment boards, specifically, the PSP investment board. By the way, the new board chair will not see me and will not take an appointment. There is no transparency and no ability to push back on them. They are making above their guideline profits. The government needs to look inside.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the government has put a lot of money into affordable housing. However, there is still a lot of criticism because, quite often, developers prefer to pay a fine rather than build affordable housing. Once built, the units are often not affordable. The agreement is supposed to be in place for a decade, yet prices remain very high.

What some organizations are proposing, like the Front d'action populaire en réaménagement urbain, which came to the Standing Committee on Finance, is to send all the money for affordable housing to non-market housing, social housing or co-operatives that remain affordable.

What does my hon. colleague think about that?

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, this is another example of how the government has been told over and over what to do to fix this problem, and it is doing nothing. When I was preparing for this speech today, I was speaking to some of the people who testified at this HUMA committee study on the financialization of housing.

They are asking why the government has done nothing. I absolutely agree that those investments in social housing need to happen. The NDP is calling for it. Now we see the Bloc calling for it. The government is doing nothing, and we know that Conservatives will cut any investments in social housing.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member, who has done a phenomenal job on this file, as has the member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie. The Liberals like to pretend that if only there were someone in power who could do something about this. They want to pretend that laissez-faire economics, leaving it to the market, is somehow going to solve this crisis.

However, there was a time in this country when the victory homes project built a million homes for people, for affordability, for soldiers who came back. After World War II, there was a bold initiative to build a million homes, and we are talking about the 1950s and 1960s,

They still have them in Hamilton. In fact, in the neighbourhood where I grew up, that is what we had there. There was a victory homes project that became the CMHC. Somewhere along the line, the CMHC just became this insurance backstop for REITs and big developers.

Could the hon. member speak a little about how, not only is it possible for the federal government to build a million non-market housing units, but it already happened some 50 to 60 years ago, and it needs to happen now?

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member across the way there for such an important history of what CMHC was supposed to do. CMHC came to HUMA multiple times. It is a risk management company now. CMHC's very own CEO said that they are not in the business of social housing or supportive housing. She admitted that they do not even know how to do it. They are risk managers. It is terrible.

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, the government will be tabling a response to one more petition today.

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

Mr. Speaker, these are interesting times. There is no doubt about that in terms of what takes place in Parliament nowadays. We have before us, once again, a concurrence motion. It is a really important issue. It is one of those issues that I would suggest Canadians are very concerned about. Ultimately, no government in the history of Canada has actually invested more real dollars in a sector than the current Prime Minister and government; it has never seen as much cash and other resources flow to it. That is the reality of the situation, whether opposition members want to recognize it or not. I will expand on that at great length shortly, but I also want to provide a comment in terms of where we are as a Parliament.

Colleagues will know that we have not had any sort of discussion on legislative bills that are before the House, which are some very important pieces of legislation. Some of it would be direct, and maybe more so indirect, even dealing with the issue that we have before us today. Instead, we have seen different forms of things brought to the floor in order to prevent that discussion or debate from occurring. The best example we can give is the one where the Conservative Party moved a motion that “the government's failure of fully providing documents, as ordered by the House on June 10, 2024, be hereby referred to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.” The reason I mention it is that it is important to realize why, in good part, we are actually debating the report that we are debating today. It is because the Conservatives, in their wisdom or lack thereof, have decided to prevent any sort of debate on a wide spectrum of issues by filibustering their own motion. Since they have been doing that, we have seen members of the Bloc and the New Democratic Party actually bring in concurrence reports.

In the past, I was very critical of concurrence reports being brought in, but I can appreciate the frustration of other political entities inside the House. Like me, they have been seeing the Conservatives playing games and denying Canadians the opportunity to hear a lot of positive debate and votes take place on issues that are critically important to them. I find that unfortunate. I hope that, at some point in time, we will be able to acknowledge that there are important issues in concurrence motions. We know that there are actually well over 100 reports out there. We could spend every day from now until September 2025 talking about a concurrence report. Some might be a little more interesting than others.

I like this concurrence report in the sense that it is relevant to an issue that Canadians are concerned about. It provides us the opportunity to get some of the things that the federal government is actually doing on the record. The unfortunate reality of it, however, is that it continues to support and allow for the Conservative Party to ultimately filibuster the very simple motion that was put to the House. All members of the House actually want to see the motion voted on, except for the Conservatives, so that we are better able to deal with the important issues that Canadians have to face and deal with.

That is why, day in and day out, we are appealing to the Conservative Party to start putting the interests of Canadians ahead of the leadership ambitions of the current leader and the Conservative Party in general here in Ottawa. We hope that, over the next number of days, weeks and whatever it takes, the Conservatives become a bit more sensitized to the issues that Canadians are facing. We hope that they will ultimately work with other political entities in the chamber so that we can have the types of debates it is necessary to have here on the floor of the House of Commons.

Having said all that, housing is a very big issue. I recognize that. There is nothing new there. We know that housing has needed to be looked at, not only for this year but also in previous years. We made a bold start on the housing file a number of years ago. When I started off, I said that no other prime minister or government has done more in terms of contributing to the bigger picture of housing in Canada than the current Prime Minister and government. That is a fact. No government has worked as diligently as the current government has with provinces, territories, indigenous communities, every region of the country and the many different stakeholders out there. As a government, we have been very proactive on the housing file.

We could contrast what we have done with previous governments. Even better yet, let us contrast the leader of the Conservative Party with the Prime Minister, the leader of the Liberal Party, on the issue of the housing file. It does not take very much to expand on what the leader of the Conservative Party did. He was actually the housing minister when Stephen Harper was the prime minister. We have had many ministers talk about how enthusiastic the leader of the Conservative Party was with respect to housing when he was the minister of housing. He actually built six houses in Canada. Now, to the best of my knowledge, we have not found any of those six houses, but we are told that that he actually built six houses as minister of housing. That is a pretty impressive background. If we contrast that with what the leader of the Liberal Party, the Prime Minister of Canada, has done, people would get a better understanding and appreciation of who really understands the needs and the housing-related issues as a leader.

Yesterday, we were entertained with a Conservative idea. The Conservatives do not have very many of them, but we had one that floated to the top yesterday. It is a rare occurrence. What the Conservatives are saying now is that, if we bought a house for $900,000, we would not have to pay the GST on that house. That is the Conservatives' gift to the housing situation that Canada is facing today. At the same time, the leader of the Conservative Party says that they would also cut back on other federal programs dealing with housing. I found it interesting that the leader of the Conservative Party today said that they are helping homelessness. It raises the following question: How many people in homeless shelters do they think are going to benefit by building a $900,000 home in the next year or so? I suspect that it will not be any of them. I do not quite understand the Conservatives' policy.

Maybe the leader of the Conservative Party got the idea when we said we were going to get rid of the GST on purpose-built rentals. Not only was that well received in Canada, but provincial jurisdictions did likewise for the PST. That in itself is going to lead to thousands of units being built across the country. That was a very strong and positive announcement from the Government of Canada, and now the leader of the Conservative Party is saying the Conservatives have a better idea, that they are going to give a break on GST to those buying brand new houses, putting in a cap of a million dollars.

How does that deal with affordable housing? I can say right offhand that it deals with it in a very negative way, because while he is talking about this shiny new Conservative program, he will also be cutting programs that are going to build more affordable housing across Canada. Their policy statement does not make any sense, unless there is a theme that he wants to develop, the theme of axing the tax. I saw the motions he made today, moving his arm up and down. I see him do that inside and outside the House when he talks about axing the tax. He believes that he can fool Canadians. That is what this is about.

He is trying to give an impression that Canadians are going to benefit because he is going to axe the GST for those building brand new houses. How many Canadians are going to benefit by that major policy announcement, particularly those who need affordable housing, especially when we factor in that he is going to cancel other programs? Interestingly enough, the Conservatives are critical, publicly and here in the House, of the Minister of Housing with regard to the accelerator fund. They say it is one of the programs they are going to axe.

If we look at National Newswatch, we become very familiar with a number of the members of the Conservative caucus who disagree, at least those who wrote the Minister of Housing, with what the Conservative leader is saying. We got letters from Conservatives asking, in essence, for additional support on the housing file, appealing to the Minister of Housing for support on the initiative in their ridings. I applaud those members. They are doing what they should be doing in advocating for their constituents, even though their leader is advocating to get rid of the program. I find something odd about that.

I know of at least five Conservatives who did this, and I understand there are potentially even more, as a number of communities are affected. I sure hope the letter was good. What do the member for Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, the member for Simcoe North, the member for Fundy Royal, the member for St. Albert—Edmonton and the member for Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola have in common? I suspect there are more, but here are the five we know of. They all have two things in common. One is that they are all Conservatives, and two, they all want the government program that the leader of the Conservative Party wants to get rid of, as he said in his announcement yesterday.

Today, time after time, the leader of the Conservative Party stood in his place and said how good he is because of what so-and-so is saying about his announcement. At the end of the day, the Conservatives need to rethink their housing policy. While they are doing that, they might also want to rethink their price on pollution policy, because they have had a few flip-flops on it. I would suggest that if they wants to do the environment a favour, they should have yet another flip-flop.

Shortly after coming into government, we established the national housing strategy. We can think of the affordable housing initiative and the rapid housing initiative too. Through supports of that nature, we were able to repair, renew and see the construction of literally tens of thousands of homes in different regions in Canada. We are providing loans and more to ensure that capital gets off the ground.

We can talk about the support for non-profit, low-income housing that has been ongoing. The federal government provides hundreds of millions in subsidies to ensure that people can afford to live in non-profit housing.

We have other programs that might not be as direct as one would like to see but are very important. I am thinking of the greener homes program, which provides support to individuals who want to make their homes more energy efficient. That was taken up by thousands of Canadians throughout the country.

As a government, we believe in co-op housing and support it in a very tangible way. We want to see more co-op homes being built, because there is a difference between being a resident of a co-op and being a tenant in an apartment block. If I had more time, I would go into that in much greater detail. We also have the housing accelerator fund.

There is a fundamental difference between the Conservatives and the Liberals. We understand that the federal government has a strong leadership role to play on housing, and we are doing just that. However, we have to work with municipalities, provinces, territories, indigenous communities and the wide spectrum of stakeholders out there, like Habitat for Humanity, which does fantastic work. I suspect it has built more new homes in Winnipeg North, in particular in areas that are more challenged, than any other organization, including government.

Stakeholders play a very important role, and we have been there to support them. Whether it is the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance or the Prime Minister, we are constantly looking for ways, working with the Minister of Housing and caucus colleagues, to bring up ideas on how we can improve Canada's housing stock and expand it.

I remember the housing accelerator fund opportunity. It was great when the Prime Minister came to Winnipeg. He, the premier and the mayor of Winnipeg talked about how, by working together, all three levels of government were going to be able to accomplish so much more. These are the types of things we need to see more of.

That is where the challenge is for the members opposite. We have invested. We understand the issue. We know that more work still needs to be done. However, they cannot tell me that any other national government in history, throughout the generations, has done more on the housing file than the Prime Minister and this government. That does not mean things are perfect; it means that we will continue to work for Canadians on this very serious issue.

I would appeal in particular to the Conservative Party to stop the games it is playing on the floor of the House of Commons. Let us get to work for Canadians and put our party interests behind the interests of Canadians.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have one question for the member. Will the government support the NDP amendment and get rent price-fixing investigated in committee? The member's caucus colleagues at HUMA are currently shielding ultrawealthy corporate landlords from testifying.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, there are a number of things that I would love to see the standing committee deal with. As for the issue of rent control, I was an MLA for a number of years, and rent control is in provincial jurisdiction. Having said that, I believe there is a role for our standing committees there, especially after yesterday's announcement, when the official opposition said the best way to deal with housing in the country is to give a tax break to people building houses under a million dollars. That is supposed to resolve the homelessness issue. It is supposed to resolve the affordable housing issue.

I think we need better educated Conservative members to ensure there is good, sound public policy when it comes to housing. I would recommend that all committee members take a look at what the Conservative Party is talking about. It might cause a few of them to change their mind and backtrack, possibly do a flip-flop, on their most recent announcement. That would definitely be in the best interests of Canadians.

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

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to my colleague opposite name members, one of whom was me. I will never apologize for standing up for the constituents, mayors, wardens and municipalities that write in to me and ask me to advocate on their behalf.

I would like to ask the member if he has talked to members of the Liberal Party who represent ridings in London, which includes Middlesex County. Have they written a letter to their own minister to ask for funding? I ask because if we look, I think we will find that the two sitting members from London have never stood up for Middlesex County and have never written a letter on its behalf asking the Liberals to look at a funding application that makes sense for the city.

I ask if the member opposite will stand up for his constituents the way Conservative MPs are willing to stand up for their constituents, even in opposition.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives are not standing up for constituents if their leader is running around saying to kill the program, knowing full well that if they were to form government, the program would be a puff of smoke and disappear. That is not advocating for constituents. The member should be taking up the issue she just finished raising. If she believes in the program, she should be expressing that within her caucus.

I am glad that she wrote a letter to the minister, but I suggest that she show that letter to the leader of the Conservative Party and tell him to flip-flop on the issue.

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

Mr. Speaker, there is no denying that we are in the midst of a housing crisis. There are not enough homes to meet all needs.

Affordable housing is often spoken of as a need. We in the Bloc Québécois prefer to talk about social housing. There is a big difference. I wonder if my colleague and the government are aware of that. Affordable housing is housing that costs 10% less than market price. In the case of social housing, rent is calculated based on the person's income and must not exceed 30% of their income.

Is the government aware of that? When will it finally apply these basic principles to make housing truly accessible?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I absolutely know the difference. I was the housing critic in the province of Manitoba, where we had roughly 15,000 to 20,000 fully subsidized units that were based strictly on income. That is why I said that hundreds of millions go toward ongoing support of individuals in non-profit housing and affordable housing in different forms.

Whether it is 100% subsidized or there is a 10% subsidy through other mechanisms, we understand that there need to be different forms of housing. I am a very strong advocate of, for example, housing co-ops. There should be all sorts of programs for non-profit organizations. I also think we need to see the different levels of government come to the table to look at how we can build more homes and have them be non-profit houses and units. There is a need there. Thank goodness we started when we did with the national housing strategy a number of years ago.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the problem with the intervention from the member for Lambton—Kent—Middlesex a few moments ago is that she is trying to paint the picture that she is just standing up for her constituents. The reality is that she does not do that in the House when it comes to these programs. Instead, during question period and at every other opportunity, she tells us repeatedly that the government is failing her constituents. Then, behind everybody's back, she writes a letter to the Minister of Housing saying, “Can we please get some of this money because we see value in this program.” It is the exact same thing the members for Simcoe North, Fundy Royal, St. Albert—Edmonton and Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola are doing.

It is all about the hypocrisy of what is going on here. On the one hand, they are saying that the government is completely failing Canadians, but on the other hand, they go behind everybody's back to write letters to the minister directly.

[An hon. member]

Oh, oh!

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, despite the fact she is heckling me right now, I do not hear her standing up in the House saying, “That is such a great program. By the way, did the minister get my letter? We are waiting to get some money, too.”

I am wondering if the parliamentary secretary can comment on that hypocrisy.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I believe my friend and colleague did a wonderful job in pointing out the issue. He made reference to five members, and as he was speaking, I thought maybe we should have a production of papers from the Minister of Housing of all the letters he has received from Conservatives asking for support from the housing programs. We might all be surprised. There might be a majority of Conservatives, and if we can get a majority of the Conservatives agreeing with the member for Lambton—Kent—Middlesex and her other colleagues, maybe the leader of the Conservative Party would flip-flop on the issue. It would definitely be in the interest of Canadians if the Conservatives did that flip-flop.

Should we be asking the Minister of Housing, if we can get unanimous support, to provide all the letters from Conservative members requesting finances? Would I be able to request that as a unanimous consent motion?

[The Deputy Speaker, Chris d'Entremont]

The hon. member is asking for unanimous consent to table those documents.

Is it agreed?

[Some hon. members]

No.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the only thing more exaggerated than the hon. member for Winnipeg North is the Liberal national housing strategy itself. The Liberals made an announcement of $75 billion that was supposed to go out, of which $12 billion was already spent and $37 billion went nowhere. We know, in this moment, that they like to pretend Canadians have never had it so good, but I know Winnipeg is a lot like Hamilton. Winter is coming. It is going to be very cold in Winnipeg, and there are going to be people on the streets dying.

Will this member finally stand up and just admit that laissez-faire economics, leaving it to the market and dishing money out to private developers, is a failed policy and that this government has a responsibility to do what it did some 50 years ago, which was to be bold and build purpose-built, non-market social housing? Yes or no?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I can assure the member that there has not, and that is why I challenged him. He cannot give me a prime minister or government that has done more on the national housing scene than the Prime Minister or the government has done. He might not like that, but the reality is, when we compare the Liberals' performance to that of Thomas Mulcair when he was the leader of the official opposition, the NDP, during the 2015 election, we will find that the Liberal platform outdid the NDP platform on housing. Not only did we outdo it, but we are also actually implementing it.

Having said that, we do appreciate the support that we get from the NDP.

[The Deputy Speaker, Chris d'Entremont]

It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Langley-Aldergrove, Taxation; the hon. member for Calgary Centre, Government Accountability; the hon. member for Calgary Nose Hill, Government Accountability.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour to rise on behalf of the residents of Kelowna—Lake Country.

I will be splitting my time today with the member for Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon.

Today, we are discussing a report from the human resources committee, or the housing committee. I want to point out quickly that the Conservatives put forth a dissenting report on this, and I will read a couple of points that we made in our dissenting report.

We wrote:

We will not get out of the housing crisis, without building more homes. To build more homes we need everyone pulling in the same direction, the federal government, provincial governments, municipalities, workers, and yes, the private sector. Demonizing, taxing, and blocking private sector involvement in Canada’s housing market, not only keeps us from solving Canada’s housing crisis, but could actually make it worse.

We also referenced some statistics:

To reach 22 million units by 2030, the CMHC says we must build 3.5 million more units beyond what we will build anyhow. The CMHC says that those 3.5 million units that are required by 2030 will require “An investment of at least $1 trillion” to build. The CMHC says we need “increased participation from the private sector” to meet these goals.

Our dissenting report continues, “Conservative members support 60 day average approvals at the CMHC, linking bonuses for CMHC executives to performance metrics, and balancing the budget to lower interest rates so that we can unleash” non-governmental organizations and others.

Here are a few points that I want to make at the onset of this debate here today. I would like to set the template for where housing is in Canada right now. Under the Liberal government, housing has never been more expensive. The Liberals' failure to build homes has created a housing crisis for Canadians. In fact, the House of Commons has said that we are in a housing crisis.

The cost of mortgage payments and down payments have all doubled under the Liberal government, or we could say the NDP-Liberal government because the NDP has been supporting the Liberals. It previously took 25 years to pay off a mortgage, whereas now it actually takes 25 years to save for a down payment. This is one of the reasons young adults, so many of them in the country, are saying that they feel they will never be able to afford a mortgage. It is very demotivating and really frustrating for our young adults here in Canada.

The Liberals' record on housing, mortgages and rents is really nothing for them to be proud of. Instead of building homes that Canadians need, they have been building more bureaucracy. We hear a lot about the bureaucracy of the federal housing agency, the CMHC, at the housing committee. We have done a number of studies recently, and we have had a lot of testimony from different witnesses talking about how the federal housing agency will add costs because of certain building rules that it has put in place, which are far and above actual requirements. It will also add in a number of other rules, which can actually add a lot of cost, time and delays onto building the housing. We have heard quite a bit about this at the housing committee.

We also know that, nine years after the Prime Minister promised to lower the price of housing, rents and mortgages have doubled, and middle-class Canadians are being forced to live in tent encampments. In nearly every city across the country, we are seeing a record number of tent encampments opening. However, the photo ops that we have seen from the Liberal government will not come anywhere near to building the 5.8 million homes that are needed to restore housing affordability in Canada. As a result, home prices have doubled, rent has doubled, down payments have doubled and mortgages have also doubled.

There was a report done by CMHC earlier in October that showed that housing starts continue to trend lower while Canada's population has rapidly increased. When we compare September 2024 to September 2023, the results are even worse. Across the country, housing starts were down 15% this September compared to September 2023. Similarly, in Canada's most expensive cities, the Liberal government's billion-dollar photo op fund has really done nothing to build more homes because housing starts are actually down 20% in Vancouver and Toronto.

Statistics Canada also recently reported that the total value of building permits increased by 7% in August of this year. As well, Rentals.ca recently published its national rent report, which shows the consequences of the Liberal failure. This means the cost of rent has massively outpaced Canadian paycheques. It is just one bad statistic after another.

We can look at homelessness, which is an issue in my community of Kelowna—Lake Country and across the country. The Parliamentary Budget Officer released a detailed report in May of this year outlining the state of homelessness in Canada. The Liberal government committed to eliminating chronic homelessness by 2030. However, according to this report, since 2018, chronic homelessness has actually increased by 38%. The report also stated that the number of individuals living in unsheltered locations has increased by a staggering 38%. These are not just statistics. These are people. These are family members. These are neighbours.

What I would like to discuss now is a recent announcement made by the leader of the official opposition about a plan that Conservatives have to lower the cost for Canadians looking to buy a home. Our common-sense Conservative leader announced that we would axe the federal sales tax, or the GST, as it is called, on new homes sold for under $1 million. This cut would save $40,000, or $2,200 per year, in mortgage payments on an $800,000 house, as an example. This tax cut would spark 30,000 extra homes being built every year.

Common-sense Conservatives would also push provinces to remove their sales tax from new home sales, which would save tens of thousands of dollars more for homebuyers. The move really comes after this housing crisis, as I have mentioned, has doubled housing costs over the nine years of the NDP-Liberal government, which is faster than in any other G7 country.

Back in October of 2015, the month before the Liberals were elected, it took only 39% of the median pre-tax household income to cover home ownership costs. Now it takes nearly 60%. That is a staggering difference and a staggering amount for Canadian families. While it used to be normal for working-class youth to buy homes, now 80% of Canadians tell pollsters that home ownership is only for the very, very rich.

The GST alone adds about $50,000 in cost to a $1-million home. This common-sense Conservative tax reduction would really eliminate billions of dollars in bureaucratic programs that the Liberals admit have not built a single home. That is what will be offset by the difference.

As I mentioned, this tax cut would spark extra homes being built. What is really missing here is the promise of Canada, where many of us are of the generation that, when we were in our 20s, if we had a decent job, we could have a decent car, save up and buy our first place. That dream of home ownership is really gone now for our young Canadians, and it is incredibly sad.

We also know that, in addition to that, we have record-breaking numbers of people going to food banks. It was just reported that now two million people are going to food banks a month. It is just incredibly hard for young adults and families.

On our Conservative proposal, I would like to mention a couple of quotes here. Canadian housing expert Mike Moffat, senior director of policy and innovation of the Smart Prosperity Institute, said, “[This] proposal to eliminate the GST for newly constructed homes selling for under $1 million is the boldest middle-class housing proposal released to date from any federal political party. It will put $4 billion back into the pockets of homebuyers each year.”

The Greater Ottawa Home Builders' Association said, “Increasing the GST Rebate threshold will support affordability, increase housing supply, and restore fairness to current and future generations of homebuyers”.

There are more quotes as well. I know that I am running out of time, but this is really important, and we hope that the government will follow the proposal made by Conservatives to axe the federal tax on new housing sold for under $1 million.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am concerned and it comes from a lot of the questions and points that my colleague from Port Moody—Coquitlam raised earlier in the day. In the HUMA meeting, Conservatives and Liberals joined ranks to ensure that the committee would not bring forward CEOs' big corporate interests to committee, to hear about that financialization of housing that we know is driving up the cost of housing. I would really love to hear the hon. member's explanation of why she joined with the Liberals to block that from happening at committee.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I know that I cannot use a prop in this place, but there is a 61-page report called “Financialization of Housing” that was completed by the committee and I referenced a dissenting report that we did. Of course, any members of the committee can bring forth witnesses to testify and all party members did. We had a very robust study on this in October 2023. Anyone can go online and have a look at that report and view all of the testimony and many recommendations that came out.