Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour to rise in the House of Commons and speak about the issues of the day, especially ones pertaining to housing, which is arguably the most important issue facing the country at this moment.
Before I begin, in the Greek Orthodox faith, today is the day on which Saint Anne, or Agia Anna, is recognized and honoured. My mother is named after her, so today is her name day. We love her very much, and I have never had the chance to wish her a happy name day.
[Member spoke in Greek]
[English]
This is from myself, my wife, Katy, and our daughter, Ava.
The Conservatives have raised housing today in two different ways. First, they raised it on the overall housing crisis facing the country. Second, they raised the matter of housing in indigenous communities and in urban areas.
I begin with the second addition. The Conservatives moved a concurrence motion on the report of the Standing Committee on Indigenous and Northern Affairs, and they are perfectly fine to do that; they have the right to do that. However, I take issue with their record and their sincerity on the matter, to be frank. I say that with all due respect. I see Conservative members regularly raising such matters but not looking back to the previous government. That is not an irrelevant point; nothing happened during those years.
When the current government took office in 2015, we put in place a number of measures, especially investments, to address the plight and uplift the position of indigenous peoples. There is much more work to do in this regard, of course, but we have seen that 34,000 units of housing in first nations communities have either been newly built or repaired. My hon colleague, the MP for Vaughan—Woodbridge, just explained this; he is still in the chamber. That is not nothing; that is an important result and one that, as I said, we need to continue to add to. There is much more work to do in this regard, but it is a very important starting point.
We can add to that, of course, the housing-enabling infrastructure. In budget 2024 alone, a few months back, we saw close to $1 billion put forward specifically for indigenous communities to ensure that vital connections, whether roads, bridges or water systems, are connected to housing. Sometimes I would like to remind my Conservative colleagues of this before they make claims that would have the effect of cancelling infrastructure programs, but I digress: It is vital to have infrastructure because we cannot have housing or communities without it. When the Conservatives raise these points on housing in indigenous communities, it is important to remind them that they would, in fact, cancel the very infrastructure needed to make those housing commitments and those communities possible.
What do we also see? We see an urban, rural and northern indigenous housing strategy, the first of its kind in Canadian history. The NDP is right to continue to raise this point; I know it is critical to them, and I think it is critical to every member of Parliament in the House who believes in this kind of a vision. It would allow the federal government to work with organizations based in different parts of the country in urban, rural and northern areas and put in place more housing for indigenous peoples. It is an ongoing commitment, one we take very seriously and one that, it has to be said, has not been lived up to. It will not be lived up to until indigenous people in every part of this country are housed. Until we have addressed that, the challenge remains.
I will also speak to the matter of the main motion that was introduced today by the Conservatives on housing in general. I am the first to admit that we do not have a housing challenge in front of us; we have a housing crisis. We have to call it what it is. However, I also need to emphasize that the Conservative record on this is dismal. It is a point about credibility. I am not insensitive to the point that the Conservatives have raised about the Harper years. That goes back. However, it speaks to credibility. It is relevant to raise this because, when the current opposition leader was housing minister during those years, we saw 800,000 units of housing lost and only six affordable housing units built. It is not really serious.
If the Conservatives had a record on housing to speak of that was credible or if they had a record on housing we could look to that had real results, then I would be much more sympathetic. I hope everyone will forgive me if I do not have much sympathy for the Conservative position on this because they did not care about it then, and I would say they do not care about it now. Why do they not care about it now? The motion talks about, among other things, homelessness, which is certainly a huge issue in our communities. It is an issue in my community of London and in communities across the country.
The Conservatives, by raising this, fail to recognize one other key point, which is that they have had the opportunity to raise this matter and present real options, real solutions, a real path forward to address homelessness, but they have never done it. Instead, the Conservative members of Parliament frequent encampments, for example, make videos in front of encampments and then post them on social media for political purposes. If they were serious about a vision on housing and homelessness, then they would certainly present a tangible idea.
Homelessness exists. It is present. We need solutions to get people housed, to get them out of tents and into homes. This government put $250 million forward in the most recent budget. We have asked interested provinces to match that, and almost all have; Ontario and Saskatchewan are still outliers. That funding will allow for local communities to, as I say, get people out of tents, get them sheltered and, ultimately, get them into housing. That should be the vision. The Conservatives have never put something forward like this at all. They are very quick to make the videos I just talked about, but do nothing serious when it comes to homelessness.
The other matter that is raised in the motion relates to rent. Rent prices are far too high because vacancy rates are too low. We cannot have vacancy rates at or around zero, as they are in many communities, and not expect to have a consequent rise in the cost of rent. A healthy vacancy rate, as most economists and other housing experts will say, is between 3% and 5%. The question is how we get there. There are many ways to get there, but we have to incent builders. Builders have to be a part of this.
This is where I part company with the NDP, in fact. Builders can be a partner in the response to the housing crisis. That is why we lifted GST on the construction costs of apartments for the middle class and lower-income Canadians. We see a record amount of building now when it comes to the issuing of permits for apartment construction. There are cranes across different communities. In my own community, there are cranes in the sky everywhere we go and in other communities. It is because of this incentive that has been provided to that sector in the context of high interest rates, high construction costs and high labour costs. We needed to do this.
Finally, broader systemic change is needed to incent more building in this country. Unless we have more building, there will still be high prices, whether it is for renters or for prospective homeowners. What has the government done? We have put forward the housing accelerator fund, which is a very important program. Why? It leads to the systemic changes that we all know are standing in the way of more affordable options being built. Zoning, for example, stands as the single biggest impediment in this country and others, in fact, to getting more homes built.
In exchange for municipalities making those commitments to allow for more building, zoning changes, in other words, the federal government is willing to partner with municipalities to have funding for housing, infrastructure, community centres and other basic needs, but they need to make the zoning changes. In fact, we have now partnered with close to 180 communities, large and small, to ensure that they are doing just that, making those vital changes, so that in neighbourhoods, for example, there are not only single-family homes, which are a great option if one can afford it, but duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, mid-rise apartments, row houses, the example of the missing middle that housing economists have talked about. This is how these changes are made, and it is happening.
In communities across Canada, councils are putting in place these vital changes to zoning that are going to create the systemic change needed to allow for more housing affordability. However, what do we see? The Conservatives have opposed it every step of the way.
