Debates of Dec. 9th, 2024

Indigenous and Northern Affairs

[Denis Trudel, Bloc, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague asked an indirect question, so I will give him an indirect answer.

Five years ago, when I became an MP, I did not know the difference between social housing and affordable housing. Now I do. I have also developed a passion for this issue. I cannot believe that we are seeing this sort of thing in a G7 country.

I believe in an interventionist government. I think that the government has an important role to play in housing people. We were talking earlier about Maslow's hierarchy of needs, and I mentioned the rapid housing initiative, which is a very good program. In general, the government is investing a lot of money in a not very efficient way, so it does not really help people.

I am in favour, and I hope that a future NDP government will implement a massive social housing construction project in its first term. That is what I hope, and I will be there to support it, if it ever happens.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am so pleased to rise today to provide a response from the NDP on the report of the Standing Committee on Indigenous and Northern Affairs, entitled “The Effects of the Housing Shortage on Indigenous Peoples in Canada”. There are 20 recommendations set out in this report. I want to speak to a couple of them.

Before I speak about that, I want to talk about the level of injustice and the fact that, in the place that is now known as Canada, there are so many indigenous folks who are without housing.

I am going to talk about my community of Winnipeg Centre. Of those who are precariously housed, 75% are indigenous. Many come from the local Treaty 1 nations and are on their very own Treaty 1 lands. Many of those who are currently houseless live in my riding. I have talked to different elected officials about how tragic it is that, on the very lands that we occupy, the folks who are the stewards, the people from those lands and territories, are not even housed on their own territory, the very lands, territories and resources that have allowed this country to be rich.

Indigenous people throughout the country are homeless on our very own lands, some of whom are my family members. Many folks and family members who are currently houseless reside in Saskatchewan. I come from a very small community, Wood Mountain Lakota First Nation, which was nine by nine and is now three by three.

The federal government issued an apology to our nation a few months back for calling us squatters on our very own lands. There is incremental justice in dealing with this. What is so disturbing about that goes back to what I said about all the riches in Canada and all the wealth that has occurred. Sometimes, when I am talking about issues of social justice and human rights, I wish I could dress up like a pipeline because that is the Conservatives' main focus, the very riches, the tar sands. They are reaping the benefits of indigenous lands, yet so many of our people live unsheltered in urban centres and on our lands, territories and resources.

When we talk about housing, there always seems to be a lack of money. The NDP fought for and got a for indigenous, by indigenous housing strategy with $4 billion issued to this particular housing fund. Where is the money? How much money have the provincial governments made off of our resources? The extraction industry is based in our communities and wreaks havoc on our lands in places like Beaver Lake Cree Nation, which is putting forward a precedent-setting case to talk about the long-term impacts of the tar sands on the treaty right to hunt and fish. That $4 billion is not even enough to begin to address the housing crisis on reserve. Where is the money?

I hear the member from Winnipeg North talking about Sioux Valley and investments in housing. I want to talk to the chief of Sioux Valley Dakota Nation, and I hope maybe we will post this part of the clip. I want to talk to the chief to find out whether his housing crisis has been solved by the Liberal government, because I know he is going to tell me that no, it has not. It does not matter whether it has been consecutive Conservative or Liberal governments; nobody has even begun to deal with the housing crisis in first nations communities.

Let us not forget Nunavut, where there is the most dire housing crisis in the country. We could fix it, but for whatever reason, the genocide and the normalization of institutional poverty, of legislated poverty of indigenous peoples, is perpetuated today. This is so much the case that I have to listen even today, and I have been going off for the last week so maybe it is time for a break, to what a supposedly great job the Liberal government is doing dealing with the housing crisis, when every year indigenous people die, frozen on the streets, some of them on their very own lands. Can members imagine that?

This was indigenous land. It still is indigenous land, even the House of Commons. There are so many people around the House of Commons, this multi-billion dollar building, who are unhoused, on unceded Algonquin territory, our land. Indigenous brothers and sisters are living on the streets, and we walk by them every day.

In my community of Winnipeg Centre, people walk by and drive by indigenous folks every day, not even noticing the grotesque and violent human rights violation because it is normalized. This is why the government and Conservative governments have felt it okay to say, “Hey, listen, we are giving $50 million this year for housing”, and everybody is supposed to stand up and cheer. They say, “We are going to promise $4 billion in housing”, and then they pretend they never even promised it. In fact, they say they are going to put it in the budget, but then they never get the money out the door. Meanwhile, people die.

I want to focus on a couple of recommendations. One I am going to focus on because it has been a lot of the work I have done is recommendation 3, which says:

That the Government of Canada continue to address the 231 Calls for Justice in the National Inquiry’s Final Report, Reclaiming Power and Place, and that particular attention be paid to the 10 calls for improving access to housing for Indigenous women and that housing has impacts on Indigenous women, girls and gender-diverse people, and incorporate the wrap-around care that is required.

Do members want to know why? There is a direct correlation between gender-based violence and poverty. In fact if we look at the final report on missing and murdered indigenous women and girls, one of the comments it makes is that it was not uncommon for women to know the person who perpetrated violence. This is because poverty forces women and gender-diverse folks to stay in unsafe situations because they have nowhere else to go, and to be exploited and to experience violence.

Our shelter system was originally set up for men who were dealing with alcoholism. It was never designed for women or gender-diverse folks, and many of the shelters are not safe for women and gender-diverse folks to stay in. There are reports of sexual assaults, violence and exploitation. That is one of the reasons I, along with advocates from my community, fought so hard for Velma's House, a 24-7 safe place for indigenous girls and 2SLGBTQQIA+ people.

It is not enough. We hear in the news about the latest serial killer in Manitoba. I shall not name him. He is undeserving of being named.

Let us not forget about Tanya Nepinak in 2011, who was with an unsafe guy, a youth, with another youth in the house, one I know very well, a lovely person, and thank goodness she survived. What a wonderful mother, mentor, courageous and brilliant young woman. I am glad she survived. What about Tanya Nepinak? What would have happened if Tanya Nepinak had had safe housing or safe shelter? There is a level of disconnect in this place when we are dealing with life-and-death situations.

I am going to tell a story. I am one of those folks who has a history of family and intergenerational impacts. My grandmother, before my mom went into care and it was one of the reasons my mom had to go into the child welfare system, lived on the streets. She had to live in different places throughout her life. I had the privilege of meeting her two times in my life: one time when I was 13, and a second time just before she died. She was 85. I do not know how my grandmother lived that long. She had this rough, tough, hard life.

My mom took her into our house. I asked my mom, “Why are you taking her into the house? She abandoned you, Mom.” She said to me, “Leah, she did the very best she could with what she had. In spite of being a brutal alcoholic, she gave me a healthy body, a healthy mind. She gave me all the tools I needed to be successful in life. She chose through her whole pregnancy not to drink and for that, I will always love her.” When they removed her lung, which was the last surgery that finally ended her life, they said, “Miss Warren,” because she married one of the fellows along the way, “we found an ashtray with a cigarette butt in it.” She had a hard life.

I share that story because sometimes in this place, I feel like we forget that everybody has a story. Sometimes in this place, we are so busy judging, pathologizing and talking about how somebody lived in a tent or about somebody being an addict that we do not even bother hearing their story. We blame people for their circumstance. Then we have this callous response: “Why do you not pick yourself up by your bootstraps? Get a job.”

Some stories are really tragic for indigenous people in this country. If members spent the time to talk to some of the folks, my neighbours, and I am very proud to have them as my neighbours, they would tell a story or two.

The fact that many of the folks who are without housing are still surviving, like my grandmother, speaks to their strength and resilience. It speaks to their strength and resilience because, in addition to that, in my riding, where 75% of the people who are unhoused or precariously housed are indigenous, they are still fighting to survive. Even though everything has been put in our way through colonization to strip us of our human rights, we are power.

I know a guy who was in the sixties scoop and is a military veteran. He is unhoused right now, but he is smart and strong. It is not any fault of his; it is a disrespect of society. He is a veteran. He is a guy who was kidnapped from his family and shipped off for no other reason than because he was indigenous. That is not a fault of his lack of hard work and labour. He is the result of a colonial project that has done exactly what it was designed to do, except some of us are surviving. Is that not amazing?

Some of us, for whatever reason, are like me. My mom figured it out and I am thriving. What my mom always told me was, “Never think you are too good because we are all one paycheque away from the welfare line, all of us. We never know what can happen in our lives.”

Sometimes I think we forget about that humanity in here. It is like we are somehow above the fray. However, none of us is above that fray, ever. I share these stories because maybe we should listen to people when we are passing budgets and making policies and doing legislation that really could deal with this human rights crisis.

Right now, I can say that all levels of government, the current government, the former Conservative government, provincial governments and municipal governments, are failing to ensure that every person residing in what people now call Canada is afforded the basic human right to housing.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the telling of stories is an important part of listening and understanding what people are living with. I appreciated that my colleague brought that personal side to it because it is important to tell those stories.

In my constituency, Siksika Nation embarked on a very interesting building project. It was 3-D house building, where they were building houses with a firm from Ontario for under $200 per square foot in 30 days. I saw the process. I saw how they were built and the leadership Siksika Nation took to build housing for needy people in their nation. However, Indigenous Services administration bureaucrats have no interest in this. I find this very disheartening to see, when indigenous nations take leadership, but the bureaucrats do not want to pay attention to the leadership that indigenous people are bringing to this particular issue.

With regard to the challenges we face, the barriers that are there, the member might identify, as I do, a bureaucracy that does not want to change. I think that is a difficult part of the process we deal with.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is normalized racism in this country. It is a normalization of the exploitation of indigenous peoples, lands, territories and resources, where everybody benefits and very often not the nations. That is one of the issues.

However, we have to just stop talking about bureaucracy. That is one of the problems, but government after government has underfunded the housing crisis. It started with Paul Martin and the 2% cap, and now we are in a crisis. That happened in the 1990s. Governments have never lifted the 2% cap, and now we are in a crisis.

Therefore, I do not want to hear about how great the Liberals are doing. I certainly do not want to hear how great the Conservatives are doing. We have to stop patting ourselves on the back, and we just have to develop policies and legislation that work.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague and I are fortunate enough to work together on the Standing Committee on the Status of Women. I would like to point her toward solutions to this issue. Last week, the House debated a report from the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development. It discussed Canada's feminist policy.

A Liberal member asked me what we were proposing. I mentioned a few ideas, but I could have told him to read the report. It contains dozens of recommendations. The government needs to stop shelving these reports. If it worked a little harder on implementing the ideas in the committees' reports, maybe it could get down to work on solutions.

Getting back to the report under discussion today, I would like my colleague to talk about recommendation 3. My colleague, the member for Abitibi—Témiscamingue, addressed it a little earlier. It states the following:

That the Government of Canada continue to address the 231 Calls for Justice in the National Inquiry's Final Report, Reclaiming Power and Place, and that particular attention be paid to the 10 calls for improving access to housing for Indigenous women and that housing has impacts on Indigenous women, girls and gender-diverse people, and incorporate the wrap-around care that is required.

That is quite a recommendation. There is indeed a connection, because freeing indigenous women and girls from violence is only possible if they are given housing.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for the comment. However, we are many years out from the national inquiry, and the Liberal government has implemented two calls for justice. Housing is a critical piece of this. If we want to deal with gender-based violence, whether it relates to indigenous women, gender-diverse people or any person, we have to deal with housing. In that way, people are not put in a position in which they are forced to stay in places that are unsafe, on the streets or in violence.

I just asked a question today from Women's Shelters Canada. It was about how shelters are overwrought because of demand; the government has not built enough affordable housing with rent geared to income. We need to listen to indigenous people, for indigenous, by indigenous, and that is certainly what our party fought for. It is time for the Liberals to deliver on that.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there is not a single time that the hon. member for Winnipeg Centre rises in the House and does not impart to us what she has learned, with lessons, teachings and things we should be taking away. In her remarks, she talked about the genocidal settler colonial project that is really about the displacement of first nations, Métis, indigenous and Inuit peoples from their lands.

When no levels of government provide adequate funding, the result is that people have to leave their home territories to go to cities to seek services, health care and education. They not only lose their connection to their original homelands, but they also end up living in precarity and in what I will call the social murder of homelessness.

Can the member comment on how the settler colonial project and genocidal logics are not an event that happens but a process of land displacement? Can she reflect on purposeful government underfunding of nations in a nation-to-nation relationship that results in people leaving their home territories?

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am going to give an example, just because I do not have a lot of time.

South Indian Lake, prior to Manitoba Hydro's coming in, had 70% employment in the whitefish industry, but because of the damage that was done as a result of Manitoba Hydro, its fishing industry was destroyed. Now there is 10% employment, mostly in administrative positions, in South Indian Lake. That has rippling effects; it forces people to leave their community to search for work and for housing.

Even for folks who are looking to survive and thrive, to enjoy and live a traditional way of life, because of what has happened through resource extraction, like in Beaver Lake Cree Nation, the very land and waters are too polluted and food sources are impacted. The people who very often go to urban centres, trying to find a better life, get an education, get a home and a better life for their kids, face non-stop racism and discrimination. That is the reality.

[An hon. member]

Oh, oh!

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I heard a Conservative come in here and ask whether he had missed much. I wish he had taken the time to listen. That is what I am talking about when I talk about humanity, because there is a whole lot of stinking privilege around here. Maybe if the member took a moment to listen, he would be a little more kind, a little more gentle, a little bit more compassionate and a little more caring, but he does not want to listen.

That is how people end up on the streets. It is one example of a broader systemic issue of systemic racism.

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

Mr. Speaker, I had the honour to serve on the human resources committee with the member, and she has given a very eloquent speech. I think it is important for all of us to take note of her focus on people and some of the tragic situations that can happen in a heartbeat. We all have constituents who are in precarious situations, so I applaud the member on her tone tonight.

I have a quick question. Since the government made changes and divided one bureaucracy for indigenous-Crown affairs and services into two separate organizations, just from the member's opinion, has there been an improvement? If there has been, where? If there has not been, where as well?

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I will tell members when things stopped improving; it was when we put in place the Indian Act. It was bad from the start and it is still bad, because that is what we call legislated racism: the Indian Act. The fact is that even I, as a woman under the Indian Act right now, do not have the same rights as other women, never mind as men. As well, we still have not amended the Indian Act, and we talk about amending it incrementally.

It impacts the safety of women. In fact, it was only less than 20 years ago that the Divorce Act was amended so women who were getting divorced on reserve had property rights. I am divorced, happily. However, if I had been living on a reserve at the time I divorced, I would have zero property rights. That is called legislated racism, which has been perpetuated in the House.

We can call it Indigenous Services Canada or a Crown-indigenous relationship. We can call it Kermit the Frog. We need to get rid of the Indian Act and replace it with human rights in this country.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would first like to thank the member for Winnipeg Centre for her remarks and for sharing her experiences every time she rises to speak in the House. I think we should all pay attention to the hon. member's remarks and her lived experience. We all have our lived experience in life, some different from others, but it is always important to be respectful to individuals

I will be splitting my time with my hon. colleague and friend, the member for London North Centre, from the beautiful city of London, Ontario, which I have had the pleasure to visit and where we had one of our caucuses two years ago.

Tonight, we are speaking about the report, “The Effects of the Housing Shortage on Indigenous Peoples in Canada”. Obviously, we know how important housing is and having a roof over one's head here in this country that we live in. Frankly, all over the world, we are grappling with housing issues, but more so for indigenous communities here at home. We need to make sure that we are doing everything we can to assist all folks here in Canada and to build this nation-to-nation relationship.

We wish to thank the Auditor General for her work and welcome the important recommendations in the report. Of course, as a government, we accept and will implement every recommendation that has been made by the Auditor General. As we all know, decades of underinvestment, discrimination and racism has led to a tremendous lack of safe, affordable housing and housing supports for indigenous peoples. We, as a government, have been taking action and will continue to take action to support indigenous peoples no matter where they live.

Since 2016, we have increased funding for on-reserve housing by 1,100%. We supported the construction, renovation and retrofit of over 34,000 homes in first nations communities. We are also working with first nations partners to co-develop a 10-year housing infrastructure strategy. If my memory serves me correctly, I think it was in one of the last two budgets that we committed, I believe, $4 billion to indigenous housing and the northern strategy on housing, which is very important.

All levels of government have a role to play to solve this crisis and create tangible, lasting, indigenous-led solutions to address these housing gaps. It is so important that we do so. One of the things that I think differentiates parties and their philosophical views in terms of how we approach and collaborate with different levels of government is that, on our side of the House, we wish to work and will continue to work with municipalities. In the area I live in, there is the City of Vaughan, the Region of York, the Province of Ontario and the federal government. We will continue to respect the jurisdictions within that space.

As members know, cities in Canada, under the Constitution, are called “creatures of the province”. We can work directly with them at the federal level, but we should always respect them and collaborate, as we have with the housing accelerator fund. In the city of the Vaughan, for example, we made an investment of $59 million in the housing accelerator fund. One of the tranches of that housing accelerator fund in the city of Vaughan has been put to use in an infrastructure investment that will allow the acceleration, I believe, of 3,300 homes in the city of Vaughan to be built quicker and on schedule.

As I am speaking about the city I live in, and as one of the members of Parliament there, I respect greatly all of the City of Vaughan's employees, from the planning department to bylaw, to parks, to animal control. Everyone who works at the City of Vaughan, all of the municipal employees there, do a fantastic job. In no way are council members or the planning department gatekeepers. They work hard. They issue permits, and it is up to the builders to build the houses afterwards. However, they issue their permits, and that is something I am very proud of. I want to give a shout-out to them, because not all political leaders respect our municipal politicians, at whatever level of government they may be at, and that is a shame.

Again, with respect to the City of Vaughan council, mayor, and all the employees of the City of Vaughan, I have their backs. I know the hard work they do. I wish to say thank you and I hope the other MPs who represent the City of Vaughan would admonish the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada for taking direct shots at our mayors, at the local councillors and at the folks who work in the planning departments with urban planning degrees.

In both indigenous and non-indigenous communities in this beautiful country, before people can build a house, they need to have sewer, they need to have pipes and they need to have the infrastructure put in place. That requires planning. It does not just happen overnight. It requires collaboration.

We have been there for cities across this country. When it comes to continuing to invest in indigenous peoples, we will take no lessons, absolutely none, from the Conservative Party of Canada and its leader, who we know in the past has made disparaging remarks. That is on the record and a fact. When the Leader of the Opposition was responsible for housing, his $300-million boondoggle program only managed to get 99 homes built in first nations communities. During marathon votes, Conservatives voted against funding for housing projects for first nations, Inuit and Métis.

We know one of the Conservatives' promises is to reduce the GST on new builds. This is approximately $4.5 billion to $5 billion of a promise of expenditure. They promised to increase pensions for seniors from 65 to 74. That is another $4-billion promise. As such, on both sides, there would be a $9-billion spend. Whether it is reducing taxes on one or increasing spending on the other, there is a $9-billion promise that has not been accounted for.

In order to do that, we would have to eliminate a couple of different programs, like the national early learning and child care program or the Canadian dental care plan, which now has three million Canadians covered, including nearly 25,000 in the riding I represent. We cannot cut CBSA officers again, like the Conservatives did in the prior government, and then say our borders are secure having made these devastating cuts, which we have had to rebuild. The Conservative plan is to make cuts and these cuts would have real-life impacts on indigenous communities, and we cannot go back to the years of shortchanging indigenous communities.

We will continue as a government to support projects that support first nations' leading the path forward. In my last two minutes, I will give a few examples of indigenous-led housing projects. The Daylu Dena Council constructed a new six-plex for the elderly and people with reduced mobility to continue living in their home community. Council members designed the building with the community's northern climate in mind and used green standards to ensure energy efficiency.

The Mistawasis Nêhiyawak in Saskatchewan, to reduce overcrowding, constructed three new duplexes in the community and renovated 10 existing homes to increase their lifespan and address health and safety concerns caused by overcrowding.

The Tobique First Nation in New Brunswick and the Government of Canada have worked to strengthen the governance structure of Tobique's housing program to help develop a healthier and sustainable indigenous community. The program included the construction of a triplex housing unit, additions to four units and a capacity development project.

On shelter supports, since 2021 we have provided ongoing support for 38 emergency shelters and 50 transition homes for first nations, Inuit, Métis and 2SLGBTQQIA+ people in urban, rural and northern communities.

In my last minute, because I know in a few days we will break for the Christmas holidays, I want to wish all residents a merry Christmas and all members of the House, independent of which side of the aisle and which party they represent, a merry Christmas and to all their families all the best, a safe and peaceful holiday season, and all the best for the New Year. I say that sincerely.

I would like to tell my daughters that I love them very much, and I will see them later this week. To my wife, I thank her for always supporting me in this endeavour, which I know is taxing on all of our families.

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

I want to thank the hon. member for those good wishes.

With questions and comments, the hon. member for Hamilton Centre has the floor.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we have been talking about housing in general today, but, specifically, there was an emphasis on for indigenous, by indigenous, in this report. Of course, we talked a lot about the urban indigenous experience.

We know that there is a disproportionate number of first nations, Métis and Inuit who have to rent. In fact, in 2021, the Liberal campaign promised to support people who rent their homes. Instead of doing that, the Liberals have allowed housing investors, such as real estate income trusts, to completely capture the market. There has been corporate capture of the housing market, and, I would argue, regulatory capture of the different levels of government.

What does the member have to say to those families, including first nations, Métis, and Inuit, who are being renovicted from their homes every single day so that landlords and real estate income trusts can make a profit on their investments?

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to go back to something the hon. member for Winnipeg Centre said in her comments, which was, in life, it does not cost anything to be kind. I just want to thank her for saying that because I, too, go by that adage. It does not cost anything to be kind to another person.

To the member for Hamilton Centre, the financialization of housing, whether it is here in Canada or anywhere in the world, is absolutely and utterly wrong. Many of the folks who know me in this place know that I am a big believer in capitalism with guardrails, capitalism with proper governance structure.

When it comes to the financialization of housing, REITs do have a place to play in society, whether it is industrial REITs or commercial REITs and so forth. Landlords do have a role to play in society, of course. At the same time, we are talking about individuals, individuals who need a rooves over their heads and families trying to get ahead in life. If it is through algorithms or the financialization of the housing market, we need to take appropriate measures to stop that and to reverse it.

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

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member talked about supporting capitalism with guardrails. I just really wish this member would support a government that would keep fiscal guardrails.

Moving more to a local level, the mayor, Steven Del Duca, former Liberal leader of Ontario, said that development charges are unfair on new homebuyers, something that I agree with. In fact, the City of Penticton, where I was a councillor, recently increased its development cost charges, something I disagree with. In the next order of business, it actually applied for the housing accelerator, which the government has put forward, on a promise that it would look to lower development cost charges. The hypocrisy that we see from some municipal leaders is huge.

Does the hon. member agree that development cost charges need to be reduced? Does he believe that his housing accelerator is causing some of the problems, where they are seeing some councils increase them, only to say that they are going to backtrack them later?

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have a lot of respect for the hon. member on the other side, and the hon. member knows that. I would say that, when it comes to development charges, the situation in Ontario, from my understanding, is significantly different from the situation in British Columbia.

The situation in Ontario is that the cities obviously have limited means of raising revenue. They need to put in infrastructure to build new subdivisions and so forth. Whether it is DCs on commercial buildings, which are, frankly, very high in York region, or DCs on residential, which are, again, high, we have differing opinions from different mayors. I know that the mayor of Vaughan, who I have known for many years and am quite good friends with, and who I have much respect for, has decided to go down one pathway in looking at their DCs.

The mayor in Markham has decided to go down a different path with the DCs. If we speak to other folks in Ontario municipalities, the former mayor from Huntsville, who is in the House and is an honourable gentleman, would also know that those DCs pay for the infrastructure.

We need to be frank. If we did not have the development charges in Ontario, it would fall on the property tax base, and we would have huge increases on property taxes. When the official opposition leader criticizes the municipalities or criticizes the HAF, what he is implicitly saying is that the Conservative Party of Canada—

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

We are out of time. I really need to say to the hon. members to try to keep the questions and comments as short as possible so that everyone can get to participate in this debate.

Resuming debate, the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Housing]

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.

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change and to the Minister of Sport and Physical Activity]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to highlight that just on Friday, I was able to make an announcement in Acton in the riding of Halton Hills, which is very close to Milton, with the mayor, Ann Lawlor, and the regional chair, Gary Carr. The announcement was about a project that used three different federal programs: the enabling accessibility fund, some CMHC funding and a reaching home grant. It is more than $2 million in federal funding, adding up to about a $6-million project, which is going to contribute to that community in big ways with 12 fully supportive units, thanks to an organization called Support House.

I would like to highlight Paul Gregory, the executive director of Support House, who did a fantastic job, particularly on the land acknowledgement. He transitioned from the land acknowledgement directly into an acknowledgement that indigenous people are overly represented in encampments and that colonialism has had an impact on first nations, Métis and Inuit folks.

Could the member speak to the importance of using all of these great federal programs to create supportive housing in his riding?

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, first of all, let me commend the advocacy of the member. He is very modest. He does not talk about his own role in helping to secure funding for his community in Milton and in that region more generally.

What he points to is a very important idea, and that is that the federal government has a role to play in allowing housing to happen, which is another way of saying that the federal government has a vital role in ensuring that people's basic needs are met. When we talk about housing, we are ultimately talking about people's fundamental basic needs, their fundamental rights being respected and lived up to. How do we do that? We do not do it on our own. We do it through partnership. We do it through working with other levels of government and not-for-profit organizations, and we will continue to do that work.

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

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals are experts at making big announcements, but seeing results is another story. My riding of Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge had an announcement of a $1-billion battery plant. The Liberal-NDPs announced it, and now they are pulling back. It is the same story with the cricket bug plant, where it was announced that millions of dollars would be added to it, which has also been pulled back. Will the Liberals not recognize it is fine to have fanfare, but it is another thing to get the actual results?

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I want commend the member. I have shared this with him before, but I never tire of saying it. This is a Conservative member who supports carbon pricing. When he was a member of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia, he supported that. I hope his example transfers over to other Conservative MPs.

However, he talks about the Liberal record on housing and says we are not doing anything. In fact, I would look to over 20 Conservative members of Parliament who are active in pushing for the housing accelerator fund in their communities, which is the fund I talked about in my speech. They want it in their community. The only thing standing in the way is the leader of the Conservatives who does not want Liberal programs to be accessed for political reasons. Conservatives are standing in the way of homes being built in this country.

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

Mr. Speaker, I could not agree with my friend more on the idea that the federal government should actually be taking care of people's needs. The reality is successive Liberal and Conservative governments have not done that. When the Paul Martin Liberal government ended the national housing program, it created misery right across the country. Liberals promised every election they would do something, and so did Conservatives. Neither party did until the NDP gave the Liberals a backbone and an ultimatum and said that they had to reinvest in housing. It was the same thing with dental care and pharmacare. It was the same thing with all of these important programs that help people meet their basic needs. My question is very simple: Why do Liberals never do it on their own? They only do it when the NDP forces them to.