Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak to the Conservatives' motion on housing. Many, if not all, of the members of the House give genuine priority to housing. However, although everyone here sincerely prioritizes housing, their solutions can vary. One person who genuinely puts a lot of effort into the housing file and will be enlightening us on the subject is the legendary member from Jonquière, who is renowned for his verve and punchy delivery. He will follow up on my speech, so I will be sharing my time with him.
The Bloc Québécois agrees with the motion in principle, but we have a major problem with how it is drafted, in particular its proposal to have the provinces eliminate the provincial sales tax. The Conservatives are calling on Quebec to eliminate the tax on new housing units. It is not up to the federal government to tell Quebec and the provinces what to do, especially in these desperate times, when we are facing a fiscal imbalance.
A few days ago we saw a perfect example of the fact we are facing a fiscal imbalance. The Prime Minister announced that he wanted to grant a three-month GST holiday on a package of goods—here we could have at least discussed what type of goods would be included—and give a $250 cheque to everyone with a net income of $150,000 or less a year, which is a ridiculous measure. That same day, the Quebec finance minister regretfully announced that there was not enough money to maintain the health care and education systems and that he was forced to demand that his various departments stay strictly within their budgets because the books had to balanced at the end of the month. We saw both of these things on the same day: Santa Claus giving out presents, while the provinces tightened their belts. That actually happens every day. That is Canada in 2024, and that has been our reality for a long time now. We would like to see things change in 2025.
That said, the federal government has no business telling Quebec what to do, but the federal government could decide to remove the GST on the construction of new housing, and we think that could be a positive thing. However, it is important to remember that new housing represents only 30% of the market, so this measure will have a limited impact on the market. It is also important to remember that, in general, the real estate market in Quebec and Canada is overheating. There is not enough supply to meet the demand.
Inflation has caused housing prices to skyrocket. We are talking about a 68% increase over the past three years in Quebec. Where did that inflation come from? It came from the fact that every time a house goes on the market, there are 22 potential buyers. Buyers know when they make an offer that they will not be the only ones doing so. That creates a bidding war and drives up housing prices. The value of such transactions affects the value of future transactions. That is a really big problem.
Removing the GST from housing construction could allow for some breathing room, but we are concerned that this 5% will simply end up in the pockets of developers and sellers. We are concerned about that, but we cannot be against a good thing or against a measure that makes it easier to buy housing. That is why we will be supporting this motion. However, since we have serious concerns, I think it would be a good idea to amend that part of today's motion.
We need a lot of housing units. Let us talk percentages. The Liberal government has implemented various programs to facilitate access to housing. The leader of the Conservative Party says he would eliminate these programs at the earliest opportunity to finance his tax cuts. I am not sure that that is the way to go.
Quebec is already not receiving its share of these programs. Quebec represents 22% of the population of Canada, but it has received only 14% of the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation's housing accelerator fund. Quebec has received only 6.2% of the budget for the affordable housing fund, even though it represents 22% of the population of Canada. These percentages are bad enough, but it gets worse. CMHC says that 31% of Canada's housing needs are in Quebec. That is strange, because Quebec is expected to pay more for programs in other provinces with smaller populations because the goal is to provide uniform services across the country, yet when Quebec should be getting more than the percentage of the population that it represents, not only does is it not get 31%, it does not even get 22%. It gets 14% and 6%. That is preposterous.
At the same time, Quebec is left waiting for funding for its projects, because the federal government's funding always comes with strings attached and specific expectations. It wants to negotiate with Quebec, but this is Quebeckers' own money that it is sending back to them. This money is not a gift from the federal government. It comes from the sales tax and income tax that Quebeckers have paid throughout the year. Quebec should not have to beg for it.
Consider the last round of negotiations on the affordable housing program. It took three years for the federal government to loosen its purse strings and transfer the funds to Quebec. There were three long years of negotiations. The projects could and should have started in 2017. The housing crisis might be less serious today if we had started earlier. However, because of the negotiations, the projects did not start until 2020. That is the story of housing in Quebec and Canada. If anyone is looking for arguments to support Quebec's political independence, it is not hard to find them in the House. Every day of the week, we find good reasons for Quebec to become independent.
The Liberals make all kinds of promises and come up with wishy-washy programs that do not amount to much. The Conservatives want to replace them and say that they are going to get rid of everything. There will no longer be any taxes, and the invisible hand of supply and demand will balance out the market. They are day and night, but they both look similar at dawn. They are like two different shades of grey, and both are unsatisfactory for Quebeckers. We need clear, drastic measures on housing.
In the last minute that I have left, I will cite some of the things that the Bloc Québécois proposed in its last platform. We proposed putting 1% of the federal government's revenues into social, community and truly affordable housing. That is another topic that cannot be resolved in 10 minutes. When the so-called affordable housing is not affordable in real life because it is too expensive, then we need to have another look at the criteria. We need to recalculate everything. We also proposed that all of the federal government's surplus properties be prioritized for housing development. We proposed charging a tax on real estate speculation to stop people from moving too often or from flipping homes for profit. We proposed a change to the home buyers' plan. We proposed creating an acquisition fund to help first-time buyers come up with a down payment. We also proposed transfers to Quebec with no strings attached. I will close on that.
I have a message for all the federalist political parties: The best way to increase the housing supply is to transfer the money to Quebec and the provinces. They will figure it out with the municipalities. The federal government has no business telling the municipalities and provinces what to do.