Debates of May 27th, 2024

The House resumed from October 30, 2023, consideration of the motion that Bill C-356, An Act respecting payments by Canada and requirements in respect of housing and to amend certain other Acts, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Building Homes Not Bureaucracy Act

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

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour, as always, to rise in the House of Commons to debate and discuss the issues of the day. One of those issues, arguably the most pressing issue certainly in my community and in communities across the country, is housing. We have a private member's bill that has been introduced by the Conservative leader, which stands, as he has said, as the Conservative plan on housing. Unfortunately, for he and his party, it leaves much to be desired.

On this side of the House, we have recognized the crisis that exists. That crisis is underpinned by a supply crisis. Therefore, to understand what this means for the country and how we bring costs down both for prospective homebuyers and for renters, we have to find a way to add supply, and that is exactly what this government has done.

First, let me highlight the housing accelerator fund, which my friends on the other side would do well to learn from, with all due respect to them. This, at the very core of it, requires co-operation. It requires co-operation between the federal government and municipalities. Municipalities are central to this.

Last week in question period in the House, I was asked by a Conservative member about what they call “gatekeepers”. The Conservatives always use the term in the pejorative. They always want to insult and engage that way. The reality is that those whom they call “gatekeepers” are municipal councillors, mayors and public servants at the local level who are responsible for zoning.

As we know, zoning is fundamental to dealing with the housing crisis, because that is how we get more homes built, namely, adding more missing middle housing to the equation. That includes row houses, mid-rise apartments, duplexes, triplexes and fourplexes. All of these examples have a place in this discussion and debate. We need more supply and we will get more supply through embracing missing middle housing, and the housing accelerator fund does that. The reality is that while zoning is certainly not under the federal jurisdiction, it is completely in the municipal purview to deal with.

We are incenting changes across the country. No less than 179 agreements have been finalized with municipalities to push them so that we have more homes built. The reality is that in these communities, we will see more homes built. We will see federal dollars put on the table as a result of our saying to municipalities that if they change their zoning, there are federal dollars available for more affordable housing, for infrastructure for housing purposes and for public transit for housing purposes. In my community in London, let me highlight that office buildings that are vacant can now be potentially used for housing as a result of a $74-million investment that this government has made in London. London has agreed to embrace a different approach when it comes to zoning.

I have talked about renters. We do need to increase the supply of apartments to make rent more affordable. That is why we have lifted GST from the construction of purpose-built rentals. With all due respect to my Conservative colleagues, one of the glaring weaknesses of this private member's bill is that it would keep the GST on the construction of purpose-built rentals. It is astounding to me that the Leader of the Opposition, who, throughout his very long career in public life, has campaigned to cut taxes at every opportunity, does not believe that. It is all a charade. It is all an act, because if he actually believed it, he would lift GST from the construction costs of purpose-built rentals, just like this government has. It is unbelievable that he would go in this direction.

If he does not want the advice of the government, that is fine, and I know he will not take it. However, he should listen to key advocates, like the Canadian Homebuilders' Association for instance, that has for years now called for this change. The government has moved in this direction and the Conservatives have not supported it. They have obstructed this measure, in fact, through a variety of ways, and they have not answered for that at all.

With respect to federal lands, we have an opportunity here to seize the moment when it comes to using more federal lands to build more housing to ensure greater affordability. As I said, this is about dealing with a supply crisis. What do we see? The government very appropriately recognizing that, between the two options of selling federal land that is either underused or not used at all or leasing it, a leasing approach would allow for something that is much more promising. In that case, we can ensure affordability as much as possible. With the other option, obviously, affordability would be out of the government's hands once the sale has taken place.

The opposition has said nothing about this at all. It has also said nothing about how it would deal with development charges, which, if we are honest, are attacks on home building. There is no doubt about that

I see the housing critic for the Conservatives in the House today. We work well together at the committee that is responsible for housing. He has brought up, quite rightly, the issue of development charges at that committee. Unfortunately, there is no plan on the other side, and certainly not in this private member's bill, on how they would deal with development charges.

We have made clear to provinces that, as a condition of receiving infrastructure dollars from this federal government, there would have to be a freeze implemented on development charges according to April 2024 levels. Home builders have asked for that for a long time. Recently, I engaged with home builders in my community of London who were quite excited to see this change, because, as I said, development charges stand as an attack on home building. In the context of high interest rates and high costs for labour and construction supplies, among other factors that stand in the way of greater homebuilding, we have to put measures on the table that incent, that provide a green light to those in the construction sector so that they can build more, and this would do exactly that.

Finally, homelessness is absolutely fundamental in the discussion on housing. We cannot talk about housing without talking about the most vulnerable members of our communities, who unfortunately find themselves in a very difficult position now. The Conservatives have not brought up housing very much in the past few months, but they brought it up a lot last week, and that is fine. It is good to bring up the issues of the day, especially this one, in the House whenever there is an opportunity, but the Conservatives have tried to lay the blame of the homelessness crisis on the federal government, as if the federal government caused it.

Let us be clear on one thing. It is our responsibility to deal with homelessness. It is our responsibility to engage constructively and co-operatively with not-for-profit organizations that want to be part of the solution, with provincial governments that want to be part of the solution and with municipal governments that want to be right there working with us. There are many examples of where that can work and is working. I salute the efforts of Premier David Eby in British Columbia. I salute the efforts of mayors across the country who are part of this, and not-for-profit organizations. However, the opposition, by simplifying the debate, actually is not contributing to it in any meaningful way.

If opposition members actually go to the encampments that exist across the land, leave the camera at home and not politicize this issue, and talk to the people in encampments, they would find that years of trauma underpin the inhabitants' reality, trauma in the form of sexual or physical physical abuse that led to a mental health crisis has led to homelessness, or it is the pandemic. The pandemic and its impact with respect to increased costs and the lack of supply that we find has pushed many of our fellow citizens to encampments as well.

What do we do in that context? We can either politically profit off the unfortunate and unacceptable circumstances faced by people or we can put tangible solutions on the table to address the crisis. That is why this government has allocated $250 million in the most recent budget to address homelessness, specifically encampments. There is nothing from the other side, zero.

Finally, if the Conservatives want to get serious about housing, let us work together. Are they capable of that? I do not think they are. I think the other parties might be, but I do not think the Conservatives are. When I hear the Leader of the Opposition describe co-op housing, and let us remember 250,000 Canadians live in co-ops across the country, as Soviet-style housing, that is unacceptable.

I see continued efforts to obstruct the government's agenda to get more homes built. I see, as I said, the fact that the Leader of the Opposition does not want to lift taxes, GST specifically, off the construction of purpose-built rentals for the middle class. At the same time, and maybe it is not surprising, when he was housing minister, he was responsible for the construction of six affordable homes; he lost 800,000 units.

The Conservatives do not care about housing. They care about profiting politically so that they can add to their fundraising or add to whatever it is over there. They are not serious. We are serious.

[Sylvie Bérubé, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise this morning to speak to Bill C-356, an act respecting payments by Canada and requirements in respect of housing and to amend certain other acts, introduced by the leader of the official opposition.

On reading Bill C‑356, it is obvious that the bill blames the entire housing shortage on municipalities, but this crisis would not be nearly as serious as it is now if the federal government had not decided, under Harper, to withdraw funding for the construction of social housing.

The bill seeks to exercise control over the municipalities by preventing them from taking measures to protect their farmland, from setting a minimum percentage of social housing, or from protecting their built heritage, on pain of having their funding slashed, including funding for public transit development. This bill denies any federal responsibility in the matter and confirms that the Conservative Party will do nothing to address the crisis if it comes into power.

It is also a bill that offers no solutions. The market is not lacking in luxury condos. What is lacking is housing that people can afford. That is where the government should focus its efforts. This notion, however, is completely absent from the Conservative leader's vision. Bill C‑356 gives developers the keys to the city so they can build more condos that rent for $3,000 a month or more.

In short, the bill's solution to the housing crisis is to let the big real estate developers do anything, anywhere and anyhow. The populist solution offered by the bill ignores the fact that people do not only live in housing, but also in neighbourhoods and cities. That means they need infrastructure for water and sewers, for roads, and for public and private services, such as schools and grocery stores. Cities have a duty to ensure that their residents are well served and to lay down conditions.

This is also a bill that will cause bickering. As members know, since 1973, Quebec's Act respecting the Ministère du Conseil exécutif has prevented the federal government from dealing directly with Quebec municipalities. The Canada-Quebec infrastructure framework agreement reflects this reality, stipulating that the federal government has no right to intervene in the establishment of priorities. What Bill C‑356 would do is tear up this agreement. Although it took 27 months to negotiate the agreement, Bill C‑356 sets the stage for two years of bickering, during which all projects will be paralyzed. In the middle of a housing crisis, this would be downright disastrous.

If a municipality's housing starts do not increase as required by Ottawa, Bill C‑356 would cut its gas tax transfer and public transit transfer by 1% for every percentage point shortfall from the target the bill unilaterally sets. For example, in Quebec, housing starts are down 60% this year rather than up 15%, so transfers would have been reduced by about 75% if Bill C‑356 had been in effect. That is unacceptable.

Bill C‑356 goes even further by withholding funding for public transportation if cities do not achieve the 15% target it unilaterally sets. This policy would encourage car use, since transit would only be built after the fact, not in conjunction with new housing developments.

It is clear that Bill C‑356 is not a good solution to the housing crisis in Quebec and across Canada. As members know, the housing crisis currently plaguing Quebec, which was once known as one of the most affordable provinces, is not confined to large cities. It has been a problem in my region for more than 15 years. It has resulted in a shortage of housing units and restricted access to affordable housing.

In my riding, the housing crisis affects both availability and affordability. Prices are also limiting access to housing in the regions. Although the housing crisis initially affected mostly low-income households, it is now increasingly affecting companies' ability to recruit and retain employees.

I cannot help thinking of Nunavik, in my riding. Half of all Inuit in Nunavik live in overcrowded housing, and almost a third live in homes requiring major repairs. This overcrowding created serious issues during the pandemic. We even had to bar access to the communities to protect them from exposure to the virus.

The housing crisis in southern Quebec is nothing compared with the situation of Inuit communities in Nunavik, in the north. It is not unusual for five, six, seven or even eight people to live in a two-bedroom unit. If one of them has social issues, it impacts the entire family.

The housing problem in Nunavik is nothing new. There has been a housing shortage since 1990, when the federal government stopped funding construction for five years. Nunavik currently needs around 800 more social housing units.

The housing shortage in Nunavik has also been a long-standing obstacle for students. Its impact on students who live in cramped accommodations can be severe, since they have no place to study or do their homework in peace. In addition to affecting young people, the housing shortage and lack of infrastructure in Nunavik are having a significant impact on every aspect of education, notably the working conditions of local staff, the ability of school boards to hire and retain teachers, and the ability to offer specialized programs.

Students are not the only ones affected by the housing crisis. Entire families are impacted by toxic cohabitation. This is not something that is tracked in housing statistics, and it is often neglected in analyses of the crisis. It refers to couples who are separated but continue to live together because they cannot find another place to live. It also refers to households in which one member develops an alcohol or drug addiction, which can compromise the safety of the other members of the household.

Bill C-356 will certainly not remedy all these problems. However, the Bloc Québécois already has a vast array of potential solutions to suggest.

Let me name a few: that the federal government gradually reinvest in social, community and truly affordable housing until it reaches 1% of its total annual revenue to provide a consistent and predictable funding stream instead of ad hoc agreements; that all federal surplus priorities be repurposed for social, community and deeply affordable housing as a priority in an effort to address the housing crisis; that a tax be placed on real estate speculation to counter artificial overheating of the housing market; that the home buyers' plan be reformed to account for the increasingly different realities and family situations of Quebec households; that the federal government undertake a financial restructuring of programs under the national housing strategy to create an acquisition fund; that Quebec receive its fair share of funding, without conditions, from federal programs to combat homelessness, while also calling for the funding released in the last year of the pandemic to be made permanent.

The Leader of the Opposition should have based his bill and its wording on these sound proposals by the Bloc Québécois. A simple transfer to the Quebec government with no conditions attached would be ideal. Had this been done in 2017, Quebec could have built and renovated a number of social housing projects three years earlier. It certainly would have mitigated the housing crisis we are facing today. Unconditional transfers would make the funding process much simpler. In contrast, the various agreements add to the associated red tape and increase the wait time for actually collecting the sums in question. I would point out that the programs enacted by the Quebec government are often innovative and effective.

It must also be said that the Bloc Québécois has reiterated the need for federal funding to target first and foremost all the myriad needs for affordable social housing, as this is where the most pressing needs are.

Bill C-356 is not the way to go if we want to build housing and cut red tape. That is why we must vote against Bill C-356.

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

Mr. Speaker, Rafah experienced the worst horrors of war again last night with atrocities that defy humanity. As human beings from across the globe protested for the terror to end, those in power did not stop it. Shame on every leader who has allowed this to continue. Innocent lives have been taken and maimed, and the scars of the children will not be healed. The trauma of war is now imprinted in their DNA and will be a reoccurring trauma. The last eight months have been unthinkable trauma for Palestinians and Jews in communities all across the globe. Their histories will be forever scarred by the inhumanity of man. No one wins in war.

I implore the Canadian government to stand up for humanity and peace. The drumbeat of war is spreading across the world to the point that the leader of the United Kingdom is now proposing mandatory conscription. There are nine days—

[Scott Aitchison, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am not entirely sure how this relates to the private member's bill before us right now, so I am wondering if you could help us out here.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Greg Fergus]

The Chair has been very tolerant of the beginning of the hon. member's speech, but the Chair would appreciate it if the member would draw all this together with the private member's bill before the House at this time, Bill C-356.

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

Mr. Speaker, there are nine days until the 80th commemoration of D-Day, and it seems that the leaders of this world have learned nothing.

Now, what we are here to debate today is the Conservatives' gatekeeper bill. The Conservatives do not like gatekeepers, unless it is them. The leader of the Conservative Party is the largest threat to Canada's freedoms since Confederation. A little known fact is that the leader of the Conservatives and I went to the same high school. Yes, I am a Calgarian. When I read this bill, it reminded me to revisit the far-right manifesto written in Alberta by the far-right mentors of the Leader of the Opposition, called the “firewall”. It lays out a plan to gatekeep Alberta against Canada, punish those who believe in a strong, united Canada and reward those who will adopt and manifest its doctrine of power with exclusion.

As we speak, Danielle Smith, the leader of the UCP and the Conservative Premier of Alberta, is passing laws that come directly from this manifesto, making it possible to throw out municipal governments' decisions, throw out municipal governments she does not like, limit academic freedoms by gatekeeping the research funds and destroy the Canada pension plan to keep people down in retirement. The firewall manifesto envisions that decision-making processes that affect people's lives and freedoms—

[The Speaker, Liberal, Greg Fergus]

The hon. member for Lethbridge is rising on a point of order.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I understand that there is a great deal of latitude in terms of how we address different speeches in this House. The issue at hand right now is housing, Bill C-356, a private member's bill brought forward by the hon. Leader of the Opposition.

The member is currently talking about provincial politics. That does not seem to fit within the scope of this bill. Furthermore, she is talking about some far alt-right conspiracy theory. Again, I am not sure how that fits within the scope of this bill.

I would ask you to make a ruling, Mr. Speaker, that would be most appropriate for this.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Greg Fergus]

The hon. member for Port Moody—Coquitlam is talking about housing in general. The Chair has been pretty tolerant in terms of the latitude.

I will invite the hon. member for Port Moody—Coquitlam to make her point on the bill that is before the House at this time.

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

Mr. Speaker, the firewall manifesto envisions that decision-making processes that affect people's lives and freedoms flow through premiers' offices. This is exactly what the leader of the Conservatives wants to do when he says he will use the notwithstanding clause to pass his laws. The NDP is here to stop him. This right-wing ideology of Conservatives imposing their will on women and all Canadians is dangerous and serves only the corporate class who have controlled federal governments since Confederation.

This reality is so obviously true in housing. Governments at every level have overseen the financialization of housing. Instead of protecting our social housing stock for people, they have encouraged upzoning and gentrification in the name of density. Density dreams belong to developers, who have made millions and billions of dollars off the displacement of low- and middle-income Canadians. The financialization of housing is only working for the wealthy and leaving people behind. The well-being of persons with disabilities and seniors is sacrificed to millionaire CEOs.

Liberal and Conservative governments have ensured that truly affordable social housing has been sacrificed to create an asset class for the wealthiest people and companies across the globe. Right now in my riding of Port Moody—Coquitlam, hundreds of affordable townhomes and apartments are being emptied and are sitting empty. There are entire blocks of homes boarded up, ready for redevelopment, and some of these homes have been empty for years. Developers choose not to fill them so they do not have to spend one cent on maintenance or pay tenants out when the time comes to begin their redevelopment. This is wrong.

During this housing crisis, governments have allowed wealthy developers to hoard housing, allowing perfectly good homes to sit empty to protect the profits of corporations over the well-being of residents. High-end sales centres for luxury condos exist in every neighbourhood across this country, right beside where low- and middle-income Canadians have been displaced. These corporate density dreams are not focused on local buyers; they are marketing their luxury product overseas. When a traveller arrives in the international terminal of YVR, they are enticed by posters of luxury housing to attract international investment.

The current housing crisis is a crisis of negligence in protecting precious housing supply that people call home. I hear the calls for supply in the community, but this is not what this bill is talking about. I need to clarify what that supply call needs to be: affordable housing supply. The federal government must put a laser focus on maintaining what is left of housing co-ops, purpose-built rentals and not-for-profit housing in the country. It has to put that before investment. The federal government needs to immediately reinvest in social housing, not in capital loans, which it so feebly continues to bring forward, but ongoing stable operating funds to get people housed now.

The need to act cannot wait, and the solution is not Conservative gatekeeping. Conservative policies are the ones that caused this problem. We cannot have one more person lose their home because they have been displaced by corporate capitalism.

Let me reiterate how Canadians got into a situation where homelessness is growing, rents are skyrocketing and property purchase is out of reach for an entire generation. Conservative and Liberal governments encouraged the financialization of housing instead of protecting our social housing stock. They encouraged upzoning and gentrification in the name of density and profits. Density dreams are for developers. The financialization of housing is only working for the wealthy, and the most impacted right now are renters. We are losing rental homes at a rate of 15:1. For every new unit the government prides itself on building, an unaffordable new unit, it has not protected 15 other renters, who now have to find themselves evicted or demovicted from their homes.

The government must immediately act to end the financialization of housing before more Canadians lose their homes, before more children are displaced from their schools and their friends and before more seniors lose services as they are forced out of the community in which they live. I can guarantee that what the Conservatives have proposed in this bill would not do that. As a city councillor in Coquitlam, I saw how these types of policies played out, with the trading of density happening in the corner offices, while seniors, persons with disabilities and single moms were losing their homes.

I am going to tell the story about 500 Foster, a redevelopment in the city of Coquitlam. I went to see those folks before a public hearing, only to find out they received a letter from the developer, even before upzoning, telling them to start moving out. There was a single mother with a child who has a disability and a senior over 70, begging me to find him what he called an “old person's home” to move into. This is going on in every community of this country.

I will close by saying that New Democrats that know housing is a human right and that we will continue to stand up for people and block the harmful ideologies of the corporate Conservatives, who are attempting to roll back the clock so that the Leader of the Opposition can continue to act like a high school bully.

[Scott Aitchison, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I was relieved, when this debate began, to hear the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Housing describe that we are in a housing crisis because, of course, a year ago, the Minister of Housing could not even use the word “crisis”; he could not be brought to do it.

Something obviously happened over the course of the summer, and the Prime Minister's Office woke up and recognized that we are in fact in a housing crisis and that the use of the word “crisis” does make sense. We know we are in a crisis because we see the results of what is going on. Rent has doubled in the last nine years. Mortgages have doubled in the last couple of years. Home prices have doubled. Mortgage rates have skyrocketed. Inflation is out of control. There are too few homes for too many people.

It is absolutely a supply crisis, as the parliamentary secretary mentioned. We see this with young people who are forced to stay at home and live in their parents' basements. They are not starting their lives as they normally would. The number of homeless people in this country continues to grow. We see tent cities in communities large and small all across Canada now. The cost of lodging, rent and mortgages is impacting affordability generally.

On top of that, there is the carbon tax. The carbon tax applies to the materials used to build homes, so the materials for homes are getting more expensive. Buying food and heating those homes are also getting more expensive. More people are struggling to maintain the homes they have.

We know that it is a supply issue, but it is also a housing affordability crisis. We have to think about what impacts the cost of a home. We know those materials I mentioned, like the two-by-fours and those kinds of things, cost more money. The carbon tax is applied to the production of those two-by-fours, to the delivery of materials to job sites and to everything.

There is a shortage of skilled trades and labour right now, which is adding to the problem as well. We need to make sure that we are attracting people to this country who can help us build homes. That is not really happening. The approval processes at the local levels are also slowing things down and are adding costs to the process of building homes. There are also taxes, fees and government charges.

Let us talk about that for a second. Who makes more money on housing than anybody else? The question is rhetorical, but Canadians would be horrified to know that it is not the big, greedy developers I hear the NDP talk about; it is government. In fact, between 2013 and 2023, the costs have gone up dramatically. The land value in this country has gone up about 34%, and that is due to the fact that we have a lot of land. We have a lot of land in this country, and there should be no reason that we have trouble building homes. Construction costs in that 10-year period have gone up 122%. That is the cost of materials. However, what have gone up the most are Government charges and taxes. From 2013 to 2023, government charges have gone up almost 250%. Those are charges at local levels. The HST charge on houses has gone up 221%. That means nobody makes more money on housing than governments. About 33% of the cost of the average home in this country is government.

What makes up those fees? HST is a big part of it; there is no question about that. However, municipalities are absolutely on the front lines of this situation, and they are also one of the biggest culprits of the problem. At the local level, we have infrastructure charges and development charges. Those are charged are per lot, and they can be staggeringly expensive. We have planning approval fees, parkland and parking fees. We often have school charges that are charged by the school board. We have density bonusing fees in some cases, building permit fees, and water and sewer connections fees. There are all kinds of fees.

At the provincial level, there are land transfer taxes when a home gets sold. There are sales taxes, like the GST and the PST. There is mortgage insurance, if someone cannot put down more than 20% on a home. These fees add up to over $200,000 on average. They are all government charges that go right to the bottom line of owning a house. Now we know why house prices just keep getting more expensive; it is that the government makes so much money. The beauty of the Leader of the Opposition's private member's bill, which is actually a very simple bill, is that it tells the municipalities on the front lines of this, which charge the biggest fees, that they just need to get the job done.

The Liberals are happy to talk about their housing accelerator fund, which I am happy to take a moment to talk about right now. The parliamentary secretary was hopeful that I would learn something from it. I have learned something from it. It is a joke. That is the truth. It is a $4 billion fund in the context of a government that is borrowing money. This $4 billion is borrowed money that it is giving to municipalities based on the promise that those municipalities will be better.

I asked to see the agreements between the municipalities and the federal government several months ago. I did not get them. The best I could come up with was searching through each of these municipalities' staff reports to council and some of the media reports, which have been very interesting. All of them have language such as “we will do this” or “we will do that”. They say that they will permit higher density, will look at ways to improve the process or will think about things. There is nothing definitive in any of the staff reports to council. They have been adopted, but not much of it has actually been done.

I will focus on something very specific. The Minister of Housing is incredibly proud of this housing accelerator fund. He is proud because he is focused very much on allowing four residential units as of right in any zone across the city. That means you could turn your single-family home into a fourplex without having to go to the municipality to get approval to do it. He thinks this is some kind of silver bullet, I guess, because the City of Windsor said it was not going to do that, but it had a proposal to do higher density around transit, where it made sense. It had a proposal to permit fourplexes around the university, for example, and things like that. It would have permitted thousands of units, but that was not good enough because the government wants fourplexes as of right.

The City of Toronto has had this rule in place now for just over a year, having fourplexes as of right. This is the great panacea the Minister of Housing is so proud of, having fourplexes as of right everywhere. Since May last year, when the government adopted this, there have been 74 applications in the City of Toronto, so clearly that is not the silver bullet the Minister of Housing thought it was. However, the Liberals sure have gone all over the country doing photo ops and press releases, being so proud of the $4 billion they are going to spend on the promise of doing better, when they are not getting the job done.

On top of the affordability issues we face, the housing accelerator fund money is going to cities that are increasing their charges. Can members imagine, in an affordability crisis, that the Liberals are sending money to cities that are increasing charges? Case in point, the City of Ottawa is going to get $178 million. It just approved an increase to its development charges by 11%. It will now cost an extra $55,000 on a house in Ottawa. The City of Toronto got $471 million. It increased its development charges this year by 21%. It is making housing more expensive in a housing affordability crisis, and what it got out of the Liberal government is a cheerleading squad.

The Leader of the Opposition is not proposing to tell the cities how to plan what kind of housing they need, nor how to do their municipal zoning and approvals process; rather, Conservatives are saying that government needs to get out of the way. We will deliver that kind of result by tying federal infrastructure money to cities with results. It is the fundamental difference between a government that is long on photo ops, talking points and being proud of its parade, and a government in waiting that would deliver results and would pay for those results. There would be no more promises. Canadians deserve results; they are tired of the photo ops and the vacuous grandstanding. They need results. If the Leader of the Opposition becomes prime minister, they would get them.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is a bit much, listening to the member. He was the mayor of Huntsville, and he is talking about the costs and the percentage increases in terms of government costs. When he was the mayor, development charges went up 20%.

[Scott Aitchison, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

That is a lie. That is not true. We cut them.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it will be interesting to see. The member says it is not true, but that is the number I have been provided with. We will find out what is the truth. It might upset him, and justifiably so.

Let us take a look at the bill itself. Imagine the leader of the Conservative Party is trying to give the false impression that he actually cares about housing in Canada. What did he do when he was the minister responsible for housing in Canada, when we lost literally hundreds of thousands of housing units that went from low-income affordable to much more expensive? It was hundreds of thousands of rental units. When he was the minister of housing, and I need two hands on which to count this, he actually built six low-income housing units, and it cost him millions and millions of dollars to do that.

Now he comes in today as if he is going to be the one who fixes the housing issues in the Canada. He has to be kidding. How is that possible? Let us take a look at the record of the Conservative Party. Not only was the leader of Conservative Party a disaster when he was the minister of housing, but the Conservative Party also abandoned housing.

Contrasting that to today, there is a Prime Minister and a government that are working with municipalities and provinces, recognizing the importance of housing and investing not only time but also hundreds of millions, going into billions, of dollars into housing. We understand it is an issue of fairness. We must think about the millennials and generation X, and ensure that the housing dreams of Canadians will be there and alive into the future.

We have a government that cares about housing, in contrast to a government under Harper and the former minister of housing who is today's leader of the Conservative Party that did not care about the housing in our country. The facts are there. That is the history. Let us contrast that to the billions of dollars when the Prime Minister came up with the first-ever national housing strategy years ago, and the types of financial assistance we are providing to non-profit housing, whether the habitats or the infill homes, as well as supporting housing co-ops and non-profits. These are the type of investments we are putting into housing. That is not to mention working with provinces and municipalities.

There was a time when all political parties did not support housing, whether they were New Democrats, Liberals or Conservatives, in the early 1990s. We would have to go back generations before we found a prime minister and a government that have invested so much energy in ensuring that the federal government plays an important role in housing. We are demonstrating that and have been doing so ever since we tabled the national housing strategy years ago. The housing strategy is more than just paper; we have invested hundreds of millions, going into billions, of dollars.

We are working with governments at all levels, and non-profits, to ensure that affordable housing will continue to be a reality for Canadians. That is something we are doing in a tangible way. That is why I am totally amazed that today's leader of the Conservative Party is trying to give the impression he is.

The leader of the Conservative Party goes around Canada talking about how Canada is broken. He amplifies the fears and anxieties of people in regard to housing. Yes, it is a serious issue. While the leader of the Conservative Party goes around speaking to the extreme right, the Prime Minister has been working with the federal minister, along with the provinces and municipalities. A good example of that happened not long ago, maybe two months or eight weeks ago, when the Prime Minister was in the city of Winnipeg.

In Winnipeg, the Premier of Manitoba, the provincial minister, the federal minister, the Prime Minister and the Mayor of Winnipeg talked about how Manitoba is moving forward in dealing with the issue of affordable housing. The Mayor of Winnipeg, along with me and others, last December, talked about how the federal government is investing and encouraging municipalities to build more homes, not only encouraging but also providing financial support. We have seen cooperation in the province of Manitoba.

It is not just governments but also organizations. I often make reference to Habitat for Humanity, which across Canada does phenomenal work in ensuring that homes are affordable. Individuals who would otherwise never get the opportunity to have a home are getting a home. Over the years in Manitoba alone, we are talking about 600 homes. The contributions it has made to Winnipeg North, I would suggest, are very significant. From a non-profit point of view, they are probably second to no other.

The current government has not just opened its eyes, as the Conservative leader has said, on the issue of housing. We have been dealing with housing for years now, recognizing that it is not just Ottawa's responsibility. Ottawa has a responsibility to lead and be there, to assist where we can and provide resources where we can. We have been doing just that.

Contrast that to the attitudes that come from the leader of the Conservative Party or from the Conservative Party in general and the extreme right. What do they talk about? Conservatives criticize the municipalities. They argue in terms of having money and being prepared to give money, but such-and-such things must be done, and if they are not done, then there will not be any money given. There is no sense of cooperation coming from the Conservative Party, none whatsoever. It is either the Conservative way or the highway when it comes to the development of housing.

It is only in the last two years that I have actually started to hear Conservatives talk about housing, unlike the government, which has been talking about housing in terms of the housing accelerator fund for purpose-built apartments. Conservatives oppose that fund. Talking about the GST, the Conservatives would like to get rid of it. Some provinces like the federal policy so much that they are doing the same thing with the provincial sales tax. The Conservatives do not believe that the GST is a good policy either. Conservatives talk about the federal lands, but we have been talking about the federal lands for years. We have actually taken actions on that.

Think of Kapyong Barracks as an example, in the city of Winnipeg. With respect to development charges, we are funding literally billions of dollars to support provinces and cities while ensuring that the price of housing remains lower than it would be without that sort of fund. Again, we are looking for cooperation. There is $250 million in the budget towards fighting homelessness; of course, the Conservatives are voting against that also.

The Conservatives seem to believe they have a nice shiny plan tied up in the bill before us. Welcome to the game. However, the Conservative Party has no credibility on the issue of housing, and that is the bottom line. As the Liberal government continues to demonstrate that it genuinely cares, the Conservative Party focuses on cuts. That is the difference: Liberals care; Conservatives cut.

[Mario Beaulieu, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-356 reiterates the Conservative leader's talking points about the housing crisis.

According to him, the municipalities are responsible for the housing crisis by tying up real estate development projects in supposedly needless red tape. One of the Conservatives' proposals is to set a target for increasing the number of housing starts. Beginning on April 1, 2024, the target would increase by 15% each year.

Bill C-356 places the entire blame for the housing shortage on the municipalities, even though the current crisis would not have been this severe had Ottawa not pulled out of funding for social housing under the Harper government.

Bill C-356 would in effect put municipalities under outside control by preventing them from taking measures to ensure a minimum of social housing or from protecting their built heritage, under penalty of having their funding reduced—including funding for the development of public transit.

In my riding of La Pointe-de-l'Île, I have met met many times with seniors, families and community associations and that has helped me realize the enormity of this tragedy. Expensive condos are already largely available on the market. What is sorely lacking is affordable housing. The resulting mad scramble for rentals betrays people's growing sense of despair. They feel that the government is doing nothing to help them.

The pressing issue is not to continue encouraging big real estate developers to participate in this frantic race, but rather to address the housing shortage affecting most low-income people. The Bloc Québécois has already made a wide range of proposals and interventions. For example, it is proposing that the federal government reorganize its funding for the various programs under the national housing strategy to create an acquisition fund. This kind of fund would enable co-operatives and non-profit organizations to acquire apartment buildings currently available on the private market, keep them affordable and convert them into social, community or deeply affordable housing units. For example, in my riding of La Pointe-de-l'Île, Corporation Mainbourg, in association with the Quebec government and the City of Montreal, acquired Domaine La Rousselière. This is a 720-unit complex that will be protected from the speculative market to ensure its long-term affordability will be maintained.

The Bloc Québécois has long said that the provinces and municipalities are in the best position to know the housing needs on their territory. It is not the federal government's place to interfere. I would remind members that housing is exclusively under the jurisdiction of Quebec and the provinces. Since 1973, Quebec law has prevented the federal government from negotiating directly with municipalities, and Bill C-356 would tear up that agreement. It would create a series of conflicts. It took two years to reach the agreement, and we cannot afford another two-year delay that will bring all projects to a halt. All of the interference brought in by Bill C-356 means that this irresponsible bill would create a breach that would foster sustained conflict and certainly paralyze every project, right in the middle of a housing crisis.

I would remind members that we welcomed the $3.7-billion Canada-Quebec housing agreement signed in 2020. Half of that money came from the federal government, but the negotiations took three years. The funding that was supposed to go to Quebec was blocked until the two levels of government came to an agreement. Had that happened in 2017, Quebec could have built and renovated many social and affordable housing projects since then, which would have helped mitigate the current housing crisis.

In closing, the Bloc Québécois deplores the federal government's constant need to spend its money, interfere in Quebec's jurisdictions and tell Quebec how to spend its money. We are asking that the federal government transfer its share with no strings attached. That is why we will be voting against Bill C-356.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

The hon. Leader of the Opposition has five minutes for his right of reply.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Leader of the Opposition]

Madam Speaker, after nine years, the Prime Minister is not worth the cost of housing, which has doubled since he took office. It is hard to believe, but on my last day as housing minister, in November 2015, the average rent in Canada's 10 biggest cities for a one-bedroom was $973. Can members believe that? It is now $1,893.

The average down payment needed for a new home then was $22,000; it is almost quaint. Now it is almost $50,000. The average mortgage payment needed on a brand new home was just $1,400. It is now almost $3,500. It took about 39% of the average family paycheque to make monthly payments on the average home. That number has now risen to 64%, a record-smashing total, meaning that one would not be able to eat, clothe oneself, own a vehicle or do anything other than pay taxes and one's mortgage if one is the average family buying the average home.

The Prime Minister did not care much about any of this until he started crashing in the polls, and then he panicked and appointed a big-talking housing minister to take the helm of the ministry of housing. This minister had already, according to Liberal admission, caused immigration to run out of control. Since that time, we have seen a flurry of photo ops and new government programs designed to generate media headlines. However, predictably, these headlines have not reduced housing costs or increased home building. Home building is down this year. The federal housing agency says that it will be down next year and the year after that. Rent and mortgage payments continue to rise.

That is because the government, under the Prime Minister, is building bureaucracy rather than homes. My common-sense plan is the building homes, not bureaucracies act. It seeks to provide exactly what it says: less bureaucracy, more homebuilding.

In a nutshell, here is my common-sense plan to build the homes: First, we would require municipalities to permit 15% more homebuilding as a condition of getting their federal funds; second, we would sell off thousands of acres of federal land and buildings, so they can be used to build homes; and third, we would axe taxes on homebuilding. In this plan, we would get rid of the carbon tax, the sales tax and other taxes that block homebuilding.

This is a fundamentally different approach than what we see from the current Liberal government. What it currently does with its so-called housing accelerator program is to fund box-ticking. It puts together a bunch of boxes that municipalities have to tick for procedural and bureaucratic reforms. Once the boxes are ticked, the money is sent and we move on. The problem is that, even if those are the right boxes to tick and the municipality ultimately ticks them, when the feds turn their backs, the city can then put in place a bunch of new obstacles. For example, municipalities such as Ottawa and Toronto have actually jacked up development charges after getting federal housing accelerator funds. The City of Winnipeg got federal funding and then blocked 2,000 homes right next to a federal transit station.

That is why trying to manage process will get one nowhere. When one pays for bureaucratic box-ticking, that is what one gets. However, people cannot live in a box ticked by a bureaucrat; they have to live in a home. That is why my plan would pay for results. It simply requires that municipalities permit 15% more homes per year. If they hit the target, they keep their federal money. If they beat the target, they get a bonus. If they miss the target, they pay a fine. They are paid on a per completion basis, just as a realtor or a home builder is paid per home built. We want to pay for keys in doors and families sitting in a beautiful new kitchen, enjoying their dinner. We want families to be housed, healthy and safe, with money in the bank. That is the result we are going to pay for. Now let us bring it home.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

The question is on the motion.

If a member participating in person wishes that the motion be carried or carried on division, or if a member of a recognized party participating in person wishes to request a recorded division, I would invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Madam Speaker, I request a recorded division.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Pursuant to Standing Order 93, the division stands deferred until Wednesday, May 29, at the expiry of the time provided for oral questions.

Bill C‑49—Time Allocation Motion

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

moved:

That in relation to Bill C‑49, An Act to amend the Canada–Newfoundland and Labrador Atlantic Accord Implementation Act and the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Resources Accord Implementation Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, not more than five further hours shall be allotted to the consideration at third reading stage of the said bill; and

That, at the expiry of the five hours provided for consideration at third reading stage of the said bill, any proceedings before the House shall be interrupted, if required for the purpose of this order, and, in turn, every question necessary for the disposal of the said stage of the bill shall be put forthwith and successively without further debate or amendment.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Pursuant to Standing Order 67.1, there will now be a 30-minute question period. I invite hon. members who wish to ask questions to rise in their places or use the “raise hand” function so that the Chair can have some idea of the number of members who wish to participate in this question period.

The hon. parliamentary secretary to the government House leader.

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

Madam Speaker, I can appreciate just how critically important the legislation is to Atlantic Canada in many different ways. It is about economic opportunities. I know my Atlantic colleagues are very anxious to see the legislation pass. I also understand that there are provinces that are waiting for the legislation to pass because of the mere necessity of seeing the provincial legislation ultimately pass.

Could the minister amplify how important it is that the legislation get through sooner, as opposed to later, because we have provincial governments, and even different political parties, that want to see the legislation pass quickly?

[Jonathan Wilkinson, Liberal, Minister of Energy and Natural Resources]

Madam Speaker, it is extremely important that the legislation move forward. As folks who understand how the Atlantic accords work would know, we worked on this in lockstep with the governments of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador: every word, every period and every comma. It requires mirror legislation to be introduced in both legislatures after it actually goes through the parliamentary process here in Ottawa.

I will quote the two premiers, in terms of their anticipation of this act. Premier Furey said, “Newfoundland and Labrador is perfectly positioned in the green energy transition. Part of that transition requires offshore wind so our province can become a world leader in green hydrogen. We continue to support the Government of Canada on Bill C-49 and urge the other federal parties to do the same.”

Premier Houston of Nova Scotia said, “Bill C-49 is a necessary...step in unlocking our energy potential. There will be many steps along the road but we are hopeful that Bill C-49 passes so we can get started.”