Mr. Speaker, I am happy to address some of the questions I had about a month ago regarding housing starts.
I watched a very interesting interview with the housing minister on one of our local political panels, which I think was this past weekend. He was asked a question about why he would not take the GST off all homebuilding. He stuttered and stammered and said the Liberals did not want to make big changes and that was a really big change. He said they were going to nibble around the edges. However, this party ran a campaign on building faster than the speed of light, building faster than anyone has ever seen houses being built.
I went back to Statistics Canada, and I saw that in July, housing starts rose by 3%, and in August they dropped by 16%. The member across is shaking her head, but I can read it. It said that housing starts dropped sharply in August, with housing starts in Canada declining 16% in August 2025. I know the Liberals are not big on numbers and factual information, but that is what Statistics Canada said. It also said housing starts went up by 14% in September. If they go up 3%, down 16% and up 14%, that is not as fast as anyone has ever seen housing being built.
The Prime Minister talks about big, major projects and getting stuff built, but his minister is very concerned about moving too quickly on certain policies. I know imitation is the finest form of flattery, but the Liberals stole some of our campaign ideas, like taking the GST off houses costing $1.3 million and below. That is a good policy. As our leader has said, we are happy if they steal our good ideas. We want to make Canada a better place for Canadians to live. The Liberals can take all the good ideas they want from our platform.
How does the parliamentary secretary to the housing minister reconcile her minister's inability to move quickly with the Prime Minister's desire to get things built faster than they have ever been built? Those two things do not go together.
Another thing I would ask is, how does the parliamentary secretary have faith in her housing minister, who, as the former mayor of Vancouver, left Vancouver, one of the highest-priced housing markets in North America, possibly in the world, in a dumpster fire? Why would he do any better for Canadians?