Debates of Feb. 23rd, 2026

Build Canada Homes Act

[Ned Kuruc, Conservative, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Mr. Speaker, simply put, Canadians want action. I knocked on 120,000 doors and I met a lot of young adults who lived in basements. While the government wants to do more research on what is happening, on this side of the aisle, we actually talk to young Canadians. We actually hear their wants and needs. We actually listen to Canadians. We formulate our thoughts and we try to execute.

Some members on that side will call us obstructionists. I beg to differ. I believe the cornerstone to our democracy is a very good and reliable opposition, and we cannot discount that. When they trample all over us and call us obstructionists, I call that freedom and I call that democracy.

[Alexis Deschênes, Bloc, Gaspésie—Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Listuguj, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Bloc Québécois is concerned that Build Canada Homes will create a new point of federal-provincial friction and make things more complicated. I agree with my colleague on that.

I would like to hear my colleague's opinion. What does he think of our proposal, which is simply for the federal government to redistribute the billions of dollars to the provinces so that the provinces can manage the construction of new homes themselves?

[Ned Kuruc, Conservative, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to possibly explore it and we could talk about it. I have not seen anything cross my desk, but we on this side are open to many different decisions and collaborations. Maybe we could talk about that further.

[Steven Bonk, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Mr. Speaker, we already have three bureaucracies for housing in this country, and now the Liberals are wanting to add another one. We had my colleague from Calgary Nose Hill point out very clearly what exactly was on the CMHC website, which is exactly what the Liberals are trying to do with this new bill.

Is it not an admission of failure when they have three bureaucracies already in place to do a job but cannot do the job, and now they are trying to create another one? I was just wondering if my hon. colleague could comment further on that.

[Ned Kuruc, Conservative, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there have been more examples of admissions of failure. We have heard them in the House. I have heard many 10-minute speeches that do not actually speak to Bill C-20. It is much like when I hold stakeholder meetings back in Hamilton, which I do regularly with the housing sector. I ask them whether they understand Build Canada Homes, and not one of our experts in the Hamilton-Wentworth and Niagara region can actually say what Build Canada Homes does.

We heard it about 20 minutes ago when the member across the way did not talk about Bill C-20. He blamed everything on the Conservatives and the right wing. I do not even know what it was. Like I said, I am more dumbfounded now, after listening to him, than I was before. There were no solutions coming from that. They do not even understand their own bill.

The rest of Canada and Canadians watching this want to know what Build Canada Homes would do because the stakeholders have no clue what it would do or how it would better Canadians. I do know that they have hired some bureaucrats north of $700,000 to start filling it out with employees. That is what we do know. However, there are no shovels in the ground. There are no homes built, and it will fail just like all the other ones did. As someone on the public accounts committee, I cannot wait to dig my teeth into this one when it comes across our plate.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to be here. I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Acadie—Bathurst.

I appreciate the opportunity to speak about the importance of the Build Canada Homes act, which is truly a holistic approach to housing. Access to safe, affordable housing is the cornerstone of healthy, growing communities and economic opportunity. It provides people with stability and a place to raise their families.

Housing costs continue to rise, which is something we heard about on all sides of the House. It is consistent with what we heard while knocking on doors.

At the same time, I think it was the member for Sackville—Bedford—Preston who got up and talked about his private member's bill and having a plan for housing, and he was mocked by members of the Conservative Party: How dare he have a plan? How dare he bring something forward? He was laughed at and mocked. It was his first time being elected as a member of Parliament, and he was right at the top of the private members' list, but all he got was mockery from the Conservatives. When the Conservatives get up for their speeches, they say, “Well, there is no plan. The Liberals have no plan,” and then they mock someone who is stepping forward to lower housing prices for young people in his riding.

The Conservatives do not have a plan. All they have is obstruction. The last Conservative speaker, the member for Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, said something to the effect that they're not obstructionists and this is freedom.

I cannot believe it. I do not know if they hear themselves. All they do is delay. They talk about the government's plans and say that what the Liberals put forward in their platform has not come forward. Well, it is not just in the bill before us, but in the budget, which was tabled in the fall and I understand has finally gone through committee. There are other bills that have been delayed, such as affordability measures. However, this bill is not the entirety of the plan.

It is great for the Conservatives to cherry-pick and say that they are on the side of freedom, but all they are doing is standing here in the House of Commons, preventing people from moving forward. They can shout and say, “This is democracy,” but there is a difference between being the opposition and just being obstructionists.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Mr. Speaker, they say that we are the government, but they know how the math works. They know it is a minority government. They know they can talk out the bill, and that is what they do on all the bills.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am hitting too close to home, because all they want to do is chirp.

Let us go to the actual housing experts, because they see themselves as housing experts over there, but not many of them are, as I look across. However, let us talk about the Co-operative Housing Federation of Canada on Bill C-20. It said this:

Canada’s housing co-operatives welcome the federal government’s continued focus on housing in Budget 2025. As Canadians continue to face an unprecedented affordability crisis, today’s commitments are a positive signal; building more homes that people can afford is an essential part of remedying the crisis.

In particular, we are pleased to see the government recognize the value of growing non-market housing, including housing co-ops, through Build Canada Homes. With its robust pipeline of cross-country projects, the co-operative housing sector is ready and able to partner with Build Canada Homes to continue to build co-op housing at scale, as we have been doing through the Co-operative Housing Development Program and beyond.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Mr. Speaker, again, the Conservatives are just heckling me through this speech, and they laugh.

This is an organization that provides co-operative housing throughout this country. I bet the members over there have not visited a co-op in their riding. This is fundamental housing that was built, but successive governments, both Liberal and Conservative, stopped building that housing.

The hon. member has a smug look on his face. He thinks it is so funny. Would the constituents back in Alberta find it amusing that he would stand up here and mock co-operative housing? It is unbelievable. I should not say that it is unbelievable, because it is truly believable. That is all we are seeing here today as legislation, again, is stalled.

The previous speaker said that there were no experts that side with this. The Canadian Housing and Renewal Association is an organization that provides affordable housing across the country. It said:

The Canadian Housing and Renewal Association congratulates [the Minister] and the Government of Canada on the creation of Build Canada Homes.

This new agency is an important step toward addressing the housing crisis—building homes at speed and scale, ensuring affordability, and listening to the community housing sector.

We also congratulate Ana Bailão on her nomination as Chief Executive Officer of the BCH agency. We look forward to working with Ana and the Build Canada Homes team to deliver the homes communities need most.

Together, we can build a stronger, fairer, and more resilient housing system for all Canadians.

The organization that wants to build more affordable housing in this country, true affordable housing, is saying this legislation is a great step forward.

The Conservatives laugh. The Conservatives delay, and the Conservatives obstruct. They talk about there potentially being problems with this bill. Let us send it to committee and end the debate right now. Let us send it to committee and see what the next step is. If these experts are wrong, because the Conservatives are saying that the people who want to build affordable housing in this country are wrong, then they are right and their leader, who built six homes when he was the minister responsible, is the person we should be listening to.

At the same time as they are stalling this legislation, they are going to stall affordability measures. They are going to stall funding for these particular programs. They are going to stall the billions of dollars through budgetary measures to ensure that there is meat on these bones. This is an agency that is going to be created.

The consistency throughout the speeches today is that we have heard from our constituents. We have heard there is a housing crisis and we have a government that's willing to step up and take action. It is the opposition's job to oppose and to hold the government to account, but what we have seen, not just in this Parliament but in previous Parliaments, is the opposition knowing that in a minority Parliament, they can just talk out the clock. They can keep talking and prevent these measures from seeing the light of day and getting to committee.

The Conservatives sit there amused at the notion that it is not them, that we should not look at them as being responsible for legislation not getting through. They say, as they have heckled to me before, that it is the government's fault.

The last time I was up on my feet, the member for Brantford—Brant South—Six Nations said the government is stalling its own legislation, which is impressive. It is impressive that they could even come up with something so ridiculous, saying the government is responsible for stalling its own legislation. The government wants to see the legislation get through. I would love to see this legislation get to committee, but the opposition does not want that.

We can read the experts who have said that they would like to see the bill go to the next step, but the Conservatives do not care. They offer no plan and nothing of substance to Canadians to take that step. They say it is a housing crisis, and it is a crisis. However, there is a government that is willing to step up and act, to work with the municipalities and the provinces, but at the end of the day, all the Conservatives have are their stall tactics. All they have is their obstruction. They get mad when we say that, and I can understand why. They do not like the spotlight on that.

All Canadians deserve a place to call home. Housing is a fundamental need, and the growing demand for housing across the country requires urgent action. The Government of Canada is implementing a new and innovative solution to bring down costs, cut red tape and build homes more quickly. I just wish the Conservatives cared enough to get onside.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is always amusing listening to the speeches by the member for St. Catharines.

In 2015, in the Niagara Region, the average cost of a home was about $270,000. Today, it is about $600,000. The same experts that the member referenced, and I will acknowledge they are experts and do a lot of great work in our community, also endorsed the plan in 2015 that was supposed to make housing affordable across Canada. The reality is that after 10 years of Liberal government, every viable metric on housing has only gotten worse.

Why should we give the Liberals any more confidence to address this crisis, which has hurt hundreds of thousands of young people and destroyed what their concept of Canada was because of the Liberals' bad policies?

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member can cherry-pick the statistics that he knows are much deeper. He talks about young people, but the hon. member for Sackville—Bedford—Preston just talked about his bill on housing for young people, and the Conservative member voted against it.

[An hon. member]

Proudly.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member said that he proudly voted against housing for young people. Shame on him.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives are laughing about voting against housing for young people.

This legislation is about getting housing that is more affordable for Canadians. That is what this legislation would do.

The hon. member talked about how the experts are wrong. I guess that is his right, but at the end of the day, the Conservatives have nothing on this file and do not care about young people. It is time to put their money where their mouth is.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my entertaining friend from St. Catharines for his speech and his enthusiasm. It is always enjoyable to listen to what he has to say and to ask him questions. I look forward to hearing his answer to my question.

At the beginning of his speech he talked about the holistic approach of Build Canada Homes. However, the words “holistic” and “Liberal government” do not go together at all. This approach seems more like a kind of computer virus. It is a bit like those old computer viruses that got into the system, slowed everything down and made it take hours to download something that is less than 10 megabytes. It reminds me more of that than of a holistic approach. There are plenty of examples in Bill C-20. Earlier, we talked about the fact that the bill infringes on the jurisdictions of municipalities and provinces, including Quebec, which is particularly well equipped to deal with this crisis. Quebec just needs funding from the federal government.

There is another point that caught my attention. I look forward to hearing my colleague's thoughts on this. Build Canada Homes would be designated as an agent of the Crown. For municipalities, this could mean that they would be deprived of property tax revenues. This is a real and entirely legitimate concern. I would like to know what my colleague thinks about that.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I miss my time on the heritage committee with the hon. member for Drummond. At the same time, he is right; we do need to work with the provinces. That is part of the holistic plan. As I said, not everything is in this bill.

The member talked about municipalities. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities says that it “welcomes the federal government's Build Canada Homes...initiative as a strong signal of leadership on the housing crisis.” I am sure the Conservatives will mock and laugh again at the experts and getting houses built. Let us not care what the mayors and the Federation of Canadian Municipalities say.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Mr. Speaker, again the Conservatives are laughing about the mayors. They called them gatekeepers. That is why they are on the other side of the House rather than working to build homes for Canadians and young people who need them.

[Braedon Clark, Liberal, Sackville—Bedford—Preston, NS]

Mr. Speaker, first and foremost, I want to thank my colleague from St. Catharines for the shout-outs and plugs for my private member's bill. I appreciate it very much.

I want to say that the member really distilled the essence of what the bill is about. Bill C-20 is about affordable housing.

One of our colleagues across the way mentioned earlier that he was a home builder, and I respect that. Any home builder who is building private sector housing is in it to build homes but also to make a profit. That is fine and absolutely their prerogative. However, private sector builders will not build affordable housing unless they have some level of support from some level of government in order to make it economically viable.

I wonder if my colleague could touch a bit on the importance of the federal government in providing the scale of affordable housing that we need—

[The Deputy Speaker, Tom Kmiec]

The hon. member for St. Catharines has the floor.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the market will build market housing. It is important for the federal government to step up. It is unfortunate the Conservatives will block it every step of the way.