Mr. Speaker, there was a time in this country when the path to owning a home felt clear. If one worked hard, showed up every day, did their job, raised their kids and tried to put a little aside they could build a life. They could buy a home, they could plant roots in a community and they could look at their children and believe with confidence that their children's future would be just a little bit better than their own. That was not a dream reserved for the wealthy. It was not something out of reach. It was just Canada. However, under the current Liberal government, that simple promise has rapidly slipped away.
Here is the thing. Canadians today are not even asking for luxury. They are not asking for mansions or vacation homes. They are not even asking for the so-called American dream. They are asking for something far more basic than that: a home they can afford, a good job they can rely on and a safe neighbourhood where they can raise their family. That is it and yet, even something so simple and so reasonable is slipping further and further out of reach.
I think about two of my own daughters who moved out of B.C. just to afford a home. They want to come back, but prices are worse now and new home sales in Vancouver are down 56%. We see the huge problem in those numbers. However, more important, we hear, in the community and in people's conversations, young families wondering if they will ever own a home, parents watching their kids move farther and farther away just to afford a place and grandparents like me worried that the next generation will not get the same chances we had.
When we look at the facts, it becomes painfully clear why. Today, it takes over half, 52.4%, of a family's pre-tax income just to afford a home in this country. In Vancouver, that number is nearly 90%. In Toronto, it is over 60%. At the same time, Canadians are carrying a record $2.6 trillion in household debt, mostly just to keep a roof over their heads.
Let us think about that for a moment. How do people build a life when nearly everything they earn goes to keeping a roof over their head? One would think that with these challenges, we would see real action, real results and a plan that matches the scale of the problem. Instead, what Canadians have been given is announcements, big ones, bold ones. We were told there would be 500,000 homes built every year. That sounds so impressive. It makes for a great headline, but even the government's own housing agency officials now say they will deliver just a fraction of that. In fact, they are warning that housing starts could drop by over 18%. Right in B.C., new home sales in Vancouver are down 56%. Across the country, CMHC officials are projecting housing starts to fall well below the 10-year average. Therefore, while the announcements get bigger, the results get smaller.
Canadians feel that disconnect from what the Liberals promise us and what they actually do because the truth is, they cannot live on a promise, they cannot raise their children on a headline and they cannot build equity in a press release. At some point, the words have to become something real. They have to become walls and doors, foundations and keys and homes that people can actually afford. Instead, what we have seen year after year is a growing list of programs, each one announced with great fanfare, each one carrying a hopeful name, each one presented as a solution, yet the homes do not get built. When people look past the announcements, they find more red tape and bureaucracy, more layers and more delays.
The Conservatives have a plan to cut the GST on all the new homes under $1.3 million, tie the federal infrastructure dollars to homebuilding and cut development charges, not just for vote-rich Ontario but for all the provinces. Canadians are beginning to recognize what the Liberals' announcements are all about. It is no plan to build homes, but a pattern of smoke and mirrors. Is the government even trying to actually get something built?