Mr. Speaker, it is good to see you, as always.
I rise in the House today on behalf of the beautiful, wonderful people of Bowmanville—Oshawa North, to oppose the Liberal budget, specifically Bill C-30. I do so because this is the latest example of the current Liberal regime failing to meet the moment in Canada. The Liberals are simply tinkering at the edges of the status quo, without offering any positive, substantive changes for our communities to become stronger and healthier.
Liberals may ask, what is the moment we are in? Certainly, they seem unaware. It is a moment when a generation of Canadians are knocking on the door, asking to be admitted into the Canadian dream, yet they are having that door shut in their face by a government that continues to show very little self-awareness for what is going on in our economy today. For Canadians who, frankly, have been working hard for over a decade now to establish themselves in the economy, to buy their first home or to start a family, they are encountering an uncomfortable and unstable position. They are working hard to do so, despite the challenges they face.
If the Liberal regime were truly interested in meeting the moment facing our country right now, they would do more than just tinker at the edges of the status quo. Rather, this would be a government that would respond with real change and real hope for the builders, the dreamers, the strivers and the hustlers who are working hard to get ahead every day.
The part of this budget that I would like to focus on in particular is the matter of housing, because it has become emblematic of the challenges we face in our country today. In this budget, in Bill C-30, the government has a provision to extend the grace period for repayments in the homebuyers' plan. Now, in a vacuum, this might actually be a worthwhile idea. It is good to extend the grace period. However, the problem we face is that when we look at the context of our country right now, it is simply not enough. In fact, it is outrageous to sit in the chamber and see Liberals patting themselves on the back for continuing to fail to fix the housing crisis in this country, while failing to recognize that much more needs to be done.
While Liberals sit in the chamber or fly off to Europe to celebrate their half measures and their band-aid solutions, one of their own housing bureaucracies, one of several, has published data today showing that the housing crisis continues to be unaddressed by the Liberal Prime Minister, who promised to fix it, the second Liberal Prime Minister, I may add, who promised to fix it in the last decade.
From today's CMHC housing starts and construction data, we see that in the month of May 2026, “Actual monthly housing starts were down 5.2% year-over-year in centres with a population of 10,000 or more”. We also see in that data that “housing starts for all areas in Canada decreased [month to month by] 6% in May”. CMHC's deputy chief economist looked at all of this data and offered a comment that I think this House must consider. He said, “Overall, these results suggest that construction activity is uneven and taken together with the decline of approved units not yet started and market intelligence point to weaker momentum for future supply”.
If we zoom out for a moment and think about what this means for the young Canadians knocking on the door who want to get in on the Canadian dream but are having the door shut on them by the Liberal regime, we see that there are real consequences for real people behind all of these numbers. For every house that is not getting built or is too expensive for the average middle-class Canadian to afford, we know there is a life being put on hold: people who want to move out of their parents' house but cannot do so; people who want to make an investment in their future but cannot do so; people who want to start a family but cannot do so.
By the way, as an aside, I would like to add that if we fix the housing crisis, we might see the declining birth rate start to tick up and the Liberals would have less of an excuse to continue with their mass immigration plan. However, I will leave that for another day.
This is what is happening to young Canadians today. They deserve so much better than what they are getting from the Liberal government, from a regime that continues to put budget after budget forward that fails to solve a single serious problem and is not getting better results. Young Canadians are not getting the response they deserve from their own government, the government they pay taxes to and the government that is intended to serve them.
I would like to share a story of a young man I met yesterday, from north Oshawa. He runs his own business, and on the weekends he drives an Uber. He is a very hard-working guy who grinds every week, non-stop. He recently got married, and he does not have any children yet, but he hopes to be able to afford a home one day. He shared his family story with me, and he is a real family man. He told me about his father who recently beat cancer, and I could see how proud he was when he talked about his dad going through that hard time with a smile on his face on the other end of it.
This business owner in north Oshawa told me that he had a conversation with his wife last week, and he asked his wife an important question. He asked what she thought of some of the concerns weighing on him at the moment. Specifically, he was wondering whether he should continue to work so hard and continue to work two jobs and be away from his family as much as he is. He wondered if he should stop. He wondered if his effort was ever going to pay off based on what he saw happening in our country.
I will be honest; it was tough to hear him talk that way, because he is a talented and very capable young man, but he was considering giving up. He told me that when he had that conversation with his wife and asked her those questions, she thankfully told him that she thought he should keep trying. She expressed belief in him. When he told me about his wife's confidence in him, I could tell it meant the entire world to him.
I bring this up because people need to better understand what is happening to this generation of Canadians knocking on that door and trying to get in on the Canadian dream. They are often thinking about giving up and often questioning the merit of hard work. They are second-guessing themselves and the way they spend their time, and whether doing all of the things they were told a contributing citizen should do is actually going to bear fruit as they continue to get older.
This is exactly what is wrong with the Liberal regime's budget. It fails to offer any sort of understanding of what is going on today. It fails to show any contrition from a government that has, for 11 years now, made bad decision after bad decision, often sentencing young Canadians to a much harder life than generations past, making it harder to get ahead and making it harder for people to feel hopeful and optimistic about their futures. The Liberal regime then has the audacity to question the patriotism of people who say that they deserve better.
I would say that the young Canadians knocking on the door hoping to get in on the Canadian dream do deserve better. They deserve a lot better than what they have been getting. My message to all of the strivers, dreamers, builders and hustlers across this country is to just keep going. I know that it is hard and that often it feels like people in positions of power are not listening, but the reality is that we have no choice but to continue fighting for this country and for a better future.
Even when the people who are privileged enough to fly first class to Europe lecture us on what kind of country we should want to have here in Canada and even when they show us how tone-deaf they are, I want those who are fighting for a better future to know that someday I hope they will have a government that honours them properly.
God bless Canada.