Debates of June 16th, 2026

Motion That Debate Be Not Further Adjourned

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

Mr. Speaker, what I find most troubling about this particular bill is that it is not too dissimilar from the government's Build Canada Homes creation, an agency created with $13 billion, with zero targets, zero metrics and no transparency. Nobody knows how it is really supposed to work or what it is going to do. It is just going to do non-market housing.

The bill before us would involve $1.713 billion that the minister could spend at his whim. There is nothing in the bill about what the metrics would be nor what the housing needs are by province. It is just $1.713 billion, and the Minister of Finance could spend it however he chooses on housing supply. There would be no requirement for him to talk to the Minister of Housing. There would be no requirement for him to understand CMHC data on the need by province. It is nothing. It would just be a blank cheque for the Minister of Finance.

The House is responsible for the public purse. Why would there be no scrutiny of the $1.713 billion?

[Gregor Robertson, Liberal, Vancouver Fraserview—South Burnaby, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I think we need to look at what is happening in the member opposite's province. Ontario has been first out of the gate, accepting this funding and deploying it to eliminate the HST, for which members opposite have been calling for months, to take action. I think both sides of the House agree we need to take action to get the housing market going in Ontario and B.C., where it has been stalled. This has done that in Ontario. Ontario is a good example of making a good choice to eliminate the HST for this year and prime the pump on its housing market. That is an example of what we want to see across the country.

We would not be prescriptive with provinces and territories. We would be responsive to the needs across the country. We want to be sure that Ontario and B.C. markets are addressed, as they are in a state of relative crisis, but we want to have flexibility with this too. It is a very simple next step and a statement of collaboration with provinces and territories that we would entrust them to do the right thing and take action to deliver on housing.

[Billy Morin, Conservative, Edmonton Northwest, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberal government has been good at announcing programs, dollars and funds, but it is really blank on the details. I am wondering if the minister knows what codes are on the first nations themselves and if he is going to invest from the public purse into first nation homes. There is a shortage of 157,000 homes, and the national building codes and provincial codes do not apply on first nations.

What codes will he be building to when investing this money from the public purse in first nations?

[Gregor Robertson, Liberal, Vancouver Fraserview—South Burnaby, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the investment in housing for first nations on reserve is something the Minister of Indigenous Services is responsible for. She currently has an indigenous housing process going to build a strategy, which I will be happy to collaborate with her on. There is indigenous housing funding as well in Build Canada Homes that is focused on urban, rural and northern indigenous housing, which is about a $4‑billion envelope. There are a number of different opportunities for indigenous housing.

With this housing supply bill, we are talking about $1.7 billion to the provinces and territories, giving them the discretion to deploy that funding as needed. Some may choose to work with indigenous populations to invest that money on housing. That is their choice.

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

Mr. Speaker, back in the day, Peter Van Loan sat a couple of desks in front of me. That was when the current leader of the Conservative Party participated in programming motions. They brought motions like what we have today well over 100 times. Earlier this year, we even saw Conservatives vote in favour of time allocation, or a motion of this nature, because they recognized that Bill C‑5 was an important piece of legislation.

It seems that the Conservatives have supported the need for time allocation and programming. Given their recent filibustering behaviour, in order to get this over the goal line and build on Canadian homes, having these measures is really important.

I am wondering if the minister would provide his thoughts on working collaboratively with provinces and other stakeholders and on how important it is that the federal government take the lead, which is exactly what we are doing with the passage of this bill.

[Gregor Robertson, Liberal, Vancouver Fraserview—South Burnaby, BC]

Mr. Speaker, first and foremost, on process, I have spoken to the urgency and simplicity of this bill in entrusting provinces and territories with taking action and deploying this funding to get housing supply scaled up in their jurisdictions. As we have seen with Ontario eliminating the HST, we already have a good example of what can be done.

I think the collaboration piece is really critical here. We do rely upon provinces and territories. A member opposite had a question about building codes. There are attempts to harmonize on or to have a smoother flow for the supply chains for homebuilding materials, Canadian materials in particular, and for labour, workers and expertise across the country. We want the provinces and territories working on team Canada to get more housing built.

I think it is really critical that, right now, we are investing across the board to facilitate more housing getting built and more interchange between provinces and territories to get that done.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, in response to what the parliamentary secretary just said, it is important for Canadians to know that there is a big difference between using closure or time allocation at one stage of a bill in the House and shutting the bill down at every stage so there is no possibility of committee study. On Bill C‑5, we moved it forward, but we had detailed committee study and amendments from the Conservatives that improved that bill. In this case, the bill is being shut down at all stages with no committee study, no report stage and no third reading debate.

I think it is because, in part, the housing minister is afraid to come to the human resources committee, where we sit—

[An hon member]

Oh, oh!

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the member is blowing that off.

I will ask the minister a simple question. This motion is going to pass; they have their majority, so it is going to pass. Will the minister agree to come to the human resources committee, even for one hour, to talk to us about the bill?

The human resources committee is supposed to be studying housing. We have two studies going, one on housing starts and one on homelessness. We have not heard from the minister. We also have this bill going through on housing. The minister is trying to skip coming to committee. Will he come to human resources committee for an hour to talk about this bill, yes or no?

[Gregor Robertson, Liberal, Vancouver Fraserview—South Burnaby, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member opposite well knows that I have appeared before HUMA a number of times to talk about the initiatives we have, as a government, to get affordable housing going, to get Build Canada Homes up and running as a Crown corporation so that it can drive the pace in getting affordable housing built. I have been at HUMA. I have been at other committees as well to make sure we are doing everything we can to advance the work on affordable housing. I will certainly be in front of HUMA again many more times as the housing minister.

What we are talking about with this bill is advancing it so we can accelerate, so we can invest in the provinces and territories to get housing supply boosted across Canada right now. It is very simple and straightforward. Members opposite may not want to support investing in provinces and territories. They may not want to invest $1.7 billion in scaling up housing supply. This is an opportunity to say yes to that, and I encourage the members—

[The Deputy Speaker, Tom Kmiec]

I have to cut the minister off to allow time for more questions and comments.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Nanaimo—Ladysmith.

[Tamara Kronis, Conservative, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Mr. Speaker, we have heard a variety of arguments from this side of the House as to why cutting debate off on this bill is short-sighted, but perhaps one of the most important reasons is because, as my hon. colleague explained, it does not just cut off debate in the House; it also means this bill will never go to committee. What that means is that the experts, the constituents, the members of civil society in this country who might have something to say with respect to this bill, which might actually be useful to the government, will not get the chance to be heard.

I certainly understand why the member does not want to go to committee. I have seen him there, and it is not good, but I want to know why the minister is also cutting off Canadians from having their say about the bill through our committee process.

[Gregor Robertson, Liberal, Vancouver Fraserview—South Burnaby, BC]

Mr. Speaker, again, I am a bit surprised to hear this commentary from the members opposite. We are in a housing crisis. We need to move urgently to solve this, to fix this. We need to work with our provinces and territories to do that. We rely on their leadership as well.

It is a simple question: Does she support investing $1.7 billion, boosting housing supply with provinces and territories? The members opposite may not agree. It is a very simple next step to increase the federal government's investment in housing. This is what is before us right now. I encourage the members to support this so we can get this out as soon as possible and get housing built.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the minister knows this because I met him when he first got elected here on the floor of the House of Commons, and when he was named the housing minister, I told him that the first thing he had to do was to get rid of the people who have led us into this trap in the first place. Those are the people in his department, the ones whose advice he is following now to spend another $1.7 billion of Canadians' money in accomplishing what they have accomplished so far, which is just spending money and not fixing the situation at all.

He keeps referring to a crisis. This crisis is a crisis of his party's causing, along with the officials who have led him to this trap. Not getting this to committee means another $1.7 billion of Canadian taxpayer money going out the door without anybody seeing what it is about, what the accountability mechanisms might be or if the money is being spent wisely. It is just another cheque that the minister is trying to bring in front of the Canadian people.

Will he please tell us if he is going to entertain any input on the accountability mechanism assigned to the $1.7 billion of new taxpayer money?

[Gregor Robertson, Liberal, Vancouver Fraserview—South Burnaby, BC]

Mr. Speaker, well, I have a very simple question for the members opposite: Do they support working with the Government of Ontario to eliminate the HST for one year on new homes up to $1 million?

This is exactly what Ontario is doing with the funding related to this housing supply bill. This is exactly what it is doing. It has committed the funding. If the members opposite support giving Ontarians a break on buying a new home up to $1 million, with $130,000 off $1 million, that is what the bill is all about. This is what Ontario is doing. If the Conservatives vote against the bill, they are voting against giving people in Ontario a break on buying a new home and giving home builders in Ontario an opportunity to get more active and make sure they are driving up supply in Ontario. That is what this is about.

[Bardish Chagger, Liberal, Waterloo, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the minister reminding us what this bill is about. It is about working with provinces and territories and providing them with the levers to help Canadians. Even on a bill so simple, we hear the opposition talking about the importance of having debate and conversation. Anybody who has been observing committees has seen, whenever the opposition has an expert, a witness or a minister present, its members are busy talking about their pets, including all the way up to elephants.

It is interesting, because when the Conservatives have the opportunity to ask questions, to scrutinize and to actually be an effective opposition, they choose to spend time talking about anything but the legislation or what is in front of them. We see it here in the House as well. When people want us to work, when Canadians are hurting and want us to serve, the Conservatives cannot fathom the government succeeding in doing well for Canadians. They would rather keep advancing their narrative than help their own constituents, neighbours and fellow Canadians.

I would like to hear this from the minister: Why is it important that we get this legislation done, and what do we see as the potential outcomes? Why is it important that the government be able to deliver for Canadians?

[Gregor Robertson, Liberal, Vancouver Fraserview—South Burnaby, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I agree with the member. The importance of getting this done is urgent. Really, the example in Ontario is what we are working with. It shows the difference this can make on the ground for the housing market, homebuyers and home builders in Ontario, who need to get going on building more supply.

That is the result we are seeing already in Ontario. We met with developers over the last few weeks. The Prime Minister and I were told that we are seeing a 60% to 70% increase in sales volume here in Ottawa, and that is because of the Ontario HST elimination this year. Therefore, we are seeing a direct benefit of the Ontario partnership here.

I expect we will see this with provinces and territories across the country as this funding is approved and deployed. This is about collaboration and a partnership of trust. It is about getting the money to the communities and the people, ultimately, so they can buy homes.

[Melissa Lantsman, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we have heard a lot about process from the minister and in the House as to why this bill should be closed for debate. However, what we and the industry have not heard from the minister is how many homes the $1.7 billion that he wants to spend of taxpayer dollars is going to build. He has not answered that question, which is why we should continue to debate this.

[Gregor Robertson, Liberal, Vancouver Fraserview—South Burnaby, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would say to the member opposite that we need to look at the Ontario example of how this funding is being used. The Ontario government has chosen to deploy it for eliminating the HST for this year to get its housing market going. Getting that housing market going by giving people a discount effectively on a new home is advancing the market. It is getting home builders back to building, because they know the market is coming back alive.

I have heard from the members opposite that this has been a crisis, particularly in the GTA, that is related to the housing market. This is how the Ontario government, in partnership with us and resourced by this housing supply bill, is getting that market going and getting homebuyers into homes more affordably.

We want to see that happen across the country. I know the provinces and territories have different approaches depending on their markets and their housing contexts. I am looking forward to seeing this deployed in B.C., in my home province, because the metro Vancouver market has very similar challenges to those of the GTA, and I want to see that change. We are receiving a lot of pressure from home builders who are concerned about the markets being flat. That is not surprising given the uncertainty in the world. This is a way to help jump-start and accelerate the markets and get more homes built.

[The Deputy Speaker, Tom Kmiec]

It is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith the question necessary to dispose of the motion now before the House.

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.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, we would request a recorded vote.

[The Deputy Speaker, Tom Kmiec]

Call in the members.

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

Vote #164

Government Business No. 11—Proceedings on Bill C-26

[The Speaker, Francis Scarpaleggia]

I declare the motion carried.

The House resumed from April 17 consideration of the motion that Bill S-201, An Act respecting a national framework on sickle cell disease, be read the second time and referred to a committee.