Mr. Speaker, I would like to start off by recognizing a great event that happened in Oxford County not too long ago, the Woodstock Truck Show. It started out in Woodstock 12 years ago, but it has, sadly, moved out to the border with Burford, which falls in Brant County. This group does fantastic work uniting truckers from North America, who come together and raise money for such great causes. This year alone, they have raised almost $150,000 to support the Special Olympics and also WDDS in Woodstock. These guys deserve respect. Our truckers move our goods. They feed our families. They are always there, so we want to recognize them for that great accomplishment.
Today's topic of homebuilding is an important one. The government for the last 11 years has been making these big promises, grand announcements and photo ops, saying it is going to start building homes and going to build 500,000 homes in a single year, but instead, we have had the opposite. Housing costs have doubled. Mortgage payments have doubled. Rent payments have doubled. The down payment needed for a new home has doubled. A whole generation is now out of the market. There are builders who are not building, sellers who are not selling and buyers who are not buying, and that is taking a great toll on Canadians.
Young entrepreneurs and young Canadians have always dreamed of owning a home one day. That is gone. Nine in 10 young folks believe they will never be able to buy a home. They want to have their own home. They want to start a family. We had that in Canada before, where if someone worked hard, played by the rules and had a decent job, they could save money for a down payment, buy a decent home in a good, safe neighbourhood and raise their family with their values. That was the Canadian promise, but we are not seeing that anymore. Instead of standing up for Canadians and actually making their lives easier, what do we get from the Liberals? It is the same old same old.
The Prime Minister made all these big promises, that this is a new government, that it was going to change things and that it was not like the old government, but if I look across the aisle, I see the exact same ministers and the exact same MPs. They are the same MPs and ministers who caused this housing crisis we have today. The former housing minister caused the immigration crisis, and then he became the housing minister and destroyed the housing industry. Now he is justice minister, and he has destroyed the justice system. The Liberals have caused these crises in our communities.
Before someone can even buy a home, they have to survive. Right now, Canadians are working harder and harder but barely getting by. They cannot save for that down payment anymore. Heck, they cannot even buy groceries anymore. We have 2.2 million Canadians visiting food banks in a single month, which is a record high. One in 10 of them are seniors, and one in four of them are young children. As a father, knowing that kids are going to school hungry bothers me. It should bother every single member in the chamber. Children should be going to school with full stomachs, with food in their bellies, ready to learn to be the leaders of the next generation, but thanks to the government, we have seen the opposite.
The Liberals could heckle me. I know they love heckling. They get upset when we talk about the facts because it goes against their narrative and what they are selling to the media, but Canadians know. They see through this nonsense. They are seeing through it. They are seeing that Canadians are struggling.
I can tell the House a few stories from my riding, Oxford, just from this last week. The government said it was going to hand out these food credits. Some people got $18. Some of them got $5, but the government promised them a lot more than that. On this side of the House, we will always stand for tax cuts and we would make sure that money goes back in the pockets of Canadians, but not how the government does it.
Here is a story from Dezmond. He says that “life gets harder for young Canadians with families like myself with additional taxes and the increase in cost of living, as an apprentice I'm losing hours for my full time job [and can't] start a career”. He cannot afford to live in this country.
Tiffany is a single mother raising two teenage boys. Her aging parents, who are retired, are sending her $1,000 a month for food and to help with rent money. This is despite her having a job, and at the end of the month, she has $64 left from that $1,000 transfer. That is a story we are hearing right across our country: Parents are now subsidizing their kids' future.
This new bureaucracy the Liberals announced would do absolutely nothing to fix the affordability crisis, but it would continue to line the pockets of Liberal insiders. They want to make another bureaucracy, another one, on homebuilding, where they choose the executive, they choose the projects, they choose the dollar amount, they try to hide behind closed doors, and there is a lack of transparency. Again, the rich get richer, and average working-class Canadians continue to struggle.
Here is a coincidence. I wonder what one of the biggest real estate asset managers in the country is. Does anyone know what company it is? I wonder. It is Brookfield. Surprise, surprise, Brookfield is one of Canada's largest asset managers. I wonder who has connections to that company. We have to ask these questions. We need transparency in the House. We need to know where the funds would be going. It is not fair that Canadians work their butts off, make the sacrifices, stay away from their families—