Adam Vaughan

[Budget Implementation Act, 2019, No. 1, June 6th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to talk about one of the most important achievements of not just this budget implementation act, but also of this government with respect to the right to housing.

The provisions in the amendments that have been tabled and have now been accepted in the first round of voting establishes for the first time in the country's history, a systematic approach to realizing fundamental rights to housing to achieve basic human rights.

The legislation we have put in place proposes three very specific things. I want to talk about how the legislation and how these sets of amendments will make a significant difference, not just in the housing needs of Canadians today but for generations to come.

First and foremost, 40 years ago when Canada signed the U.N. declaration of social development, and close to a decade ago when the sustainable development goals were produced, the fundamental right to access a housing system were part of the international treaties the country signed. Since then, the country has wavered, on a national level, on provincial levels and on municipal levels, in attaining exactly what those covenants should mean, not just to a country but to people who are in need of housing.

The first and most important thing we did in the legislation was to clearly state that access to a system of housing and a systemic accountability model to produce housing to meet the needs of Canadians so all Canadians would have a safe, affordable and adequate place to call home had to be enshrined in law. This government and future government will have a responsibility to sustain and realize that right and progressively move toward the elimination both of homelessness and a core housing need in all communities for all Canadians.

Enshrining this in law means that before this housing strategy expires, a future government, in much the same way Canada health accords are renewed, will have to sit down with provincial, territorial and indigenous partners, as well as municipalities, and renew the agreement to ensure that the rights of Canadians are not systematically denied ever again. This fundamentally will prevent the argument we often hear from the other side.

Almost 30 years ago, a federal government backed out of providing direct support for housing programs and even though it stepped back in gingerly in the late nineties, it never really fully returned until this government took office in 2015.

We have established a system for housing and a renewal system for the housing accords. We have also produced $55 billion in funding to realize the housing needs of Canadians, not including almost $3.5 billion and close to $6 billion for indigenous housing. There is still much work to be done, particularly in the area of urban and indigenous housing, work that is funded, in part now, but nowhere near the levels needed to ensure all Canadians have a right to housing.

The second thing we have done is set up a housing advocate with an advisory council, which is housed inside the Canadian Human Rights Commission. It will effectively test the government on its commitment, assess the effectiveness of the government delivery of this program and hold the government accountable in a public way through reports to Parliament. It requires the minister to table a response to systemic gaps in the housing system or flaws or delivery mechanisms that are not being effectively applied to ensure all Canadians in all corners of the country get the housing they require.

This accountability model is not housed inside CMHC or inside the ministry. It is housed inside the Canadian Human Rights Commission so it is clear, distinct and independent. It has the ability to identify not just problems with the structure and the system of the housing strategy, but also to look outside that strategy to see where the it does not reach particular communities in particular ways and investigate on its own to ensure hose gaps are identified.

On that point, the ability to investigate, to study, to make recommendations and to do independent work as an advisory committee and as the housing advocate means that where there are systemic gaps, the government of the day will be advised of those, will be asked to respond to potential remedies produced by this group and will have to respond to Parliament and to Canadians as to how the remedies will be acted upon. This is a fundamental sea change in the way in which the housing programs are designed and delivered on a national basis. According to the United Nations rapporteur on housing, it sets a global standard not just on realizing the progress of rights to housing, but also setting that public accountable process.

One other thing that has drawn the attention of housing advocates and activists across the country is the composition of the advisory panel itself. It is going to have people with expertise and people with lived experience to help direct the research, to help direct the findings and to help direct the reporting to the minister.

For the first time ever, people who have lived in precarious housing situations, whether they are women who have had to couch surf, youth who have been gapped out of housing as they age out of care and end up in shelters and struggle to find housing, or chronically homeless individuals who have been on the streets for periods of time and live through the shelter system of this country, will be part of the collective community that provides advice to the ministers to make sure that we get the housing system right.

This is landmark legislation. It is profoundly long overdue. I am extraordinarily proud to be part of a government that has delivered on it. Our government has received accolades from the housing sector. This legislation has received endorsements from key organizations, such as the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness and the Canadian Housing and Renewal Association, from ministers and from municipal councillors. There was a strong reception of this legislation at the Federation of Canadian Municipalities' housing forum just last week.

For the first time ever, Canadians see a federal government that not only has a national housing strategy but that has found a way to project it into the future. It has found a way to hold itself accountable to the most vulnerable people in this country, those with lived experience.

Above all else that has happened in the last four years of this Parliament, this is one of the most profoundly important developments in human rights, which we can all be proud of. It does not mean, however, that there is not more work to do. That is why an additional $10 billion was invested in the national housing strategy. That is why this government has also taken steps around low-income home ownership and is providing pathways to home ownership, in particular for first time homebuyers. That is why this government is also committed to a distinctions-based approach with indigenous communities to make sure that housing on reserves and in traditional territories is properly attuned, that we get the right dollars and the right programs in place, and that they are self-managed, self-directed and delivered by indigenous communities themselves.

However, the biggest piece of the housing puzzle that is missing is urban indigenous housing. All of us, as we look towards the next election, in the final days of this session of Parliament, have to focus our attention there.

In the province I come from, close to 86% of indigenous people live in urban centres, off reserve or away from treaty lands. Those people, particularly women, are not well served by a housing system that does not recognize a fourth component of indigenous housing, which is urban indigenous people. The Supreme Court has directed us to act in this area. While there are programs available, those programs are nowhere near scaled to the needs that are presented. We also have not worked hard enough to develop the urban indigenous housing sector itself to make sure that whatever we do provide as funding is entirely self-directed, self-designed, self-managed and self-realized by indigenous communities.

I can assure the House that as I look towards re-election, and I will be re-offering in the fall, the number one priority for me, as a housing activist who has come to Parliament to work on these issues, is that the urban indigenous housing file be solved within the next term of Parliament. It has to be addressed immediately upon re-election. It has to be funded to meet the needs of a community that is in dire need.

With respect to the missing and murdered indigenous women and girls genocide that was reported on this week, I would argue that we would not have that number of people, women in particular and two spirited individuals as well, if those individuals had safe and secure housing off reserve they could go to. They would have been safe and secure if housing was guaranteed as a human right. They would have been safe and secure if our country had been as invested in housing over the last 30 years as this Liberal government has been over the last four years.

This achievement on the right to housing, this achievement in terms of the sustained investments our government is making in building housing, repairing housing and most importantly, subsidizing housing, is a profound change we have orchestrated in this term of office. That is one of the reasons we have lifted so many people out of poverty. That is one of the reasons we have created so many jobs in so many communities. That is one of the reasons we are reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

All the challenges faced by the federal government are made that much easier to solve when housing is not seen as a crisis but as the best tool we have to solve the social problems confronting Canada. It is a federal responsibility.

I am proud to be part of a federal government that has not only delivered but has found a way to make sure that future governments also deliver. Every Canadian has the right to have a safe, secure and affordable place to live. This government is going to make sure that happens by 2030. This government is making results on the ground now and will continue to fight for those results in the years ahead.

I hope we have the support of all parliamentarians to realize this extraordinarily important national objective.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2019, No. 1, June 6th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, people have to love a party that criticizes another party for having a 10-year housing strategy, when it has just produced a 10-year housing strategy, saying that when producing a 10-year housing strategy, the money should be front-end loaded.

The NDP is not front-end loading the money in its 10-year housing strategy. In fact, if members read the small, few, meek little details that are in the housing strategy, half of that money will come in the last five years of the 10-year program. It is exactly half, because that is the pace at which the housing will be built. This means that 50% of the money does not come in after one election; it comes in after two elections. That is the platform of the NDP, yet it criticizes the Liberals for spending $7 billion in our first budget, adding $55 billion and back-end loading the money, because we also have to subsidize those housing programs.

Could the member opposite please explain to me where the subsidy is for those public housing units the NDP would build, how that would not increase over time and therefore would back-end load the dollars, too?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2019, No. 1, June 6th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member's focus and relentless campaign to put a tax on Netflix and foreign media streaming services. Our government is in a position to receive a report and act on recommendations to make it consistent with other global platforms.

What I did not hear him talk about were the other things that need to happen for media that do not compete with entertainment streaming entities but are more on the information side. In particular, in journalism we are seeing a transfer to electronic platforms, but people are skirting the paywalls and the firewalls to get free access to these newspapers, small community news organizations and independent journalism organizations. Simply taxing Netflix and providing tax revenue to the government is not going to change that practice, nor is it going to provide direct support to new and emerging organizations. They are the ones having the hardest time finding access to market revenue and sustainable models.

Instead of a tax proposal, I would like to hear the member talk specifically about how those tax dollars should flow to small journalistic organizations and journalism and about the steps we have taken on subscription rates to make sure that dollars spent on these media organizations arrive in the bank accounts of small organizations. How would he actually transfer the dollars he is talking about taxing to make sure that those news organizations survive?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2019, No. 1, June 6th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, I keep hearing the Conservatives talk about the media platform we put together to support and protect local community newspapers and radio and television stations as some sort of massive cash transfer. The three pillars of the program are a tax credit to Canadians who subscribe online to print media. No dollars go to the media. The dollars actually go to Canadians. What does go to the media is an increase in subscription, something which is chosen by individual Canadians and not by anybody on any panel. Individual Canadians will make the choice of which media platforms to support and then get a tax credit for doing so. It is an incentive.

Also, we are setting up the capacity for independent media to set up charitable foundations to support independent journalism. There again the tax credit does not go to the media organization. Canadians have to donate through free will to a news organization, then they get a tax credit for doing it and the government costs that out as forgoing tax revenue.

The final piece of the puzzle is simply that if the media hires new journalists, new Canadians, give them jobs in the private sector, we provide the media with a tax credit for doing so. In other words, there is no dollar transfer to the media to buy opinion; there are dollar transfers to Canadians to choose and support Canadian media.

Why does the member not want those local media organizations to survive?

[Housing, June 6th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, British Columbia has led the way in evolving modular housing. We have supported the programs proposed by cities there, particularly the City of Vancouver and the City of Burnaby as well. Those investments have shown us a way to build modular housing. I would be happy to walk the member opposite through the program that gets us there.

The other thing our government did upon taking office, beyond tripling transfers to provinces, which is a large part of where British Columbia gets its dollars to build its housing, was double the money for homelessness. To put this into context, the Conservatives were prepared to see that program lapse, the Green Party had no policy on it and the NDP was only going to spend an extra $10 million on what is properly described as an emergency.

We have put more than $2.2 billion into this program over the next 10 years. We have extended the number of designated communities. We created a separate, distinct indigenous-based program for communities right across the country, a different rural strategy and a strategy for the territories. We have also changed the rules of housing first so it can be used to prevent homelessness rather than just solve it after it has been on the streets in the communities for six months. We have also stepped up to ensure that women—

[Housing, June 6th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, I often say that it is always a good day, or a good night, when we can discuss housing in this House, because there is no issue more important to me and more important to the residents I represent, and in fact more important to this government, than making sure we get the housing system we need for this country.

That is why today we passed historic legislation on the right to housing, the progressive realization in a systemic way of making sure that every Canadian has a place to call home that is safe, secure and affordable.

However, building housing alone does not work. As the member opposite has accurately identified, housing with supports is as critical a part of the process as repairing housing, as delivering emergency responses to housing needs, and as building long-term, sustainable solutions.

Our government has invested close to $7 billion already, above and beyond what was forecast from the previous government, into new housing starts right across the country. It has put together what is now a $55-billion 10-year program to turn this country's housing situation around and make sure that Canadians from coast to coast to coast, most importantly indigenous Canadians and certainly Canadians of indigenous heritage in urban settings, get the housing they require.

British Columbia is much like the province I come from, in that the major city has had an explosion of housing starts, but at the same time the market just has not provided for people with disabilities, the elderly, people on fixed incomes, as well as new Canadians who have not quite gotten their feet underneath them as they make their way in this country. There are significant challenges all the way around. People with disabilities, of course, are also on that list, as are people being discharged from hospital or from prison who get discharged into homelessness, which is part of the institutional gapping that happens in this country, and part of what this country has to address systematically to make sure it puts an end to the flow into homelessness as we try to deplete what is a horrible cohort of people, in terms of the circumstances they live in, that has to be addressed by ending homelessness.

I have been to British Columbia. In fact, in its first three and a half years, our government has invested in 99 specific projects that run the full range of housing needs that need to be met in British Columbia. In Campbell River, we broke ground on a housing project to deal with people with developmental disabilities.

The project in Nanaimo, which I have discussed with my colleague opposite, is one of the most beautiful and most energy-efficient passive housing programs in the country, run by a friendship centre, which has shown us and the rest of the country not only how to deliver good, strong, affordable community housing for youth coming out of care, for elders in the community as well as for families, but how to do it in such a way that it would actually come in under budget and produce remarkable results in terms of greenhouse gas reductions.

Our investments in Victoria are going to bring Victoria to functional zero in terms of homelessness within two years. In Vancouver, the modular housing we have invested in is dealing with people from tent cities and getting them into good, strong, supportive housing programs that put an end to their homelessness.

This government is committed with its program. The money is being spent now, as we speak. It is a 10-year program, so the math tells us that some of it comes after the next election. A lot of it comes after the next election, because not only are we building new housing and repairing new housing, but we are also subsidizing the housing to make it affordable. Adding 1,000 units in Nanaimo this year and 1,000 next year and the year after that means that the subsidy has to grow from 1,000 units to 2,000 to 3,000. Any party that says, and the NDP does it quite often, that we should not back-end load housing programs has never run a housing system.

We are proud of the national housing strategy. We are proud of the rights-based framework that we put into legislation to make sure that no future government can ever back out of the housing program, and we are very proud of our results in British Columbia, working with a good, strong provincial government that also understands how critical this is. We hope the parties in this House can support our investments, because they are good, they are strong and they are making a difference.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2019, No. 1, June 5th, 2019]

Madam Speaker, I am most interested in the comments that the hon. member made regarding breaking up the mortgage structure of the country to regionalize it, instead of having a one-size-fits-all set of policies, which has been the policy of every federal government since CMHC was founded.

Does he see those regional delineations along provincial lines or along urban-rural lines? How would the member opposite configure a regionalization of mortgage rules, a regionalization of mortgage stress tests and also assessment of risks in the market?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2019, No. 1, June 5th, 2019]

They are. They're called homeless people.

[Social Development, June 5th, 2019]

Madam Speaker, we have delivered a holistic, community-based approach to fighting homelessness through the reaching home strategy. It builds on some of the very good work being done in communities in Quebec, which are providing real leadership in the way to wrap around services to keep people housed.

The national housing strategy aims to lift 500,000 Canadians out of core housing need, with a program that builds, repairs, subsidizes and grows over time. As housing is built, subsidies have to built over time. If one does not back-end load the housing program, one ends up building housing with no supports for people, and that does not work.

In terms of the NDP proposal, to build 500,000 homes, if one had the labour and construction capacity to do that, and without any subsidies, the program cost would be $175 billion to get to 80% of market. That is the NDP program. It is a slogan, it is not a program. The reality is that the national housing strategy is delivering to get to the 500,000 target. We are repairing, investing and we are making sure Canadians get their housing needs met. We are proud of that policy.

[Social Development, June 5th, 2019]

Madam Speaker, the NDP's plan for homelessness was to spend only an additional $10 million. We have put $2.2 billion on the table for that program, and on an annual basis, our spending is 10 times what the NDP promised. We still get lectured on why we have not done enough to fight homelessness, even though it promised to do one-tenth of what we put on the table.

In terms of the reaching home program, it was reprofiled specifically to highlight the extraordinary achievements that have been made in the province of Quebec, which has a holistic approach to homelessness and focus on prevention and permanent solutions, and does not make homeless people live on the streets or in shelters for six months before they will be supported.

We leaned heavily on the advice that was given to us by members of the advisory panel that came from that promise, which showed us a better way to fight homelessness. Some of those results are built right into the reaching home strategy. For example, we no longer require 65% of the reaching home program to be spent specifically on rent. That is going to be replaced by the Canada housing benefit, an $8.4-billion program partnered with the provinces for rent supplements.

On the reaching home file, those dollars can now be used for services to wrap around people to get keep them housed. As well, those dollars can be used to keep people housed with supports they may need in order to not fall into the most destitute situations we find on city streets right across the country.

We have listened to the homelessness advocates out of Quebec. We have responded directly to the demands they made of this government. Not only did we listen to them, we funded them. I go back to that campaign platform. On what planet, let alone what country, city or street does a $10-million investment solve homelessness? In the city of Ottawa alone, the increase to fight indigenous homelessness is $8 million.

The NDP has now chosen to follow Doug Ford with slogans about housing, with no program design, no mention of indigenous people and no dollar signs attached to it. They can print all the bumper stickers they want. The reality is that housing advocates need two things: funding and flexibility. With this government, $55 billion has been delivered, new rules have been written that respond to the criticisms that the member just listed and we are very proud of our record on housing. I would be embarrassed to have run on the NDP platform.