Adam Vaughan

[Budget Implementation Act, 2018, No. 2, November 26th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the member opposite and share his concern about the expenditures on the logo that clearly, which we heard in question period today, offended the minister and the parliamentary secretary. Hopefully, the arm's-length organization can take better stewardship of public dollars. I share his concern that the scarce dollars we can commit to fighting poverty should be spent on those who need a solution to that dilemma rather than simply on graphic arts. I am as perplexed as the member is as to why those dollars were misdirected.

The member talked about the situation confronting his home province and some of the support it had seen. Would he agree that a substantial investment in housing not only provides relief for those who have low incomes, but also creates jobs for trades people? While the energy sector goes through challenges, the largest single group of employees in the energy sector is construction workers. In other words, a national housing strategy not only solves social problems, but also provides immediate relief for workers in the construction sector who are losing work because of the slowdown in the oil patch. Would the member agree that the national housing strategy is, in fact, a very good investment and one that should have been made years ago?

[Housing, November 23rd, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, National Housing Day was the first anniversary of the national housing strategy.

I want to assure all Canadians and this House that our government's commitment to ending homelessness and making sure all Canadians have a safe and affordable place to live has never been stronger.

Since taking office, 14,000 new affordable housing units have been built or are under construction. Twenty-six thousand people who were homeless or at risk of homelessness have been given safe and secure housing. Some 156,000 homes are being repaired or are scheduled to be fixed as a result of our investments, and 776,000 households have been helped with rent supplements, including the renewal of co-op agreements.

This has happened because in our first budget we tripled transfers to provincial and territorial housing programs. We doubled our investment in community groups to fight homelessness. We also delivered significant funding and resources to indigenous communities on and off reserve to make sure that their housing needs were met as well.

These dollars are flowing now. They are building real housing now for real people now. This is not just real change. It is historic change.

[Housing, November 22nd, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to say, and will make this point very clear, that the minister in charge has asked CMHC to immediately get in touch with the Nunavut housing authority. Substantial dollars have been invested, and bilateral accords have been signed with that government, and we want this problem addressed immediately.

The funds we have put in place to support indigenous housing and territorial housing, as we signed the bilateral with the Northwest Territories last week, are substantial. By comparison, I would ask them to look at their campaign platform, which offered $25 million to the entire country, and that was it.

[Housing, November 22nd, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, my mother used to say that “If you want to make a point, vote NDP. If you want to make a difference, vote Liberal.” On housing, my mom could not have been more correct. Our $40 billion housing program over the next 10 years is real money, building real housing right now.

However, on the issue of indigenous housing, not only have we made substantial new investments, there are also new programs on their way as we speak. When it comes to the right to housing, as it says in the national housing strategy, we will be legislating a rights-based framework to make sure that Canadians get the housing they need when they need it.

As I said, we are making a difference, regardless of what point the members opposite are not making.

[Housing, November 22nd, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, the government started investing in new housing programs the day we took office, and today I am proud to announce that close to one million homes have been impacted by the investments we have made. Fourteen thousand new affordable homes have been built or are under construction; 26,000 people who are at risk of homelessness are now in housing; 156,000 homes are being repaired with funds provided by this government. For the next 10 years, it is a $40 billion investment in the country's first ever national housing strategy.

We did not wait for yesterday to take action. We took action on day one and we will take action for the next decade. We will not take lessons from the—

[Child Care, November 20th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, the party opposite now seems to want ambition. In their campaign platform, those members promised not to spend any money on anything unless they balanced the budget first. That is not an ambitious program, nor is it ambitious to spend provincial and territorial money and not stand up as a federal government.

This government has invested $7.5 billion in child care. We have invested in a national housing strategy. EI reforms have supported families as well. This government is committed to lifting children out of poverty: 300,000 so far, 600,000 Canadians.

Our work is not done, and our investments are not finished either.

[Child Care, November 20th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I would remind the member opposite that the government has invested in child care, some $7.5 billion over the next 10 years of direct investment. We have partnered not only with the provinces and territories, but we also have the first distinction-based indigenous child care policy in the history of the country. We did not stop there though. We also provided the Canada child benefit, which as my colleague has said is now being indexed. In addition to that, there is a $40-billion national housing strategy.

We are heavily focused on reducing child poverty, supporting families and making sure we build the most resilient generation of Canadian children in the country's history.

[Business of Supply, November 19th, 2018]

They did, in their first budget.

In the recession, they refused to engage in stimulus spending until the NDP and the Liberals forced them to prorogue Parliament and that is when, in a moment of absolute panic, they bought into the economic theory the member opposite just talked about. Following that, the Conservatives failed to balance the budget until the very last year they were in office. When they did that, they did not structurally correct the deficit. What they did was they sold stocks at a loss to cover the bill. In other words, they sold the furniture to pay the rent.

With the fiscal insanity of the previous government, why did the member opposite not resign?

[Business of Supply, November 19th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, I remind the House that the previous Conservative government inherited a $32-billion structural surplus, which the Conservatives turned into a deficit well before the recession.

[Business of Supply, November 19th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, I have heard repeatedly from the party opposite that they have some belief, that I cannot find in fact, that the housing money that this government has invested has not hit the ground and is not building real housing for real people and providing real subsidies right now.

Victoria is getting to functional zero within two years on homelessness precisely because of the federal housing investments made in our first budget, our second budget, our third budget, and now for the next 10 years following that.

Additionally, we have modular housing being opened in Vancouver. There have been four projects in Vancouver, all with federal dollars, opened in the last six months. Even in the riding that the member comes from, Nanaimo, I was there personally to open 26 units of really innovative passive housing put forth by the friendship centre in her riding.

The dollars are real. The dollars were tripled to the provinces in the first budget. The homelessness dollars doubled in our first budget and are now locked in for the next 10 years.

The party opposite promised to only increase homelessness spending by $10 million. If we take a look at its platform for the last three years of its housing budget on rental housing, it promised zero, zero and zero, and only zero if it got to a balanced budget. Could the party opposite explain how spending zero dollars on housing was going to solve the housing crisis that the member speaks of so eloquently?