Adam Vaughan

[Housing, June 19th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member opposite for her sustained focus on housing and on tackling homelessness. It is a shared set of values in terms of the goals we are pursuing as a government.

I want to correct the record, though. When we released the national housing strategy, the UN rapporteur on housing made the following statement, which she issued to the world:

This is an important step that is in keeping with Canada's commitment to the right to housing contained in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the commitment Canada made in 1975 when it ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

The rapporteur also said:

I am glad to see that the Government has now made a significant shift in its approach. It is finally moving toward a more inclusive understanding of human rights, recognizing all people as rights holders, including those who live in inadequate housing and those who are homeless.

The national housing strategy and our rights-based approach to housing stands distinct from the NDP position in two very important ways. The NDP position, which is simply to have a right to housing, does not necessarily provide a way to deliver the housing that is a right for a person. Declaring it a right will get people, perhaps, into a courthouse, but it will not get them into homes. It may introduce them to lawyers, but they need landlords. While it creates sort of a hope that they can prosecute their way into housing, the reality is that the UN convention talks about having a system of housing that people have a right to access. We have to do two things: create that rights-based approach, and create that system.

The national housing strategy is a $40-billion investment over the next 10 years that addresses the full continuum of housing needs. The member opposite says that we are not being ambitious enough in reducing chronic homelessness by only setting a target of a minimum of 50%. She is correct. Other jurisdictions, Victoria for example, with our $30-million investment, paired with the city's investment and the province's investment, will end homelessness within two years and be at effective zero.

We think there is much progress to be made, but we also know and understand that hidden homelessness is not documented properly in this country. Better data is needed. While we step in with a robust $40-billion program, and we house hundreds of thousands of Canadians across this country, lifting many out of poverty in the process, the reality is that new people will stream into the system, and we have to account for that in the way we make projections. We are doing that.

I want to contrast our $40-billion investment, which is being spent this year, right now. I was in British Columbia just a weekend ago, in Nanaimo, opening a housing project. We are opening them in Victoria. We are opening them in Vancouver. We are opening them in Toronto. We are opening them in Nova Scotia. It is an extraordinary renaissance that is happening across the country with the national housing strategy, and it comes as we start spending close to $4 billion a year on housing. We will do that over the next 10 years, increasing the funding as we grow the system.

I want to tell the House what the NDP position on homelessness was when we walked into the last election. This is not a new crisis, and nobody on this file thinks it just suddenly started in the last year or two. This is a 10-year program for a 20-year catastrophe that was in the making.

The NDP, in its approach, was only going to spend $10 million a year to solve homelessness. We are spending $200 million a year on the program that they were only going to spend $10 million on. That is an inadequate response by any measure. When it came to new, affordable housing construction, for the last three years of the mandate, based on its campaign platform, the NDP was going to spend zero, zero, and zero.

I would like to ask the member opposite, in response, how they would solve the housing crisis by not spending money and underinvesting in the sector. That was the NDP platform. That is what the NDP proposed: no housing system in which to achieve one's rights as a human in this Canadian system.

[Firearms Act, June 18th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honest conversation because I think the bill does two things. It places much more stringent background checks on individuals so that when someone is acting in a way that is inappropriate, there is a longer and deeper investigation as to why that person may be inappropriately holding guns or a licence.

Second, restrictions on moving guns around cities makes cities safer. Those are two things that will make the communities that I represent safer.

Could the other side explain why registering all those other tools is acceptable, but guns somehow should be different?

[Firearms Act, June 18th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, what is the problem with registering the guns? Second, you say there is not enough in the bill to deal with—

[Firearms Act, June 18th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I was at a wedding last night in my riding. It was a very beautiful night. One of the saddest moments was when a mother walked in. A month ago as her son was taking out the garbage at 11 p.m. in downtown Toronto he was shot in retaliation for a shooting that took place in my colleague's riding in Eglinton—Lawrence a few weeks before. In that case, an innocent bystander was killed.

The weapon used in that shooting belonged to someone who lived in the riding that I represent, the same neighbourhood where this young man was shot. That person owned 11 handguns legally and he ferried them around the city to different gang members to pay for his university education. This situation is something which I would like the opposite side to start to contemplate and provide some reflection for me on it. It is a serious situation in the city that I represent and real kids are losing their lives.

The mother is a nurse at St. Michael's Hospital. She found out that her kid had been shot because he was wheeled into her emergency room while she was taking care of other people's children. This is a serious situation in Toronto. I appreciate the long guns that the member opposite just talked about, the tools that are used to protect cabs and that are used to get rid of foxes that are rabid and are used to protect tree planters like my sister was. She has a long gun and she worked in the interior of B.C. for many years. I get that they are tools.

You register your tractor. You register your car. You register your boat. You register the other tools of your hobbies and businesses. I do not understand why guns make you so upset—

[Social Development, June 18th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Etobicoke—Lakeshore for highlighting exactly why Canadians say that the leader of the opposition is simply Stephen Harper with a smile. He has not just a smile. He has a bit of a smirk when he votes against the Canada child benefit. When he votes against a boost to the GIS and helping seniors, and when he votes against making sure we have child care and housing, he does it with a smile. It worries us.

This government will continue to fight for Canadians and fight to make sure they get the support they need from this government. We will not do it with a smile, the way they do it with a smirk.

[Child Care, June 18th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, in terms of the Canada child benefit in the minister's riding, $45 million is being sent to families who need that support. The NDP voted against that.

In terms of child care, this government has invested $7.5 billion over the next 10 years to partner with the provinces, territories, and indigenous governments to deliver that child care.

In terms of housing, the Canada housing benefit, a $40-billion, 10-year investment to build housing, repair housing, and subsidize housing is all part of our attack against poverty. We just want the NDP to help us get there faster.

[Cannabis Act, June 18th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, the argument presented by the other side seems to be that this drug is so dangerous, has such extraordinarily harmful effects, is so volatile, and in particular has such a drastic impact on young children that we need to leave it in the hands of criminals. If this drug is as dangerous as the members say, it needs to be made illegal in terms of the current system, but the current system has not prevented it from getting into the hands of youth. In fact, the member opposite just said that people she sees are getting access to the drug, which means the former government's approach to this placed it in the hands of kids. If it is that dangerous, that system is unacceptable.

Clearly, a regulated system that restricts it and focuses on keeping it away from young people is a better way to go than simply the status quo, which the member has already said is so dangerous and so ill thought-out that people could not tell the difference between the psychotic episodes and consumption. Regulating it and keeping it out of the hands of young people is a responsible, smart thing to do. However, if it is this dangerous, why would the party opposite want to leave it in the hands of criminals to finance criminal behaviour in their communities?

[Main Estimates, 2018-19, June 14th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, throughout the day, I have been hearing references to Australia, which is a country I know well as my parents were born there and it is the place where my cousins live. Email is a fantastic thing because I get to ask them in real time about what happened after carbon pricing was removed in Australia.

My cousins in Victoria will tell us that electricity prices tripled the first year it was gone because the price on coal was removed. The price on coal, which is largely exported to China, was being used to subsidize electricity in Australia for clean energy. When the carbon price was removed, it opened up the coal mines, which was not good for the environment but also tripled the price of electricity.

For those who are really concerned about what the cost of gasoline is in Australia, they might want to check what happened with the gasoline prices there. At the point of the carbon tax being in place, gasoline was going for $1 a litre in Australia. Today it is $1.88 a litre. Why? Because the private market dictates the price, not government taxes. It is the market price for fuel that is the issue.

The trouble in Australia is that it is losing port capacity because of erosion, due to massive floods caused by climate change. Climate change has eroded the Australians' capacity to import cheap energy and so energy prices are going up.

If the members opposite really want to follow Australia's example, could they explain why farmers should pay $1.88 for a litre of gasoline? Could they explain why coal in manufacturing is the preferred method of energy generation? Could they please explain why they want to triple the price of electricity?

[Main Estimates, 2018-19, June 14th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, this is about the 18th or 19th time I have heard about this mythical document, which was commissioned by the Harper government and delivered as a public report before the Prime Minister was even sworn in, and it is somehow being related to what this government has done. It is a Harper document that the Harper cabinet forgot to take with it when it left.

What does the policy we put in place have anything to do with anything Stephen Harper did? What report did Stephen Harper commission? I do not even know what members are talking about when they refer to this report. This report was put in place and tabled before the Liberals were sworn in. Why do the members opposite want it so much? If they want it so much, why do they not ask one of Harper's former cabinet ministers for it?

[Business of Supply, June 14th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, hearing the other side talk about their record on climate change, I wonder how many times one can close a coal plant. The largest reduction in greenhouse gases was a direct result of the provincial government in Ontario closing coal plants. They can only be closed once. They cannot be closed more to get better results. Once it is closed, it is done. One has to move on to another coal plant. By the way, they opposed closing them in Alberta.

The other major contributor to the climate change reduction under the Conservative government, which they like to take credit for, and I am prepared to blame them for it if they wish, is that they had a recession. In fact, they often say it was a global recession, so do not blame them. They loved the recession so much, could the member explain why he thinks they might have wanted to try making a second recession happen just as they were leaving office?