Denis Trudel

[Business of Supply, December 7th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, I will ask my colleague the same question I asked the leader of the official opposition earlier.

There were all sorts of food drives over the weekend. I met with organizations in my riding, very dedicated people, food banks, families, people involved in housing as well, who build social housing. They talked to me and what they want are massive investments to build social housing for families, for women who are victims of domestic abuse and for single mothers.

Again, no one talked to me about the carbon tax and the related rising costs in Quebec. What they need is housing. No one talked to me about the carbon tax. The carbon tax does not apply in Quebec.

What is it going to take for Conservatives to understand that this does not apply in Quebec? What would my colleague say to the woman who says we need investments in social housing?

[Business of Supply, December 7th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order.

I simply want to say that the interpreter is indicating for the third time that there is a telephone vibrating next to the microphone and that it is a problem.

[Business of Supply, December 7th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague. She spoke at length about the housing crisis.

Last week, I travelled to France with the Canada-France Interparliamentary Association and I met a socialist senator. We talked about housing and she was surprised that Canada gives or lends money to private developers to build housing. Her jaw dropped. To her this is totally absurd.

I know that my colleague spoke earlier about an acquisition fund. One of the problems with the national strategy is that too much money is being sent to private developers for housing that is not at all affordable, for example housing at $2,000 a month in Montreal. She talked about this acquisition fund and the fact that it would be important for the government to lend money to non-profit organizations to buy housing to get it out of the private market. I would like her to elaborate on how important that is.

[Business of Supply, December 7th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, I have been listening to the debate since this morning, and, as a Quebecker, I feel completely left out. Yet again, the House is debating the carbon tax, which does not apply in Quebec and has nothing to do with Quebec. Furthermore, I am wondering how the Quebec Conservative members feel about this. Every time their party moves motions, they exclude Quebec. I am wondering why they do not fight for their party to move motions about things that affect Quebeckers. On the other hand, every time the Liberals rise to speak about climate change, they make it seem like everything is hunky-dory, like it is all a bed of roses.

Canada is one the worst countries at fighting climate change. It is the only G7 country whose emissions have not dropped since 1990. According to a study by the International Monetary Fund, which can hardly be described as a far left environmental group, in 2022, Canada directly or indirectly invested $50 billion in the oil industry. I would like to ask my colleague how many social housing units he thinks $50 billion could have built.

[Business of Supply, December 7th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, I feel like I am in a kind of parallel universe this morning as I listen to the Conservatives talk about the carbon tax yet again. I have no idea what universe the Leader of the Opposition is living in.

I toured Quebec in recent months and met with over 400 housing organizations, including the Réseau québécois des OSBL d'habitation, the Réseau Solidarité Itinérance du Québec, and technical resource groups that work with homeless persons and women who are victims of domestic violence or that build social housing. No one ever talked to me about the carbon tax. What these people want is for governments to invest. They want the failed national housing strategy to be reviewed. They want the government to send Quebec a cheque so it can build real housing that people can live in. That is what people want. No one ever brought up the carbon tax to me.

What universe are the Conservatives living in?

[Affordable Housing and Groceries Act, December 5th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for talking about social and affordable housing, but also about the Liberals' national strategy that is not working.

There is a very good article by Radio-Canada journalist Laurence Martin about the strategy on surplus federal lands. Land acquisition is a major problem. The federal government should make these lands available to builders, but especially to housing non-profits, to have social and affordable housing built.

We found out that there is land here in Ottawa that was declared surplus in 2015, but housing will not be built there until 2038. On that land, there will finally be housing 23 years after it was declared surplus. That is totally outrageous.

Does my colleague have any thoughts on this?

[Affordable Housing and Groceries Act, November 23rd, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C‑56 touches on housing. It is a priority, actually.

I said it earlier, when my colleague made his speech. It will be difficult to build millions of homes. That has never been done in Canada. We have to find ways to rise to the challenge. We talked about an acquisition fund, which could be an interesting tool.

The elephant in the room when it comes to the housing crisis is the financialization of housing. Big real estate empires are buying up the housing stock. In Montreal alone, it is estimated that less than 1% of owners own a third of the rental stock. That is outrageous. We need to do something about these people who buy up buildings with 60, 80 or 100 units, either to demolish them or renovate them. They double the price and it becomes very problematic.

I am certain it is the same in Toronto and Vancouver. Ottawa needs to tackle this. Could my colleague speak to that? I imagine that the NDP has been thinking about these issues. Do they have any ideas about how to deal with this?

[Affordable Housing and Groceries Act, November 23rd, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, who is always interesting, always brilliant, always thorough and always has relevant things to say.

As we have heard, the GST rebate will not solve the entire housing crisis. Housing is a complex issue. At the current rate of construction, we know that we will never be able to build the amount of housing we need. We are talking about 3.5 million units in Canada and 1.1 million in Quebec. We have never built more than 70,000 units. We will never get there.

We also need to tackle the financialization of housing. That is extremely important. We proposed a measure, and I would like my colleague to talk about it. It is an acquisition fund. We know that we are losing affordable housing. In fact, we are losing more than we are creating right now, which is rather interesting, because these large groups and real estate funds, which are often international, are buying up the affordable housing stock right now. It is a real tragedy.

What we need is an acquisition fund. The government needs to make a fund available to not-for-profit organizations to be able to buy housing that is still affordable—there are still some out there—and remove them from the market to guarantee affordability. I would like my colleague to talk a bit about this measure and tell us how this might greatly improve things in the market.

[Affordable Housing and Groceries Act, November 23rd, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, Conservatives always sound a bit off when they talk about human misery. They talk about food banks being at capacity. They talk about people struggling.

A month ago, the mayor of Quebec City, the only place where the Conservatives are able to get their people elected, held a summit on homelessness. Oddly enough, I did not see a single Conservative MP there. A lot of provincial elected representatives were there. I was there too. We talked about homelessness and tried to come up with solutions. Not a single Conservative MP was there.

I have one very specific question for my colleague. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities held a press conference in Ottawa today. Its spokespeople said that municipalities would need $600 billion to support the construction of the millions of housing units the country needs. That money is needed to pay for roads, public transit and sewers.

How much would a Conservative government—which nobody here wants—be prepared to give municipalities to address those needs?

[Government Business No. 30—Proceedings on Bill C-56, November 23rd, 2023]

Madam Speaker, I am wondering what country my colleague actually lives in. I listened to him brag about what his government has done to deal with the housing crisis. The Liberals have been in power for eight years.

I did a tour of Quebec. I travelled all around the province. Homelessness has increased by 40%. Right now, 10,000 people in Quebec are homeless. There are homeless people everywhere: Saint‑Jérôme, Val‑d'Or, Lac‑Saint‑Jean, Rimouski, Gaspé, Sherbrooke and likely in my colleague's riding too. I heard what the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry said earlier. There are also homeless people in Shawinigan. It is a problem everywhere.

We asked for an emergency fund so that people are not dying on Quebec's riverbanks. There was nothing about that in the economic update. As my colleague—