Kerry-Lynne Findlay

[Affordable Housing and Groceries Act, September 25th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, yes, I do agree with hon. friend that it is important to speak and act with integrity in the House. We see too little of it from the government, but I do believe in it. If I misspoke or exaggerated, I guess those two years have felt like eight years.

[Affordable Housing and Groceries Act, September 25th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, yes, we do think they will be successful in achieving these goals. That is why the member for Bay of Quinte brought forward the legislation in the first place. We are really glad the Liberals decided to steal our ideas because these are good ideas, and they would benefit Canadians.

[Affordable Housing and Groceries Act, September 25th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Parry Sound—Muskoka.

We have a cost of living crisis in Canada. The prices of housing, groceries, fuel and home heating have pushed far too many to the financial breaking point. Once upon a time, if people worked hard in Canada, they could earn a paycheque that would comfortably pay for their necessities. They would even have some cash left over and maybe take a family vacation.

My father was an electrician. One of my brothers is an electrician and another is a carpenter. These are good blue-collar jobs in the skilled trades. We grew up in a safe neighbourhood on Vancouver Island, a place that is not that safe anymore. My father worked hard, and he was able to raise and support six children. We did not always have a lot, but we always had enough. My brothers worked hard and were able to live comfortably. Sometimes, we did not have a lot in our kitchen cupboards, but my father never had to visit the food bank to put food on the table for us.

That was the promise of Canada, but under the Liberals, that promise is broken. After eight years of the overbearing NDP-Liberal government, Canadians are out of money and they are turning their backs on the Liberal Party and the Prime Minister knows it. Out of pure political desperation, he has put forward new legislation to address the mess he has made of housing and grocery prices. Unfortunately, this legislation, Bill C-56, is inadequate.

The Liberals could have adopted the comprehensive housing policy put forward by the Leader of the Opposition in the building homes not bureaucracy act, but instead, they are taking a patchwork approach to the housing crisis. The bill would remove the GST for rental unit construction projects, a campaign promise the Liberals made and broke in 2015. I support this proposal, but would have preferred that the Liberals adopt the positive and sweeping reforms contained in our Conservative leader's bill. I will have more on that in a moment.

Bill C-56 also includes Conservative policy introduced by my colleague from Bay of Quinte in amending the Competition Act by removing the efficiencies defence. This change would give the Competition Bureau more teeth to prevent mergers that would lead to higher prices and less choice. The changes in the legislation are positive and supportable, but it is lamentable that we are in this economic position in the first place.

After eight years of the NDP-Liberal costly coalition, the promise of Canada is broken. Canadians with higher education and many working in the skilled trades find themselves living in tents or in their cars. Crime, chaos, drugs and disorder plague our streets, and we have a Minister of Justice who says it is all in our heads.

After eight years of the NDP-Liberal government and its punitive carbon tax, the cost of groceries is out of control, and Canadian families are hurting. There is a tax on the farmer who grows the food, a tax on the trucker who ships the food and a tax on the store that sells the food, and they are all a tax on the family struggling to buy the food. One in five Canadians is now skipping meals because they simply cannot afford food, and food bank usage is now up at levels we have never seen before. Food banks in my community are at risk of bankruptcy because they cannot keep up with demand. Put simply, our citizens cannot afford to feed themselves because of the NDP-Liberal government.

They also are struggling to put a roof over their heads. Nine in 10 young Canadians believe the dream of home ownership is just that: a dream. Mortgages have doubled. Rents have doubled. Down payments have doubled. Greater Vancouver is now the third most overpriced housing market on the planet. In the city of Vancouver, the average rent is over $3,300 a month, and for a two-bedroom apartment it is nearly $3,900 a month. We can add that to the $2 plus for a litre for gas.

A recent C.D. Howe Institute study determined that in Vancouver nearly $1.3 million of the cost of an average home is from government gatekeepers adding unnecessary red tape. That means that over 60% of the price of a home in Vancouver is bloated by delays, fees, regulations, taxes and high-priced consultants.

Data from Statistics Canada shows that residential construction investment has declined for the fourth consecutive month, including a decrease of 3.2% in Vancouver. In Canada, it used to take 25 years to pay off a mortgage. Now it takes 25 years just to save up for a down payment. The NDP-Liberal government's record on housing has been nothing short of disastrous.

Just a few weeks ago, the Liberals met in London, Ontario, for a three-day retreat. They said that housing and affordability were their top priorities. What did the retreat accomplish? They reannounced their broken campaign promise from 2015 to remove the GST from new, purpose-built rental housing. After the Liberals heard about our common-sense Conservative plan to axe the housing tax, they flip-flopped and tried to take credit.

To address the increase in the price of food, the Prime Minister announced that they were calling in the grocery store CEOs for a meeting. I am sure they were very intimidated. He then threatened them with tax measures that would inevitably be passed on to consumers if they did not lower prices. As expected, this amounted to nothing more than a stunt, a grocery gimmick, theatre. Photo ops, announcements, virtue-signalling, and now they are plagiarizing ideas from the Conservatives.

If the NDP-Liberal government is looking for another idea to plagiarize from Conservatives, it should repeal its carbon taxes and stop the reckless spending that caused this affordability crisis in the first place. These are the real reasons Canadians are struggling with the high cost of living: high interest rates, and high prices in the grocery stores and at the gas pumps.

Bill C-56 does not go far enough and simply would not cut it when it comes to addressing and fixing the housing crisis in this country.

The Leader of the Opposition introduced the building homes not bureaucracy act in Parliament last week. This is a real plan that would tie housing completions to infrastructure funding so we can get shovels in the ground while providing a building bonus to municipalities that exceed their home-building targets. Simply put, if one builds more houses efficiently, one would get more money. Projections are that Canada needs 3.5 million new homes by 2030. We had better get started. Our message to municipalities is clear: build, build, build.

The Prime Minister rewards big city gatekeepers with tax dollars, regardless of whether or not they build homes. Our Conservative plan would require municipalities to build homes close to transit. Conservatives would also list 15% of the federal government's 37,000 buildings so they can be turned into affordable housing. We would remove the GST for any new home with rental houses below market value, incentivizing the construction of affordable homes. Conservatives would cut the bonuses of the gatekeepers at the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation if they are unable to speed up approval of applications to an average of 60 days. Under the watch of the Prime Minister, these bureaucrats have been rewarded with huge performance bonuses for an abysmal performance. Much like the current Prime Minister, Bill C-56 is weak, inadequate, and reeks of desperation.

Only a common-sense Conservative government would fix this housing crisis by building homes not bureaucracy. Only a Conservative government would bring home lower prices for Canadians by ending the inflationary deficits and axing the carbon tax. The promise of Canada is broken, but hope is on the way. Conservatives would reverse these reckless policies and restore the promise of Canada.

[Rick O'Brien, September 25th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, on a separate point of order, while our member was speaking, a member of Jewish heritage, the member for Kingston and the Islands used unparliamentary language again by swearing at one of our members who was trying to make a point, a legitimate point, about a very difficult and sensitive matter, particularly for those of Jewish heritage. He should apologize again.

[Guests in the House of Commons, September 25th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, I am dealing with facts, and those are not the facts. The Liberals do not get it. The Prime Minister either knew or ought to have known who was invited to attend. He embarrassed a foreign leader of a country at war and every parliamentarian here. With the resources of the RCMP and CSIS at his fingertips, basic due diligence was ignored.

Will the Prime Minister take responsibility and explain to Canadians why a Nazi was given a hero's introduction in the House under his watch?

[Guests in the House of Commons, September 25th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, as the chief opposition whip, my office was required to provide a list of names and contact information in advance of President Zelenskyy's address. That information was shared with the protocol office and the Parliamentary Protective Service, which report directly to the RCMP and the Minister of Public Safety on operational matters.

Does the Prime Minister expect Canadians to believe he invited a world leader currently at war to our Parliament and did not vet the list?

[Apology by the Speaker, September 25th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate your taking responsibility for your part in this. It is weighing very heavily on all of us here. A lot of the public does not understand how this person or anyone with that history could possibly have been here and how we could not have known. It has been explained that there is no ability for opposition members to know when someone is introduced from the gallery. We had no notice or context for that.

However, in law, there is a concept of responsibility, which is that someone either knew or ought to have known. This is where we have a disconnect in these discussions today, because who sits in the gallery is not only up to the Speaker of the House. It is the responsibility of those charged with our national security and our overall security in this House. Those of us who lived through a terrorist attack back in 2014, when someone charged into Centre Block with a weapon, know this all too well. We were all engaged in that terrible day.

We used to have just an unlocked door in front of Parliament, and our naïveté was shattered that day; changes were made, as the House leader has already said. Those changes determined whom the responsibility for the safety and security of all members in this House is squarely put on. There are countries that have bulletproof glass between the public galleries and their legislators; that is not what we have here. We still have a very open way of doing our business. However, we put trust in those in authority: the Prime Minister, the Prime Minister's Office, the Privy Council Office and the Speaker's office. We do this to ensure that we have our debates and discussions free from worry about security issues. When it comes to recognizing people, we trust that the reason we are being asked to recognize them is that they have made significant contributions, either to Canada or internationally, or they are noted and elected government officials from provinces or other countries. We repose that trust in our authority positions.

In my view, it is wrong, and it is trying to escape responsibility, for the government to say its members had nothing to do with it. If they did not have anything to do with it, they should have. If they let it all happen and they are on the outside and mere observers in the great play of life, as they often say about so many things, I say no, they are the government. They are the executive, and they are the ones in charge; they should have done their job, and they did not.

[Committees of the House, September 19th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, after discussions between the parties, I believe if you seek it, you will find unanimous consent for the following motion. I move:

That the membership of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs be amended as follows: Mr. Duncan (Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry) for Mr. Nater (Perth—Wellington).

[Criminal Code, September 18th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, ultimately, we are dealing with an approach to dealing with criminality. When the approach is to do the least amount necessary, that is what ends up happening. The least amount is done in response to egregious acts of criminality.

[Criminal Code, September 18th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, the concern is over the philosophy of catch-and-release.

It is a term we usually use when fishing. However, it has come to mean someone being arrested, sometimes for a violent crime, early in the day, then the police seeing that person going down the street in the afternoon, and they end up arresting them for another crime. Then the police see that person in the evening, and there they are again arresting them for something they have done with criminal intent.

This idea of catch-and-release, this endless revolving door, does not work. There is no deterrence at all in a system like that when we are talking about people prone to violence, when we are talking people who would attack with chains and concrete blocks, who stab strangers at public events. This is destroying confidence in our justice system.

At the end of the day, the federal government has control over the Criminal Code, over sentencing and how this should go forward.