Government Orders
Mr. Chair, on this side of the House we believe in the right to housing, and they do not. The leader is two years behind schedule. We introduced the concept of combining infrastructure investments for housing two years prior. We introduced the housing accelerator fund, a program to do exactly what he is claiming he will do in the future, which is to connect infrastructure and also make sure that l…
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Mr. Chair, it is an honour to stand here to debate my colleagues. We know that Canadians are facing challenges in accessing their dream of home ownership. We are doing everything we can to help them get there.
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Mr. Chair, we are actually doing something about that. We are investing in measures to increase housing supply, but the member has voted against that, so he should come out and explain to Canadians why he keeps doing that. If he cares about supply, why does he block investment in more supply?
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Mr. Chair, I agree with the hon. member that the financialization of housing is an issue that we have to deal with. We are committed, as a government, to making sure that housing is more affordable. We are continuing to do our part in addressing and tackling the financialization of housing. When it comes to rent control and what landlords do at the local level, of course, the provinces have a majo…
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Mr. Chair, the CMHC is an independent Crown corporation and no minister of the Crown will determine the compensation of employees of an independent Crown corporation.
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Mr. Chair, the leader can ask all the questions he wants, but these are the facts. He does not believe in helping homebuyers. He does not believe in building more supply. He does not have a real plan on housing. He has a half-baked plan built on our real plan that was already in progress from 2017. That is the fact. We can have this debate. I am happy to compare our record to his, which is non-exi…
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Mr. Chair, we know that rents have gone up. We are doing everything we can to support renters. In terms the average rental rates, again, there is a regional breakdown. I am happy to provide those numbers.
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Mr. Speaker, we can tell, when the personal attacks are increasing, that it is proportional to the lack of ideas that actually help Canadians. When we look at housing supply, we are the party that has enabled more Canadians to access affordable housing, as well as to access the dream of Canadian home ownership through the first-time homebuyer tax-free savings account, a 1% tax on vacant, non-Canad…
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Mr. Chair, we know there is a challenge with the rising costs of housing. That is why we have implemented a number of policies to enable Canadians to access their dream of home ownership.
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Mr. Chair, with all due respect, I know how this committee of the whole works. I am pointing out the hypocrisy of not helping Canadian renters and then standing here and talking about rent as if they care.
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Mr. Chair, here are the facts. He spouts numbers and he talks about housing affordability, but when it comes to—
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Mr. Chair, this is coming from a party that believes we should do less on housing and not more, and believes that somehow the problem will take care of itself.
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Mr. Chair, I did not interrupt the party opposite. I would appreciate it if the members did not interrupt me. I have the right to respond, as I have been asked a question, and it is becoming routine now. The fact of the matter is that when it comes to housing supply, he has voted against measures to increase housing supply. When it comes to housing affordability and the measures to help homebuyers…
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Mr. Chair, I do not interrupt the other side. It is interfering with my right to reply to the questions from the leader.
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Mr. Chair, the average price of a home in Canada in 2022 was $703,000.
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Mr. Chair, the Conservatives do not have a plan. All they have is gimmicks and buzzwords.
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Mr. Chair, first of all, all the amounts of money have not all been spent, because this is a 10-year plan. It is a long-term plan. It is a stable plan. It is a predictable plan. The impacts are already there. We have seen almost half a million homes repaired or built, and almost two million Canadian households have been positively impacted by the national housing strategy.
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Madam Chair, the Conservatives do not believe in Canadians' right to housing. They believe the federal government should cut investments in housing, yet they want more housing supply. How does that make sense?
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Mr. Chair, I will do it again by saying that I have provided that information. It is regional, and I am happy to provide the regional breakdowns to the leader.
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Mr. Chair, we are witnessing the biggest gatekeeper in this House. He has voted against every measure to build more supply, to support homebuyers and to build affordable housing. He talks about the gatekeepers and red tape. Why did he vote against the housing accelerator fund, a $4-billion program to do precisely what the leader just mentioned, which is to help municipalities increase their capaci…
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Mr. Chair, I have provided the hon. member with the current numbers based on all the investments that we have made. I have made those numbers clear, twice, in my answers. What is rich is that this is the party that has voted no all along, to all those investments that have delivered all the units that I just mentioned.
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Mr. Chair, I am thankful to be invited to rise in the committee of the whole to speak to the main estimates for the CMHC, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, and to discuss the Government of Canada's priorities for housing, ongoing activities and our plans for the future to give more people a place to call home. Housing affordability is one of the most important issues to Canadians. Every…
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Mr. Chair, we know, in Canada, that one of the challenges we face is the lack of an adequate supply of housing. We have the fastest-growing population in the G7, but we have comparatively less housing supply. One of the keys to unlocking additional housing supply of all types, including affordable housing, but also all the way to home ownership, is to work with local governments of municipalities …
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Mr. Chair, we have spent over $30 billion on housing investments, creating 118,000 new units and repairing almost 300,000 units of affordable housing.
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Mr. Chair, he is the one who is taking Canadians for fools, because he thinks he can vote against all the investments in affordable housing, including the federal lands initiative, which is doing exactly what he pretends to care about, and yet he comes back to this House and says that he cares about all these issues. The voting record shows that the member has voted, every single time, against inv…
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Mr. Chair, that is absolutely correct. I found the mayor of Surrey, as well as the members of Parliament from the region of Surrey, to be very open to working with our government to meet the needs of all types of housing advocates in Surrey. Surrey has benefited greatly from the rapid housing initiative. While I was there to announce the third round of the rapid housing initiative in Surrey, I was…
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Mr. Chair, that is a very good question, and it points to the fundamental difference between this side of the House, our government, and the official opposition. The Conservatives do not believe that Canadians have a human right to a dignified place to call home, but we do, and the evidence is there: Whenever we bring investments to the floor of the House to invest in Canadians, they vote against …
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Mr. Chair, I agree with the hon. member that speculative investments in real estate are contributing to pushing housing prices higher. That is why we have legislated a number of measures that can deal with this, including an annual 1% tax on the value of vacant residential real estate that is not owned by Canadians or Canadian residents, as well as a two-year ban on foreign investment in Canadian …
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Mr. Chair, I really appreciate this question, because it gives me an opportunity to talk about the divisiveness of the leader of the official opposition in calling the mayors, the elected officials in this country, “woke”, and denigrating them and calling them “incompetent”. We need to work with local governments, we need to work with mayors and we need to work with municipalities to increase hous…
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Mr. Chair, the federal government is determined to help Quebeckers find safe and affordable housing. Since 2015, we have invested more than $6.5 billion in Quebec to help more than 45,000 families and individuals secure the housing they needed. The bilateral agreement between the governments of Canada and Quebec will result in a combined investment of an additional $3.7 billion over 10 years to im…
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Madam Chair, in fact, in the time we have been in office, we have doubled funding to help people experiencing homelessness.
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Mr. Chair, what is interesting to learn from that question is that it is almost as if the party opposite is just discovering the notion of making federal lands and property available for affordable housing. I have news to break to them, we have been doing this since the beginning of the national housing strategy in 2017. Conservatives have just come around to the idea now. Even then, the idea is a…
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Madam Chair, the hon. member's logic is to do less on housing but somehow produce more housing. How does that make sense?
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Mr. Chair, the Conservatives have all the questions tonight, but they have no plan on housing, and they have no help for Canadians who actually need help with housing.
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Madam Chair, why did the Conservatives vote against the Canada housing benefit that is helping renters?
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Mr. Chair, the hon. member must know or at least ought to know that CMHC, as a Crown corporation, makes decisions regarding mortgage insurance criteria and questions regarding compensation for its staff independently.
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Madam Chair, every single individual experiencing homelessness is a tragedy for our community, but we are investing more than any government.
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Madam Chair, the proof is in the votes. If the hon. member and her party cared about homelessness, then why did they vote against increasing investments?
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Madam Chair, the hon. member knows that although the federal government has a key leadership role to play in housing, we are not the only players in this space. There are provinces and territories. There are municipal partners. We all have to work together to build more supply of housing in this country. That is exactly what we are doing. What did the Conservatives do? They voted against those mea…
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Madam Chair, I have never heard members from the party opposite bring homelessness up in question period. This is the first time they have done that. I want to congratulate them for finally coming around to prioritizing homelessness. Unfortunately, when it came time to actually do something about it, they voted against doubling investments to help people experiencing homelessness.
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Mr. Chair, I would like to know how the Conservatives plan to cut supports for renters and then stand here and pretend to care about renters.
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Mr. Chair, I am really perplexed by the logic of the hon. member. She says that our national housing strategy is not really doing anything on the ground. Contrary to that, I can report back to the hon. member that we have invested in either repairing or building 500,000 units; this has supported almost two million Canadian households. That is the impact the national housing strategy has had on thi…
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Mr. Chair, I am proud to stand behind the national housing co-investment fund. It is a great program that supports non-profits, as well as municipalities, to invest in deeply affordable housing. We are committed to this program for years to come.
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Mr. Chair, I can give him the numbers. In Halifax, in 2022, the average was $541,790.
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Mr. Chair, I just want to correct a few things that have been asserted by the hon. member. The Auditor General looked at the Reaching Home strategy and she looked at the performance of the Reaching Home strategy mainly during the pandemic. The Auditor General did not look at the entire national housing strategy program. I just want to clear that misconception. Secondly, the hon. member seems to do…
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Mr. Chair, no minister of the Crown makes or has ever made decisions in terms of an independent Crown corporation's employee compensation system. The hon. member knows that or ought to know that.
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Mr. Chair, what I do know is that the Conservative Party, when in power, did nothing to help Canadian renters. We introduced the Canada housing benefit, which is helping renters.
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Mr. Chair, it would be interesting to know how the Conservatives plan to build more rentals with less money and less investment in housing.
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Madam Chair, when that party was in office, it did not invest in northern housing.
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Mr. Chair, it is embarrassing to listen to this kind of questioning, because the hon. member should know or knows that no minister of the Crown is responsible for the compensation determined by an independent Crown corporation.
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