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Mr. Chair, does the hon. member believe that every Canadian has a right to housing? We do. Do the Conservatives?
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Madam Chair, that is exactly what the housing accelerator fund is trying to do. It is to speed up the permitting and delivery of housing. Unfortunately, the Conservatives did not support it.
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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, we do have a plan. It is called the housing accelerator fund, which is about building more supply and doubling the number of new homes built in Canada. What did they do when they had the chance to actually do something to help build more supply in Canada? They voted against it.
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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, if they care about housing affordability, why did the Conservatives vote against the first-time homebuyer incentive?
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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, 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. Chair, why did the Conservatives vote against supports for homebuyers?
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Mr. Chair, our population is growing because we have a robust immigration policy, but we also have a growing economy. The issues that the leader points to are issues associated with growth, with low unemployment numbers, high economic growth and high immigration. Skilled people are coming to Canada to help us grow our communities and our economy. If he is against that, he should come out and say t…
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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, 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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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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Madam Chair, we believe in the right to housing; they do not.
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Mr. Chair, that is the party that believes in cuts. We believe in federal leadership on housing.
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Mr. Chair, I have provided that information.
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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, 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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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 called the federal lands initiative. We have had this program for a number of years. The hon. member has come around to the utility of this program, and I congratulate him for coming around to this idea, but he is a number of years late into this program.
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Mr. Chair, for almost a decade, the party opposite, when it was in government, revelled at attacking civil servants, denigrating them and calling them partisan names. We do not do that on this of the House. We respect the independence of Crown corporations. The hon. member, as an hon. member of Parliament, knows or should know that Crown corporations are responsible for determining the compensatio…
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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, 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, 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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Mr. Chair, everyone deserves a place where they can raise their family, plan for the future and belong to a community. Unfortunately, families across the country are struggling with the rising cost of living, especially the rising cost of housing, both for homeowners and for renters. Housing is a basic human need. It is also an economic necessity. Our economy is built by people, and people need ho…
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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, 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, 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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Madam Chair, I am actually very happy with that question. I just announced recently, along with the Minister of Veterans Affairs, a new program investing $79 million to create permanent housing solutions for veterans experiencing homelessness, which includes rental supplements as well as wraparound supports and services to integrate veterans and provide housing solutions for them. It is a great pr…
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Mr. Chair, the average down payment on a home, again, depends on the region. Those are the numbers I have. I am happy to provide them.
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Mr. Chair, it is a regional number depending on what part of the country one lives in.
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Madam Chair, again, I thank the hon. member for her advocacy in getting those projects into her community. This is an example of what happens when the federal government is able to invest into locally prioritized projects that deliver real housing solutions for Canadians. I am proud of the work that we have been able to do in Châteauguay—Lacolle with the hon. member.
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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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Madam Chair, we are the party in government that legislated the right to housing.
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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, can the hon. member tell us how he votes against the housing accelerator fund, but expects more housing supply, including rental—
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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, it is hard to take the party opposite seriously on rent, when it voted against the Canada housing benefit, which delivers rental supports to Canadians.
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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, I think the hon. member is absolutely on brand in attacking civil servants, which is what the Conservatives did when they were in government for almost nine years. I am not going to take that bait. The hon. member knows or should know that no minister of the Crown has ever made a determination on the employee compensation by an independent Crown corporation. He knows that. He can play a…
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Madam Chair, I would like to know why the party opposite does not believe the federal government should help renters.
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Mr. Chair, this is a program that delivers deeply affordable housing every day, right across the country. We are committed to continuing to invest in this program. In fact, we have brought $2.9 billion forward, from future years to this year.
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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, this is pretty rich coming from a party that has no housing plan.
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Mr. Speaker, we understand the importance of being there for vulnerable renters. That is why this government introduced the Canada housing benefit, a revolutionary measure that puts money directly in the pockets of renters and moves with them when they move from one unit to another. We topped up that Canada housing benefit with a top-up to the Canada housing benefit. We will be there for renters. …
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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. Speaker, we understand that more Canadians are facing challenges with respect to rental payments. Although the regulation and rent control issues are under provincial jurisdiction, we on this side of the House believe that we should do everything we can to have the backs of renters. That means building a more affordable rental supply over the life of the national housing strategy, putting mone…
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Mr. Chair, we are committed to building more rentals in this country. They did not have a plan. We put together the rental construction financing initiative, which is about building more rental supply right across the country.
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Mr. Chair, I believe and our government believes that we need more housing supply. They do not. They want to spend less, and they somehow expect more housing will be built in this country.
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Mr. Chair, I actually agree with the hon. member that co-op housing is a very good model for housing, because it is community owned and community managed. We know that co-op housing is a good model for affordable, community-owned and community-managed housing. That is why we are investing $1.5 billion to build the first new co-op units in 30 years; we understand that we need a healthy mix of housi…
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