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Madam Chair, this is the reality of our investments in British Columbia. Since 2015, we have invested over $7.8 billion in housing in British Columbia to help nearly 147,000 families and over 153,000 households get the housing they need. This includes a joint investment of $517 million in the Canada-B.C. housing benefit, which is targeted at supporting over 25,000 British Columbians.
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Madam Chair, if one listened to the NDP, one would think we are the only order of government that is responsible for housing. Housing is a shared priority. We are doing our part, but the provinces and the municipalities also have a role. We are doing our part to support renters and build more affordable housing.
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Madam Chair, she should start her advocacy within her own caucus, because this is the first time I am hearing them raise issues about homelessness. It is the first time in seven years.
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Mr. Chair, if the Conservatives are serious about rental supports, why did they vote against the Canada housing benefit, which is delivering real supports to Canadian renters?
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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, we believe in the right to housing; they do not.
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Mr. Chair, we know that one of the solutions to higher housing prices is more supply. We brought in measures to create more supply. The Conservatives voted against it.
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Mr. Chair, do the Conservatives have a plan for housing, or do they just have rhetoric and buzzwords?
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Mr. Chair, the Conservatives do not have a plan. All they have is gimmicks and buzzwords.
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Madam Chair, if the party opposite had its way, it would not even offer any supports to first-time homebuyers to access their dream of home ownership.
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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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Madam Chair, if the hon. member cared about housing supply, why did she and her party vote against the housing accelerator fund, which is about building more housing supply?
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Madam Chair, the Conservatives do not even believe that Canadians have a human right to housing. We are the ones who legislated a human right to housing.
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Madam Chair, their plan does not include any mention of homelessness. Their plan does not really prioritize affordable housing.
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Madam Chair, the Conservatives do not believe in the right to housing. They have no plan. All they have are gimmicks and buzzwords.
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Madam Chair, does the official opposition actually believe that Canadians have a right to a safe and affordable place to—
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Mr. Chair, the average price of a home in Canada in 2022 was $703,000.
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Madam Chair, the Conservatives released a housing plan with no mention of homelessness.
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Madam Chair, why does the hon. member not believe there is a federal leadership role in housing?
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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 would like to know why the party opposite does not believe the federal government should help renters.
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Madam Chair, I actually want to know why the Conservatives voted against the Canada housing benefit, which is helping renters directly.
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Mr. Speaker, the reason they are focusing on the Prime Minister is to cover up for their lack of a housing plan. We have been working hard, every single day, to make sure more and more Canadians have access to a safe and affordable place to call home. We have put investments in place to help renters pay the rent. We have put investments in place to build more supply, and what did they do? They vot…
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Mr. Speaker, it is really amazing to listen to the Conservatives finally come around to actually proposing some half-baked ideas about housing. We have been doing everything that the hon. member is talking about for the last two years. We have been tying infrastructure to housing. We have been investing in municipalities to make sure that we have more housing supply. We have been building more aff…
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Mr. Speaker, as we explained our housing plan to the leader of the official opposition, we could see from his face that it was the first time he had heard of the plan. When we launched the housing accelerator fund, that same afternoon, the Conservatives launched a half-baked plan that basically mimicked our plan. For the last two years, we have been connecting infrastructure to housing. We are wor…
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Mr. Speaker, the hon. member knows that independent Crown corporations are responsible for the compensation of their staff. When it comes to the housing supply, we are supporting Canadians struggling with the cost of housing and protecting the dream of home ownership by including things such as a $4-billion housing accelerator fund to speed up the construction of new housing, a federal top-up to t…
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Mr. Speaker, maybe the hon. member needs to talk to her leader, because he stood up in this House and insulted and denigrated three of the leading mayors of Canada's largest cities, calling them “woke.” He also stood in this House and pledged to cut housing funding. He hopes that, somehow, all of that would result in some magical solution to the housing issue. It is the same magical thinking that …
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for the question. It is very important to understand that immigration is actually one of the tools among a number of tools in our toolset that we use to address the skills and labour shortage within the construction and building trades sector to actually build housing for Canadians. I would invite my hon. colleague to look at our national housing strategy, the hou…
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Mr. Speaker, I share the hon. member's concern to make sure that we continue to protect vulnerable renters. That is why our government introduced the groundbreaking Canada housing benefit that is delivering rental supports to tens of thousands of vulnerable renters across the country. In addition to that, we introduced a top-up to the Canada housing benefit that has gone on to almost a million Can…
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Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for Yukon for his strong advocacy on this important issue. No relationship is more important to Canada than the one with indigenous people. We know that far too many indigenous women, children and 2SLGBTQI+ people fleeing violence do not have the necessary supports. That is why yesterday I was pleased to join my colleagues to announce $103 million to su…
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Mr. Speaker, to make housing more affordable for Canadians, we have to build more housing faster. That is why we are making unprecedented investments to quickly increase the supply of housing and put Canada on track to double the rate of housing construction over the next decade. That is what the federal government's housing plan looks like.
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Mr. Speaker, that is a great question, and I want to thank the hon. member for his attention to this important issue. To get more housing supply built we need everyone at the table. The Conservatives are just not serious about this. They want to pick fights with mayors and cut funding to cities. Just yesterday, the leader of the official opposition stood in the House and attacked what he called Ca…
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Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for his attention to this important issue. We know, on this side of the House, that to get more housing supply built, we need everyone at the table, but the Conservatives are not serious about this. The leader of the official opposition has picked fights with mayors and cut funding to cities. Yesterday, he stood in the House and attacked what he called …
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Mr. Speaker, we know that the key to building more housing supply is to work with provinces and municipalities. The Conservatives do not understand that. In fact, their leader, this morning in this chamber, denigrated and attacked three of the mayors of Canada's largest cities. That is not going to build one unit of housing for the most vulnerable in this country. What we have done is bring real s…
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Mr. Speaker, I wish the hon. member, in good conscience, would speak to his colleague from Sarnia—Lambton, who stood in this House and voted against the housing accelerator fund after praising it in committee and praising it in the House of Commons. This is the problem with that party. The Conservatives have no policies when it comes to actually delivering housing affordability and a housing suppl…
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague for his important work on this important issue. We know that one homeless veteran is one too many. That is why we announced the new veteran homelessness program. This program will provide much-needed rent supplements and wraparound supports that are geared toward the particular needs of Canadian veterans. Veteran-serving organizations can apply …
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Madam Speaker, it is really difficult to take the party opposite seriously on housing. That member has been on record saying that the federal government needs to do less on housing and that we should just download everything to the provinces and walk away. That kind of thinking is what led his leader to suggest that people should embrace cryptocurrency in order to opt out of inflation. That kind o…
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Madam Speaker, we recognize the challenges faced by Canadians in order to be able to afford a place to call home. We have put together a national housing strategy, which includes the Canada housing benefit. This goes directly into the pockets of vulnerable renters so that they can pay the rent. In addition to that, we have topped it up with a one-time $500 top-up to the Canada housing benefit. The…
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Madam Speaker, here they go again, saying to let the private sector figure it out, to let the federal government walk away and to not invest anything in housing. Somehow, magically, everything will make sense. It is the same kind of thinking that led his leader to suggest that, magically, people can opt out of inflation by embracing cryptocurrency. That is not a plan. What is a plan is the nationa…
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Mr. Speaker, Conservative gatekeepers simply are not serious when it comes to housing. When his leader was the housing minister, he did nothing to help Canadians with affordable housing opportunities. The Conservative position on housing is now to do nothing, cut funding and magically hope that things will get better. It is the same kind of thinking that underpinned his leader's call for the embra…
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Mr. Speaker, we have been working for Canadian renters, and we have been putting in place groundbreaking programs, such as the Canada housing benefit, which the party opposite voted against. When we proposed the top-up to the Canada housing benefit to help vulnerable renters during this difficult period, what did the party opposite do? Not only did it vote against this badly needed help, but it al…
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Mr. Speaker, I actually get along really well with my critic. He recently said he is looking for literature to figure out how to build housing policy. I am happy to share our national housing strategy. Not only that, but I am also happy to share the new, groundbreaking housing accelerator fund. This is about adding more housing supply and working with municipalities to make sure that we unlock mor…
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Mr. Speaker, through budget 2023, we are showing real leadership on housing. We are launching the first-time home buyer's tax-free savings account of $40,000. I am thrilled to share that financial institutions will be able to offer this to Canadians as of April 1. We are also issuing new guidelines to protect those with mortgages, as well as investing a historic amount of $4 billion in the urban, …
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Mr. Speaker, I direct the hon. member to look at our national housing strategy, a record number of investments to make sure we build more affordable housing in this country, including the $4-billion recently announced housing accelerator fund to set us as a country to double housing construction and pay particular attention to affordable housing. In addition to that, we are making sure we are prot…
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Mr. Speaker, in addition to the $4-billion housing accelerator fund to speed up the construction of new housing for more Canadians, a rent-to-own program, a $500 federal top-up for Canadian renters, a $40,000 tax-free first home savings account and new guidelines for protecting Canadians with mortgages facing exceptional circumstances, budget 2023 doubles housing construction in this decade, direc…
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Mr. Speaker, I guess when one does not have much of a housing plan, one resorts to gimmicks, buzzwords and attacks against one's fellow colleagues. What we have done from day one is focus on all Canadians in different spectrums of the housing sector. Whether it is getting people off the streets, building permanently affordable housing for those experiencing homelessness, building more deeply affor…
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Mr. Speaker, seniors are actually a priority population in the national housing strategy. We have invested billions of dollars to make sure that vulnerable groups, including seniors, have access to safe and affordable housing that meets their needs. In addition to that, seniors are eligible for the Canada housing benefit in addition to the top-up that the Conservative members of Parliament voted a…
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Mr. Speaker, on Friday, I was pleased to join the hon. member, together with the Prime Minister, to announce the launch of the housing accelerator fund, a $4-billion initiative that is meant to eradicate the roadblocks and get more housing built faster for Canadians. This will create 100,000 new units, as well as create a permanent systems change that will ensure municipalities approve more housin…
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Madam Speaker, we have introduced the Canada housing benefit to be there for Canadian renters. We have also introduced the top-up payment of $500 that is going toward almost two million Canadians to support them with the cost of rent. What did the party opposite do? Not only did it vote against that real help for Canadian renters, but it also played procedural games in the House to delay its imple…
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Madam Speaker, I want to assure the hon. member that we take the issue of supporting Canadians with rent very seriously. That is why we introduced the Canada housing benefit and have recently topped it up with a one-time payment of $500. The fact of the matter is that we have been there for Canadians, and we will continue to be there for Canadians. The hon. member should have a conversation with h…
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