Jessica Fancy

Mr. Speaker, in the face of rising fuel prices driven by global instability, Canadians deserve real relief. I heard this from the families and businesses in my riding of South Shore—St. Margarets throughout the summer. They benefited from our government's decision to suspend the fuel excise tax last spring, and they are hoping to see it extended. I have a question for the finance minister that I am hearing from my constituents. How are we helping Canadians pay less at the pump so they can keep more money in their pockets?

Mr. Speaker, before I start talking today about Bill C-266, I would like to first take a moment to thank all the wonderful people in South Shore—St. Margarets. It was wonderful to be back home in the riding over the summer, getting out into our communities, meeting with constituents, listening to their concerns and celebrating the incredible work happening across the south shore. It was also a real privilege to help deliver some exciting investments to our communities, including $6.2 million to the Lunenburg Opera House and over $15 million to Hawboldt Industries, which received the Davie contract. Of course, I loved getting out to meet our students in the Canada summer jobs program, where young people are gaining valuable experience, building confidence and contributing to their communities. I want to thank everyone who opened their doors, shared their stories, invited me into their workplaces and to their community events, and reminded me every day why I am here to serve. I am grateful to be back, and I am excited to bring the voices of South Shore—St. Margarets to Ottawa. I am pleased to rise today to speak on behalf of Bill C-266 and to the importance of making it easier for skilled trades workers to take their skills, experience and hard work with them wherever opportunity exists in this country. I would like to thank my colleague, the member for Richmond East—Steveston, for the bill. At its heart, the bill is about something very simple: opportunity. It is about making sure that if a Canadian has the skills and training to do a job in one province, unnecessary administrative and regulatory barriers do not prevent that person from doing the same job in another province. Bill C-266 proposes the development of a national framework on skilled trades and labour mobility. The objective is to reduce barriers, improve credential recognition, identify those equivalencies between jurisdictions and find, as I said before, opportunities to harmonize certification processes. Importantly, this is not about Ottawa telling provinces how to regulate their skilled trades. It is about governments working together. It is about provinces and territories, industries, unions, apprenticeship organizations, indigenous partners, employers and training institutions sitting at that same table and asking one very practical question: “How do we make it easier for Canadians to work?” That question matters enormously in a country as large and diverse as Canada. I come to this conversation with a very different professional background from many of the members of the House. Before becoming a member of Parliament, I was a teacher. I spent many years working in the education system, including as a high school principal. One of the things that experience taught me is that when we talk about workplace development, we cannot start at the point where someone wants to get onto the job site. We have to start much earlier. We have to start with the young people. We have to start with the students sitting in a classroom wondering what kind of future is possible for them. We have to start with the young person who is incredibly capable with their hands and who can build, fix, design, operate, and solve problems but who might not see themselves already reflected in a traditional academic pathway. We have to make sure young people understand that there are many different ways to build a successful life here in Canada. A good education system should not tell every student that success means following the exact same path. It should open doors, and that means universities, colleges, apprenticeships, skilled trades, entrepreneurship and technology. It means creating opportunities. There is a theme here for young Canadians to develop skills that are valued in their communities across this country. I represent South Shore—St. Margarets. It is a beautiful riding, but it is also a riding that knows very well the challenges that come with being rural. Young people have enormous potential. We have people who are working in construction, transportation, marine industries, forestry, fisheries, energy and manufacturing. I could go on. We have small business owners who are looking for workers, and there are communities that need housing. Infrastructure needs to be built, and we have employers who tell us that finding people with the right skills is one of the biggest challenges. At the same time, we have young people who are asking themselves whether they can build a future in the community where they grew up. That is an important question, because if a young person has to leave their community to find opportunity, sometimes they never come back. What does that mean to a rural community? It loses more than just a young worker. It loses volunteers, parents, future business owners, coaches and community leaders, and we lose people who would eventually become the next generation of teachers, tradespeople, nurses, entrepreneurs and public servants. Therefore, when we talk about building Canada's workforce, we have to talk at the same time about building strong communities. That is why labour mobility matters, but it is also why education and training matter. I am a former member of HUMA, which completed a study on youth employment. One of the lessons that came through very clearly is that young people do not experience the labour market in the same way that many of us did growing up. There are young people who are ready to enter that workforce but cannot find the first opportunity. There are young people who have the education but not the experience that employers might be looking for. There are young people who need access to training, and, most important, there are young people in rural and remote communities who face additional barriers simply because of geography. There are many young people who have the trades, but they also need a pathway to put those to work, and that is what the bill would try to do. The last point is particularly important, because when we talk about the skilled trades, we talk about how we can train people. We encourage through apprenticeships, we invest in education, and we can help young people enter the workforce, but if unnecessary barriers prevent these workers from taking their skills where they are needed, we have not solved that problem. We have simply moved the problem, kicking the can down the road. Canada's workforce needs to be flexible. A worker in Nova Scotia might have an opportunity in Alberta, a worker in Quebec might have an opportunity in British Columbia, and a worker in Newfoundland and Labrador might have the skills that are desperately needed in other parts of the country. All Canadians should be able to make these choices. That does not mean we eliminate the safety standards. It does not mean that we lower training requirements. It does not mean that we undermine provincial authority. It does not mean that every certification system needs to be identical. What it does mean, though, is that we should be asking whether these differences between jurisdictions are genuinely necessary or whether they come from simply creating duplication and the old red tape that we talk about a lot in the chamber. Bill C-266 takes a framework approach to this problem. It proposes mapping equivalencies across jurisdictions. It proposes identifying opportunities for harmonization. It proposes modernizing certification processes, and it proposes bringing the right people together to have these conversations. That is important because the young people who understand these barriers best are the ones who encounter them. Unions also understand the importance of safety, wages and working conditions. Provincial regulators understand their responsibilities. Indigenous communities and organizations have important perspectives on workforce development and economic participation. Governments have the responsibility to bring these voices together. I also want to emphasize what the bill would not do. It would not override provincial authority, and that matters. Provinces and territories have important responsibilities when it comes to training, certification and labour market regulation. These responsibilities must be protected. The strength of the bill is that it would recognize that reality but would also recognize something else, which is that the labour market does not stop at a provincial border.

Mr. Speaker, in South Shore—St. Margarets, every summer we see young people across our communities stepping into jobs, gaining confidence, experiences and new skills and contributing to the local businesses and organizations that make our region so vibrant. This summer, the government has added an additional 25,000 jobs to the Canada summer jobs program, giving the opportunity for 100,000 kids to gain hands-on experience. In my riding, there are over 300. Can the Minister of Jobs and Families please share how this program is helping communities?

Mr. Speaker, mining is already one of Canada's largest economic drivers, contributing billions of dollars to the Canadian economy annually, but the sector is experiencing a labour shortage right now, needing 250,000 new hires over the next 10 years. Can the Minister of Jobs and Families please update the House on a national announcement that was recently held in my riding of South Shore—St. Margarets about what is being done to ensure that Canadian workers can take advantage of these generational opportunities?

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of Bill C‑20, the Build Canada Homes act. I do so as the proud member of Parliament for South Shore—St. Margarets. Any day we get to rise on behalf of our constituents is always a great day. I want to talk today about our housing crisis and how it is not just theoretical. It is something that I hear about every single day from residents, businesses and my community leaders. Across our communities, all the way from Shag Harbour to Tantallon in my riding, there is a message that is clear. We need more housing, not someday, not eventually, but right now. In South Shore—St. Margarets, the challenge is not just affordability but also availability. Most of what we have talked about today is between those two things. I would like to talk about our responsiveness to both affordability and availability. We have employers that are looking to hire in South Shore—St. Margarets but are unable to attract workers because sometimes there is no place for them to live. We also need the infrastructure to support that. We have young families who want to stay in the community but cannot afford a home. We have seniors who want to age in place, in community, but have limited options. We have growing communities that are being held back, not by a lack of opportunities but by a lack of housing supply. This is not just a housing issue. It is an economic issue, a workforce issue and also a community sustainability issue. I do not want to sound like a negative Nelly. I would like to talk now about why Bill C‑20 matters. This legislation would transform Build Canada Homes into a Crown corporation, as we have been discussing today in the House, giving it the independence, flexibility and tools needed to actually deliver housing at the scale required. This is about action. Build Canada Homes would not just fund projects one at a time. It would act as a builder, a partner and a catalyst, working alongside municipalities, provinces, indigenous communities, non-profit organizations, co-operatives and the private sector, an opportunity that is also backed by $13 billion in initial funding to get the work moving. I want to speak directly about what I have been hearing from the people in my riding. I have met with developers, builders, tradespeople and community housing organizations, and they are all aligned on one thing: They are ready to build, but they need the conditions to do it. They need access to land, in some cases. They need financing that works in today's market. Perhaps most importantly, they need infrastructure to support growth. Without infrastructure, homes cannot be built. In South Shore—St. Margarets, we are already seeing the kind of collaboration that makes housing possible. A strong example of this partnership in my riding is between the Municipality of the District of Lunenburg and the Town of Bridgewater. They have led a joint venture with their wastewater system, and this is exactly the kind of forward-looking investment we need. I was very proud to be one of the only members of Parliament right now to have one of those announcements in our larger announcements just a couple of months ago. When municipalities work together, they expand core infrastructure like water and wastewater systems, and they unlock the ability to build housing to scale. These are foundational investments, and for too long, there has been a bottleneck. We have seen this as a government, and our new government is here to respond. Build Canada Homes recognizes this. It understands that if we want homes built, we must also support those systems that make these homes possible. Another reason this legislation matters to people in my rural riding in Nova Scotia is that it recognizes the diversity in housing needs. Housing affordability in South Shore—St. Margarets does not look the same as in many other areas, in urban centres. This is why Build Canada Homes uses both a place-based and an income-based definition of affordability, ensuring that housing reflects the realities of local incomes. This matters because homes must actually be affordable to the people who live and work in our communities, not because they are on some type of abstract national average. I was also very impressed with, and helped host, one of our round tables with our minister last summer as he was going all over the nation listening and learning, and now, through this legislation, responding. I met with the developers and the whole spectrum of builders at these round tables who gave their concerns, the good, the bad and sometimes the ugly, in response to the minister having these consultations. Rural communities are often overlooked in national housing strategies, but we know that they are essential to Canada's economy, culture and identity. From forestry, to fisheries, to tourism, to small business, rural regions like ours are vital. However, without housing how do we sustain that vitality? The recognition of rural needs through Bill C-20 includes support for infrastructure, transportation considerations and community revitalization. It is an important step forward. This legislation is also about partnership, and in South Shore—St. Margarets partnership is how we get things done. We are seeing municipalities collaborate. We are seeing non-profits and co-operatives step forward. I was recently at an announcement for shovels in the ground for an eight-unit co-operative shared housing unit in the small town of Liverpool. Although there are only eight units, that is huge in our small rural and coastal communities. We are also seeing leaders come together to think bigger and aggregate projects to create scale. That type of collaboration is exactly what Build Canada Homes is designed to support, because when communities align with federal resources and private sector capacity, we can move forward from ideas to construction and from plans to actual homes. We also want to highlight some of these economic opportunities in this approach. Build Canada Homes is more than just housing. It is about building Canadian capacity. It is about Canadian workers, Canadian materials and Canadian expertise. For South Shore—St. Margarets, that means opportunities for tradespeople. It means opportunities connected to our forestry sector and supply chains. Our colleagues have just talked about the lack of support for the forestry sector. I have met with multiple different lumber mills in my riding and some of our prefab manufacturers on how they are working specifically within our supply chain locally to get these homes built. It means good jobs that support families in our region. It is like having multi-generational families like Freeman Lumber in my riding working together with others like Lloyoll Prefabs, Walls and CLATTCO Construction in my riding on a common goal, which is to get roofs over people's heads. At a time when global uncertainty is increasing, investing in Canadian industry is solving problems with respect to our housing shortage. This is the right approach. Innovation is key. I want to address directly the idea that this legislation creates unnecessary bureaucracy. Respectfully, I disagree. This legislation is about streamlining, not adding layers. Build Canada Homes brings expertise, financing tools and partnerships together under one organization with a clear goal. The housing crisis did not emerge overnight and will not be solved overnight. What Canadians expect of us is progress. They expect us to work together. They expect us to take bold, practical steps. Bill C-20 is one of those steps. For the young family in Bridgewater who is working and looking for their first home, for the nurse who is considering a job on the South Shore but is unable to find housing and for the senior in Lunenburg who wants to stay close to their community, this bill matters.