Scott Aitchison

Mr. Speaker, where are the results? The Prime Minister promised to double the pace of housing construction to almost 500,000 new homes a year, but his own budget watchdog said his new $13-billion housing agency will build only about 5,000 homes. The CMHC's chief economist pointed this week to “weaker momentum for future supply”. Meanwhile, Canada's home prices are up 28% since 2015. Canada has the worst housing affordability in all of the G7. My question is simple. Will the Prime Minister stand and defend his record?

Mr. Speaker, the member just described what happens in a recession. The fact is that Canadians need results. This Prime Minister promised results. In fact, he promised to build at a speed not seen in a generation, but all he has delivered in his first year is a third federal housing bureaucracy with no targets, no timelines and no results. He has given Canadians higher costs, higher debt and fewer homes. His regular news conferences in front of that housing construction project in the south end of Ottawa every Monday are not going to fool Canadians much longer. Home construction is slowing. The crisis is getting worse. Where are the results?

Mr. Speaker, home builders and homebuyers in Ontario are still waiting for the federal government to finalize the regulations to permit them to rebate the HST on all new homes. This is creating more confusion and uncertainty in the market, and it is leaving both buyers and builders in limbo. My question is very simple: On what date will the Liberal government finally live up to its promise? I want no rambling, just a date.

Mr. Speaker, what I find most troubling about this particular bill is that it is not too dissimilar from the government's Build Canada Homes creation, an agency created with $13 billion, with zero targets, zero metrics and no transparency. Nobody knows how it is really supposed to work or what it is going to do. It is just going to do non-market housing. The bill before us would involve $1.713 billion that the minister could spend at his whim. There is nothing in the bill about what the metrics would be nor what the housing needs are by province. It is just $1.713 billion, and the Minister of Finance could spend it however he chooses on housing supply. There would be no requirement for him to talk to the Minister of Housing. There would be no requirement for him to understand CMHC data on the need by province. It is nothing. It would just be a blank cheque for the Minister of Finance. The House is responsible for the public purse. Why would there be no scrutiny of the $1.713 billion?

Mr. Speaker, could the minister explain to the House why we are rushing through this bill now, keeping in mind, of course, that the federal government now has four federal housing agencies? We started with the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation which is the original Crown corporation that actually solved the crisis after the Second World War. Then there was the Canada Lands Company which is a Crown corporation as well. It was created after CN was spun off. They develop land and do it reasonably well. There is the ministry. Then they created this thing called Build Canada Homes, which was another agency. Now, in the final stages of the sitting in this session, the Liberals are scrambling to move this time allocation to not just have this agency but to turn it into a Crown corporation. For the record, if people are counting, that makes three federal Crown corporations engaged in the housing file, on top of the Department of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities. I guess the question has two parts. Why do we need a fourth housing agency, a third federal Crown corporation, and why are we rushing through to get this corporation created?