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Madam Chair, we know that there are long-standing housing gaps in indigenous communities. We will continue to work with first nations, Inuit and Métis nation partners to co-develop and implement community-led housing strategies. Out of a number of different investments, I will just point to a few: $400 million over 10 years for Inuit-led housing and the new $4-billion commitment for the urban, rur…
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Madam Chair, we are committed to making sure we address the needs of indigenous peoples through a co-developed indigenous, distinctions-based housing strategy. We have provided significant investments over—
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Madam Chair, we do uphold those rights, as evidenced by our co-development approach for the urban, rural and northern indigenous housing strategy.
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Madam Chair, that is not quite accurate. In fact, the $4-billion allocation builds on the existing money of $300 million, which is going to urgent needs while we build on the larger strategy.
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Madam Chair, the total amount outside of the funds that the hon. member mentioned is $400 million as part of the northern housing strategy.
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Madam Chair, they have been available. It is a long-term commitment that flows through different streams. One is through the bilateral agreements. Another one is through the northern—
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Madam Chair, the hon. member is right. We have, of course, allocated significant resources that are making an impact on the ground, but there is more work to be done. We are committed to doing that work.
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Madam Chair, that is not fair. In Nunavut alone we have helped over 5,000 families and supported individuals to meet their housing needs. Yes, there is more work to be done, but to say that there has been no action—
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Madam Chair, we do prioritize housing for indigenous women through our investments. We just recently announced $103 million to fund projects in over 21 communities, particularly for indigenous women fleeing from domestic violence.
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Madam Chair, how can the hon. member say this when we committed $400 million as part of the northern housing priorities in budget 2018 and then an additional $845 million over seven years for Inuit distinctions-based housing recently? These are significant dollars and they are in addition to the rapid housing initiative investments and other investments.
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Madam Chair, I welcome the hon. member's questions and the prioritization of housing and action against homelessness. I can assure the member that our government prioritizes funding to support organizations supporting those who are experiencing homelessness on the ground. We have doubled that funding, in fact.
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Madam Chair, I do appreciate the questions. I just want to clarify a few things. I think there are some inaccuracies in some of the assertions made. Of the rental construction financing initiative, for the over 190 projects funded by CMHC, only four are connected to or are real estate investment trusts. That means that these projects are really increasing supply. They also have to meet the afforda…
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Madam Chair, every Canadian has a right to an affordable place to call home. The housing needs and economic circumstances of Canadians vary widely, which is why the national housing strategy has different programs for different people.
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Madam Chair, I have news for the hon. member; the housing accelerator fund will enable local governments to do exactly that. They can use some of the proceeds and incentive amounts of money through the housing accelerator fund to actually buy land and build more affordable housing.
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Madam Chair, that is not fair. I met with the Manitoba housing minister, Rochelle Squires, precisely on that project. By the way, we built 50,000 units of affordable housing for seniors.
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Madam Chair, of course, there is more work to be done, but I just want to remind the hon. member that we have already invested over $228 million in Winnipeg, representing over 6,266 units. We are aware of the issue involving the sale of Lions Place, and we know that residents are concerned about it. We are committed to working with all the stakeholders to reach a conclusion.
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Madam Chair, we are the party in government that legislated the right to housing.
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Madam Chair, wow, that is the kind of over-the-top rhetoric and denial of the facts that will have the hon. member lose credibility on this issue. Is she saying $724 million over five years is not real money for women fleeing gender-based violence? Of course, there is more work to be done, but to say that we have not done anything is really unfair and inaccurate. We are doing a lot in this space a…
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Madam Chair, the hon. member would have us believe that investing $228 million to build over 6,200 housing units in Winnipeg is a pittance. Those are her words. We believe that we are delivering for provinces and territories. We are delivering for communities. We are delivering for vulnerable people. Of course, there is more work to be done, but to deny $228 million invested in Winnipeg for deeply…
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Madam Chair, we have not abandoned the most vulnerable in this country. In fact, we have doubled our investments in Reaching Home from just over $2 billion to almost $4 billion to support 5,000 projects and organizations across the country that are doing the work the hon. member is talking about. We are there. We will continue to be there and we are proud of that work.
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Madam Chair, of course, any Canadian that we lose to the overdose crisis in the country is real. Of course, we want to make sure that there is enough skilled labour to build the housing that Canadians need. We are doing everything that we can, through different measures, to make sure that this is the case. That also requires investments in local communities to make sure that more young people join…
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Madam Chair, the hon. member points out the challenge of access to safe and affordable housing that meets the needs of each and every Canadian. At the end of the day, different people in the housing spectrum have different types of needs. There is absolutely a need for more deeply affordable housing. That is why we are investing more federal resources into building more co-op housing, by investing…
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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, I am happy to discuss the intricacies of the rental market with the hon. member, but what is more important is to talk about housing supply, to talk about supports for renters and to talk about affordability.
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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, 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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Mr. Chair, the average price of a home in Canada in 2022 was $703,000.
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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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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. 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, 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, 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, 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, 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, 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, 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, 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, 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, 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 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, 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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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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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, 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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