Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, after 10 years of the government, Liberals friends and insiders have never had it so good. We just learned that the government's own housing agency doled out over $3.6 million in bonuses to all but one of their 86 executives. That is about $43,000 per executive. Meanwhile, rents have doubled, mortgage payments have doubled and home prices have doubled. I am just wondering if the minis…
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Mr. Speaker, in April 1910, Teddy Roosevelt arrived in Paris on the heels of his Smithsonian-sponsored, year-long scientific expedition to East Africa. While he was there, he delivered his famous “Citizenship in a Republic” speech at the Sorbonne, made famous largely because of that stirring “man in the arena” passage. However, in his speech about the importance and the value of public participati…
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague rhymed off a number of federal programs from the Liberal government that have existed for about 10 years. He talked about a whole bunch of different ones. One of them, of course, was the national housing strategy. If these programs have worked so well, why is the problem as bad as it is today? What does he hope to achieve with yet another national housing strategy?
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, the government's own housing agency reports that mortgage delinquencies are up, but the worst is yet to come. The CMHC estimates that interest rates for homes will continue to climb. About two million Canadians will renew their mortgages next year, and they will face new rates that are 3% higher than they were during the pandemic. The housing crisis in this country is quickly becoming…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, after 10 years of the Liberals, experts are now warning of up to 100,000 job losses in the housing sector by 2027. Builders are laying off their trained staff, even though the Prime Minister promised to double housing construction. Housing starts have stalled completely in the GTA and the Lower Mainland, where the housing crisis is the worst. In Ajax, housing starts are down 100%. Bui…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, $13 billion for a fourth federal Ottawa housing bureaucracy to build 4,000 homes is not a solution. It is yet another Liberal boondoggle that will cost Canadians a fortune and will solve nothing. The Prime Minister said, “The core challenge present in the housing market is it’s just too hard to build.” It is hard to build because of government taxes and red tape. In Toronto and Vancou…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister promised to double homebuilding to 500,000 homes per year, but today, housing starts are down 13%. It is another broken Liberal promise. Yesterday, the Prime Minister introduced a fourth $13-billion housing bureaucracy to build, wait for it, 4,000 homes. What blocks homebuilding is government bureaucracy, red tape and taxes. Why does the Prime Minister believe that …
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
With regard to the use of temporary foreign workers in the healthcare sector: (a) what is the total number of temporary foreign workers employed in healthcare-related occupations each year since 2015, broken down by (i) nurse aides, (ii) personal support workers, (iii) licensed practical nurses, (iv) physicians, (v) other job categories, and further broken down by province or territory, and by cou…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
With regard to the government's announcement in Budget 2024, in which it outlined its intention to amend the Food and Drugs Act to grant the Minister of Health the authority to "rely on information or decisions from select foreign regulatory authorities in specific instances to satisfy requirements in the Food and Drugs Act or its regulations", since the enactment of this new authority: (a) how ma…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
With regard to the National Pharmacare Program: (a) what is the average cost since the program's inception, broken down by patient and year; (b) what is the projected average cost for each of the next five fiscal years, broken down by patient and year; (c) what is the total number of prescription drug claims submitted to date, including a breakdown by province; (d) what is the number of claims tha…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, the Liberal government's own housing agency has given up on the concept of housing affordability. It reported that Canada needs to build 480,000 homes a year to restore affordability, something TD Bank says is impossible. Earlier this week, the latest housing minister boasted that he was on pace for 280,000 starts this year, and he plans for 500,000 a year. In the GTA and the Lower Ma…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, it sounds like more bureaucracy, and I will give an example of Ottawa bureaucracy. Here in the city of Ottawa, the federal government closed its training centre. Nine years later, it finally sold that training centre to its own federal housing developer at market price. Then it took the federal developer five years and 79 different reports at the city planning department to deal with …
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, it does not just stop there. Hamilton got $93.5 million, and housing starts there are down 50%. Toronto got $471 million, and they are down 58% there. Guelph got $21.4 million, and housing starts there are down over a whopping 78%. The Liberal plan is to continue spending on city bureaucracies, and now they want to build a third federal housing bureaucracy. When will the government le…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, the Liberals' own housing agency's latest numbers on housing starts are out, and they are bad, particularly in cities that receive money from their housing accelerator fund. For example, Vancouver got $115 million and starts are down 10%; Kelowna got $31.5 million and starts are down 33%. On May 13, the latest housing minister claimed he wanted to build on the housing successes of the…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Chair, I will help the minister. The average is about 25% of the cost of every new home in the GTA, 25% in government charges and fees. I will ask a similar question closer to home: Does the minister know the average cost of government on a new home in Vancouver?
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Chair, the government gave $478 million of its housing accelerator funding to the City of Toronto, which turned around and increased its development charges by 42%, making housing more expensive. Will the minister ask for the money back?
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Chair, the minister talks about partnering with mayors. One of the challenges, of course, that the Canada Lands Company has in trying to get more homes built is dealing with municipal planning departments. It takes them years to get things approved. What does he plan to do to solve that problem?
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Chair, the minister told the House in one of the earlier questioning rounds that “it is time to build”. This is what I am wondering: If, in fact, he believes it is time to build, why not have the agency he already owns, which is already building, build more instead of creating more bureaucracy?
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Chair, I wonder if the minister could comment on a report from the Auditor General. A federal lands initiative of $200 million was given to CMHC to be spent at an increment of $20 million a year for 4,000 units. That has subsequently been transferred over to the Department of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities, and only 309 units of the 4,000 have been built. Can the minister tell us how …
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Chair, would the minister agree that Canada's housing crisis is about supply and therefore also about affordability of homes?
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Chair, does the minister know what percentage of the cost of a new home, in the GTA for example, is government charges and fees?
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Chair, can the minister tell this House how long it will take for his department to create this new federal agency that will be a developer?
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Chair, has the minister ever heard of the Canada Lands Company?
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Chair, does the minister realize that it currently takes about six years to dispose of federal lands to be developed into housing? What does he plan to do to speed that process up?
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Chair, is the minister aware that the Canada Lands Company does not just own the CN Tower and the port of Montreal but in fact is a land developer and is wholly owned by the federal government?
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Chair, on May 14, the minister said that he did not think that prices of homes should come down; then, on June 9, the minister said in the House that he believes the cost of homes needs to come down. Which of those statements is correct, and which one does the minister believe?
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Chair, when the minister was mayor of Vancouver, over his tenure, the city increased development charges by 141% in that time period. Does the minister agree that this made housing more expensive in Vancouver?
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Chair, Canada Lands is currently developing a number of residential housing projects, in Downsview Park, for example, in Toronto. Also here in Ottawa it has a number of projects on the go. Is the minister aware of those?
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Chair, I wonder if the minister could tell the House why he sees fit for the federal government to create a third federal housing agency to become a land developer, when it already owns one.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Chair, does the minister recognize that the cost of development charges a city charges to a developer is passed on to the purchaser and, therefore, becomes part of the purchase price?
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Chair, the cost of government charges and fees in Vancouver is about 20% as well. Would the minister agree, though, that if the cost of homes has to come down, the cost of government needs to come down on those homes?
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Chair, I will be splitting my time three ways. Does the minister believe that Canada is in a housing crisis?
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Chair, does the minister realize that, while he was mayor, house prices in Vancouver went up a whopping 149% and that part of the reason for that was the cost of government charges and fees?
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Chair, I recognize that municipalities need to invest in infrastructure. I was a mayor myself at one point and did the exact same thing. My question was this: Does the cost of government need to come down on the cost of a new home?
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I heard the member speak about the supply side of housing and the importance of that. He bragged about the government's various different programs. I wonder if he would acknowledge, though, that one of the key flaws in the government's housing accelerator program is that in the larger centres that were getting huge sums of money, those cities were also increasing the cost to build hom…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, Canadians are being crushed by the housing crisis. The Liberals' own internal documents admit that housing now eats up 52% of household income. Mortgage delinquencies are at a record high. Families cannot keep up, young people cannot get in and the Liberal government will not show us a plan. A budget is a plan. While Canadians suffer, the Liberals refuse to present a budget that will …
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, here is what we know. We know that Toronto and Vancouver are two of the most unaffordable cities in the world. We know that the cost to construct a residential building in Canada has increased by 58% in the last five years. We know that the latest housing minister increased homebuilding taxes by 141% while he was mayor of Vancouver. We also know that TD Bank has declared that the gove…
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, I am humbled to rise today to thank the incredible people of Parry Sound—Muskoka, who placed their trust in me to represent them here in this House for the third time. This seat, of course, does not belong to me; it belongs to the people I serve. From the majestic French River in the north to the historic Trent-Severn Waterway in the south, from the rugged shores of Georgian Bay to th…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, the sale of new homes in the GTA just hit a seventh straight month of record-setting lows. Only 310 new homes were sold in the GTA in April, which is a 72% drop over last year and an 89% drop in the 10-year average, with condo sales plummeting 94%. The report warns that there will be a massive housing shortage in two years. Prices are too high for buyers, and they are too low for sell…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, tax relief is certainly welcome, and it is, frankly, long overdue from the government, but the bigger tax cuts that its members are talking about will save families $70 a month. We are dealing with families that are looking at $5,000-a-month mortgages or more. Equifax is reporting that the mortgage delinquencies in Ontario are at the highest level ever recorded; they are up 70%. This …
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, all across Canada, government charges account for more than 30% of the cost of a new home. These taxes block homebuilding and drive up prices for all Canadians. Conservatives offered a plan right here in the House to axe the federal sales tax on new homes under $1 million. This would have saved Canadians up to $50,000 on the price of a new home and would ignite the construction of mor…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Madam Speaker, I guess there was not really a question, but the language around that is designed to identify areas in this country where it is particularly expensive and slow to get homes built. Our point in this discussion is that, right now, governments make too much money on housing. They charge too much and, at the local level, they take far too long to approve the development of new housing. …
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Madam Speaker, before I begin, I just want to take a moment at the top to acknowledge the good folks of Parry Sound—Muskoka, particularly on the south end of Muskoka, who have endured a pretty brutal welcome to winter. It is my first opportunity to do this in this place. Not last week, but the weekend before, the area of Gravenhurst received just over five feet of snow in two days. It was a pretty…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Madam Speaker, when I was a mayor, we got things done because I moved applications along and did not wait for the NIMBYs to delay things. We made things happen. Now we need to make things happen even faster because the crisis is worse today than it has been in generations in this country, and doing things the old way, as the government likes to do, is not going to work.
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Madam Speaker, I am sorry; I did not really understand what the question was. I was listening, but I did not quite catch the program the member was speaking of specifically, so I cannot answer the question. I am happy to talk about it, but I do not know what she was saying.
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Madam Speaker, in many cases they are. The fact of the matter is municipalities charge way too much and take too long.
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Madam Speaker, the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands should probably be quiet, so he can actually hear the answer. It is a fact that municipalities take too long to get things approved and that they keep raising charges at the local level. When I was a mayor in Huntsville, yes, I made sure that we kept things moving along and we made sure development—
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Mr. Speaker, there is a very simple answer to that question. I, like the member, have spoken to the chief of police many times in my community and never told him what to do. The interesting thing about this, of course, is that the member did not ask the question just to get that answer. That is the simple answer. He asked that question to suggest that what we are trying to do is wrong. The fact of…
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Mr. Speaker, that is a lovely set of remarks there, and I appreciate my colleague from Winnipeg South Centre's comment. I have added a new word to my vocabulary, and I appreciate that very much. Much like my colleague from Calgary Shepard, I clearly need to use more Yiddish in my expressions around here; I will attempt to do so.
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Madam Speaker, it is a bit remarkable that we are still here, four weeks later, and still quite delayed. I can hear some rumbling from some of my colleagues in the backbenches of the Liberal Party. I understand their frustration. They are frustrated because, of course, we are still waiting for the Liberal government to deliver documents that the majority of members—
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