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?
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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?
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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?
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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?
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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?
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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 …
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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?
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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?
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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?
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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 →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…
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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 …
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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 →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…
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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 …
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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 →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, in many cases they are. The fact of the matter is municipalities charge way too much and take too long.
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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, 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…
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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. …
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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—
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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 →Orders of the Day
Madam Speaker, my colleagues across the way are clearly very frustrated that we are still in this situation, but they know full well the reason we are still here is that a majority of members of the House, the people's House, have demanded documents. It is the unassailable right of this place to demand documents from the executive. The Speaker even ruled in favour of the demand that was brought fo…
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Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague from Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan was a legendary mayor in his own right, and he is absolutely right. There is example after example. Unfortunately, I only had 20 minutes to speak, so I could not give every example of Liberal corruption over the last nine years, but it goes on and on and on. The cover-ups are piling on top of each other, over and over again, because…
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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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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.
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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…
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Mr. Speaker, I think that display is precisely what Canadians are sick and tired of after nine years of a smug Liberal government that is not open and transparent by default. In fact, the Liberals' constant message is that they know best. They will tell us what we should think and do. They say to just ignore the Conservatives and the will of this place; the Liberals know best. That is the real mes…
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Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague, a former mayor himself, for the question. The situation here is that we were in week three or four, whatever it was, and the Liberals' line of argument was that we should send this to committee. Of course they want to send it to committee. Canadians should know that this is all part of their grand scheme to keep things covered up. Committee is a grea…
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Mr. Speaker, I will tell members about screaming hypocrisy. It is in the fact that the Liberals could release the names. The leader of the official opposition has said to the Prime Minister very clearly to show us the names. He can release the names; he can go ahead and do it. If there is something we need to hear, they can tell us, but they will not do that because that is not a good political ga…
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Mr. Speaker, after nine years of this NDP-Liberal government, we know it is not worth the cost of housing. In fact, its record is so bad that 80% of young Canadians believe that home ownership is only for the very rich. Conservatives would axe the federal sales tax on new homes sold for under a million dollars, which would save Canadians up to $50,000, or $2,200 a year, in mortgage payments. The C…
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Mr. Speaker, when I was on council, we actually cut development charges by 50%. I also knew, as a mayor, that if we get bureaucracy out of the way, we get more homes built. These guys do not understand that. All they are doing is funding the bureaucracy. Since the minister has given billions of dollars to cities all across this country, they have raised development charges and housing starts have …
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, after nine years of the NDP-Liberal government, Canadians know it is not worth the cost of housing. Nobody makes more money on housing than governments, and Canadians are paying the price. The good news is that common-sense Conservatives will deliver results. A Conservative government will axe the tax on new homes sold. On an $800,000 house, this tax could save a homeowner $40,000. Th…
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Mr. Speaker, this is comical. It is hard to take the member seriously. He has voted consistently for four years to support the corrupt Liberal government. He stands in here saying we are horrible; we are this and that. His leader ripped up their agreement, saying the marriage is over because the Liberals are so corrupt, so bad and so evil. However, the New Democrats still vote to support them ever…
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Mr. Speaker, as entertaining as the rantings of the member are, I must say that he stands in the House every single day and defends a Prime Minister who has twice been convicted of breaking ethics laws. I do not know how he can stand there with a straight face and continue to defend a corrupt government with scandal after scandal. Whether it is a spending scandal or an ethics scandal, the governme…
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Mr. Speaker, I can assure the member opposite that, yes, as a government, we would make sure that Liberal corruption and Liberal conflicts of interest were a thing of the past. The country is desperate for a Conservative government. We will fix the budget, clean up the fiscal mess here in Ottawa and get this country moving again.
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Mr. Speaker, “with great power comes great responsibility.” Many will recognize this expression from the wise words of advice Uncle Ben gave to a young Peter Parker in relation to his alter ego, Spider-Man. While this proverb has certainly been popularized again in the modern era by Spider-Man comics, its meaning is found throughout human history, such as the tale of the sword hanging by a single …
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Mr. Speaker, as I said in my earlier comments, the concept behind the Sustainable Development Technology Canada fund was good. It made sense. In fact, it was a very wise and competent prime minister who put it in place: Stephen Harper. I do not disagree with that. What I disagree with is Liberal corruption and insiders enriching themselves over the benefit of Canadians as a whole.
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague describes it quite accurately. It is massive. I come from a lifetime of municipal politics, and in municipal law and municipal government, a conflict of interest is an incredibly serious thing. People can be removed from office for a conflict of interest, because representing the people is a sacred trust and any single conflict of interest is a breach of that trust. It is…
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Mr. Speaker, the answer to the member's question is quite simple. The people of Canada are our advisers. This Parliament is supreme based on them sending us here. A majority of members in the House have demanded these documents. The Liberals should hand them over.
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Mr. Speaker, the Auditor General of Canada launched a thorough investigation that revealed widespread conflicts of interest, corruption and abuse of Canadians' hard-earned dollars at Sustainable Development Technology Canada. On June 10 of this year, the House members, by a majority vote of 174 to 148, developed a motion calling for the production of documents from Sustainable Development Technolo…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Perth—Wellington mentioned that I had a chance to visit his constituency over the course of the summer for a couple of days. It was a great honour to meet the folks in his community who are working hard to address homelessness and affordability. Of course, it is shocking to see the number of homeless encampments that exist not just in big cities but also in smaller c…
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Mr. Speaker, I have said many times in the House that one of the biggest impediments to getting homes built is, in fact, cities, provinces and a federal government that tax the life out of homebuilding. Of the cost of every new home built in this country, 33% is government. Nobody makes more money on housing than government, so the NDP, the Liberals and all their lefty friends can continue to demo…
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Mr. Speaker, I can confirm for my hon. colleague that when I was on municipal council and before I was the mayor of Huntsville, I co-chaired the development of a women's shelter and helped get a men's shelter built. I did all kinds of work on affordable housing, and I did not block housing. In fact, I was the mayor and was the chair of the planning committee that made things happen. We approved de…
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Mr. Speaker, members have heard our leader talk about the Conservative plan to hold local gatekeepers to account. Part of what he talks about is making sure that any transit infrastructure investments made by a federal government led by the Conservative party would in fact be held until there are results on the ground and we actually rezone properly and increase the density around transit. This is…
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Mr. Speaker, I move that the 13th report of the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities, presented on Friday, October 27, 2023, be concurred in. I will be sharing my time with the member for Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis. Colleagues may have noticed that it is a very brief motion. I will read it. The report is very simple. …
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Madam Speaker, I request a recorded division.
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Mr. Speaker, I always find it entertaining when the member for Kingston and the Islands starts talking in here, because it is clear he does not understand the math. If announcing billions of dollars could solve the problem, we would not have a problem in this country. However, I have just given the Liberals' own data, which shows the situation is worse today than when they started. I do not care h…
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Mr. Speaker, I will just simply say that it gets a little tiring listening to the NDP demonize private sector developers, because we need literally trillions of dollars of investment in housing in this country. We are not getting that done without the private sector. I think it is time that the NDP and its friends stop demonizing private sector investment. Let us start finding ways to attract that…
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