Hansard
Consult the user guide
For assistance, please contact us
Consult the user guide
For assistance, please contact us
Add search criteria
Results: 16 - 30 of 632
View Mélanie Joly Profile
Lib. (QC)
Mr. Speaker, I had the chance to talk with my counterpart in British Columbia last week. We got along very well and were both in favour of supporting even more francophones across the province, who are fighting for access to better public education systems across the beautiful province of British Columbia.
That being said, we did increase support to British Columbia for French teachers' recruitment and retention. We also increased funding for francophone school boards and increased the transfers to the provinces. There is also more money in the budget to support provinces and territories for French immersion schools.
We know that parents across the country, including in British Columbia, cannot wait for their children to have access to French immersion, so we will get rid of wait lists.
View Len Webber Profile
CPC (AB)
View Len Webber Profile
2021-06-11 11:07 [p.8271]
Mr. Speaker, children's shoes and toys were placed in front of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia this past week, a memorial to 215 indigenous children who died at just one residential school. It has shocked our nation.
These children were taken from their families and never came home. Each one is a tragic story, and together they are a horrifying reminder of what our nation did to those poor kids, their families and their culture. Sadly, the more we learn, the more we weep. Just when we think we have heard the worst, another chapter in the shameful history of Canada is unearthed.
We all have a duty to learn more about this tragedy and this devastating part of Canada's history so we can heal and grow together as a nation. We cannot undo the past, but we can learn from it and commit to doing our part to support the healing and reconciliation.
View Jamie Schmale Profile
CPC (ON)
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-30, the budget implementation act, 2021, no. 1.
Before I do so, I want to take the opportunity afforded to members in this place to speak to another issue of national importance.
Canada has stood in mourning with the survivors of residential schools and their families after the recent tragic discovery of 215 children in an unmarked grave at the former Kamloops residential school. Last week, I was asked by the former chief of the Tk'emlúps first nation, Manny Jules, to read a poem of healing for the nation, and I ask members for their understanding and patience as I do so now. I hope from the way he read it to me, that I can do this justice.
This poem is entitled Monster, a Residential School Experience, by Dennis Saddleman:
I HATE YOU RESIDENTIAL SCHOOLI HATE YOUYOU’RE A MONSTERA HUGE HUNGRY MONSTERBUILT WITH STEEL BONESBUILT WITH CEMENT FLESHYOU’RE A MONSTERBUILT TO DEVOURINNOCENT NATIVE CHILDRENYOU’RE A COLD-HEARTED MONSTERCOLD AS THE CEMENT FLOORSYOU HAVE NO LOVENO GENTLE ATMOSPHEREYOUR UGLY FACE GROOVED WITH RED BRICKSYOUR MONSTER EYES GLAREFROM GRIMY WINDOWSMONSTER EYES SO EVILMONSTER EYES WATCHINGTERRIFIED CHILDRENCOWER WITH SHAMEI HATE YOU RESIDENTIAL SCHOOL I HATE YOUYOU’RE A SLIMY MONSTER OOZING IN THE SHADOWS OF MY PASTGO AWAY LEAVE ME ALONEYOU’RE FOLLOWING ME FOLLOWING ME WHEREVER I GOYOU’RE IN MY DREAMS IN MY MEMORIESGO AWAY MONSTER GO AWAYI HATE YOU YOU’RE FOLLOWING MEI HATE YOU RESIDENTIAL SCHOOL I HATE YOUYOU’RE A MONSTER WITH HUGE WATERY MOUTHMOUTH OF DOUBLE DOORSYOUR WIDE MOUTH TOOK MEYOUR YELLOW STAINED TEETH CHEWEDTHE INDIAN OUT OF MEYOUR TEETH CRUNCHED MY LANGUAGEGRINDED MY RITUALS AND MY TRADITIONSYOUR TASTE BUDS BECAME BITTERWHEN YOU TASTED MY RED SKINYOU SWALLOWED ME WITH DISGUSTYOUR FACE WRINKLED WHEN YOUTASTED MY STRONG PRIDEI HATE YOU RESIDENTIAL SCHOOL I HATE YOUYOU’RE A MONSTERYOUR THROAT MUSCLES FORCED MEDOWN TO YOUR STOMACHYOUR THROAT MUSCLES SQUEEZED MY HAPPINESSSQUEEZED MY DREAMSSQUEEZED MY NATIVE VOICEYOUR THROAT BECAME CLOGGED WITH MY SACRED SPIRIT YOU COUGHED AND YOU CHOKEDFOR YOU CANNOT WITH STAND MYSPIRITUAL SONGS AND DANCESI HATE YOU RESIDENTIAL SCHOOL I HATE YOUYOU’RE A MONSTERYOUR STOMACH UPSET EVERY TIME I WET MY BEDYOUR STOMACH RUMBLED WITH ANGEREVERY TIME I FELL ASLEEP IN CHURCHYour stomach growled at me every time I broke the school rulesYour stomach was full You burpedYou felt satisfied You rubbed your belly and you didn’t careYou didn’t care how you ate up my native CultureYou didn’t care if you were messyif you were piggyYou didn’t care as long as you ate up my IndiannessI hate you Residential School I hate youYou’re a monsterYour veins clotted with cruelty and tortureYour blood poisoned with loneliness and despairYour heart was cold it pumped fear into meI hate you Residential School I hate youYou’re a monsterYour intestines turned me into foul entrailsYour anal squeezed mesqueezed my confidencesqueezed my self respectYour anal squeezedthen you dumped meDumped me without parental skillswithout life skillsDumped me without any form of characterwithout individual talentswithout a hope for success
I hate you Residential School I hate youYou’re a monsterYou dumped me in the toilet thenYou flushed out my good naturemy personalitiesI hate you Residential School I hate youYou’re a monster………I hate hate hate youThirty three years later I rode my chevy pony to KamloopsFrom the highway I saw the monsterMy Gawd! The monster is still aliveI hesitated I wanted to drive onbut something told me to stopI parked in front of the Residential Schoolin front of the monsterThe monster saw me and it stared at meThe monster saw me and I stared backWe both never said anything for a long timeFinally with a lump in my throatI said, “Monster I forgive you.”The monster broke into tearsThe monster cried and cried His huge shoulders shookHe motioned for me to come forward He asked me to sit on his lappy stairs The monster spoke You know I didn’t like my Government Father I didn’t like my Catholic Church MotherI’m glad the Native People adopted me They took me as one of their own They fixed me up Repaired my mouth of double doors Washed my window eyes with cedar and fir boughs They cleansed me with sage and sweetgrass Now my good spirit lives The Native People let me stay on their land They could of burnt me you know instead they let me live so People can come here to school restore or learn about their culture The monster said, “I’m glad the Native People gave me another chanceI’m glad Dennis you gave me another chance The monster smiled I stood up I told the monster I must go Ahead of me is my life. My people are waiting for me I was at the door of my chevy ponyThe monster spoke, “Hey you forgot something I turned around I saw a ghost child running down the cement steps It ran towards me and it entered my body I looked over to the monster I was surprised I wasn’t looking at a monster anymoreI was looking at an old school In my heart I thought This is where I earned my diploma of survival I was looking at an old Residential School who became my elder of my memories I was looking at a tall building with four stories stories of hope stories of dreams stories of renewaland stories of tomorrow
That, again, is a poem called Monster, A Residential School Experience, by Dennis Saddleman. Again, I was asked by a the former chief of the Tk‘emlúps first nation, Manny Jules, to read that as a way to help the nation heal. When he read it to me, it was quite emotional and I hope I did that justice.
The government continues to move forward on this file, something that is very important, and it is time for action. As an opposition, we have asked for a clear action plan by July 1 on calls to action 71 through 76 of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report. All first nations communities across Canada need that healing. It is time we listen to them and follow their lead and have action.
View Kevin Lamoureux Profile
Lib. (MB)
View Kevin Lamoureux Profile
2021-06-11 12:45 [p.8295]
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for sharing that poem with the House.
Lives do matter, and the number 215 appears now in many windows in the north end of Winnipeg. In fact, when I drive down Dufferin, I see a red dress in a window. When I drive over the Salter Bridge, I see red and orange ribbons. It reminds me almost on a daily basis of the importance of reconciliation. We all have a very important role to play in being supportive and encouraging people, in particular indigenous community members, to speak out and to lead us on the reconciliation. I would like to think that we each have a role to play, all members of Parliament.
I wonder if my friend could provide his thoughts on just how important reconciliation is for his community and indeed for all of Canada. I am thinking of the calls to action and the report on murdered—
View Gord Johns Profile
NDP (BC)
View Gord Johns Profile
2021-06-10 17:16 [p.8248]
Madam Speaker, it is a privilege and honour today to rise and speak to the bill.
As we know, we are dealing with four crises right now. We have a climate crisis, an opioid crisis, a homeless crisis and of course the COVID pandemic, which we have all been battling together for over a year. Many people have been living daily with the anxiety of losing their jobs. They are worried about their health and the health of their loved ones. In the meantime, the wealthiest Canadians have grown their wealth and Canada's largest corporations have benefited from this pandemic, and we have a Liberal government that has been resistant to having them pay their fair share and contribute to the cost of the pandemic. We know this is going to fall on the backs of everyday, middle-class Canadians and the most vulnerable, as services will be cut in future years because of the government's lack of courage to make those who should pay for the pandemic contribute more.
On the other side, the Conservatives are using delay tactics to get support to Canadians. In this budget there clearly are very important pandemic supports that small businesses need. As the federal NDP critic for small business and tourism, I know all too well from talking to entrepreneurs how important it is that they continue to get supports such as the wage subsidy and the emergency commercial rent assistance program. While we were glad to see the government extend those programs through the summer, the cuts to those programs as they are slowly and gradually phased out will impact those businesses, especially in the tourism industry.
Many businesses that rely on international tourism likely will not see international guests this season. Any tourists who planned on coming to Canada have cancelled their bookings, so these businesses have been asking for the wage subsidy and the rent program, which are lifelines for them. As members may recall, these are programs that the NDP fought to have increased. The wage subsidy was initially going to be 10%, and we pushed so the government would increase it to 75%. The commercial rent program is a program for which the government took our idea, but of course it rolled out a flawed program that was landlord-driven and forgot about the tenants.
We kicked and screamed to get these programs fixed. We got the wage subsidy up to 75% and the rent program to be tenant-driven. These benefits are absolutely essential to those tourism businesses and small businesses that are going to have to go through fall and into next spring. We heard from the Tourism Industry Association of Canada at committee, and other tourism industry organizations such as the Indigenous Tourism Association of Canada, that said they needed those programs to go to the spring.
While I am mentioning it, the Indigenous Tourism Association of Canada has seen a cut of 83% to its core budget. At the time when we needed it most, ITAC delivered over $15 million in loans to indigenous-led businesses, because it has that intimate relationship with its member businesses. It saved over 1,900 indigenous businesses with over 40,000 employees. These are going to be the most vulnerable businesses as we come out of the pandemic.
I am encouraging the government to come back and try to save these businesses. Time is running out. They need help.
In terms of the Canada emergency business account loan, we were glad to see the government finally fix the last increase of the CEBA loan during the second wave, but businesses are saying it is not enough. They have gone through a third wave. They need more funds. They need help and liquidity to get through the summer and beyond. The repayable timeline of next fiscal year is absolutely impossible for almost any small businesses to meet, in order for them to get the rebate of one third of that CEBA loan. We are asking the government to extend the terms of that repayment at least to the end of 2025, so that these businesses have a fighting chance to get back on their feet.
The government also keeps talking about credit card merchant fees. We know that the government is in bed with the big banks, but the reality is that small businesses are being constantly ground down by the banks. We just saw the banks increase their fees for consumers and small businesses again, during a time when they are having record profits. This is completely unacceptable to Canadians. In Europe, when it comes to merchant fees and interchange fees, they are paying 0.3%. Right now in Canada, 1.4% is the voluntary rate that credit card companies say they are paying.
I have met with Visa and Mastercard. They say that it is actually not their issue and that it is the big banks that are setting the rates on the interchange fees. We have seen the big banks having record profits. Why are they not stepping up to the plate and providing some relief to small businesses and consumers? We know that merchant fees are often put on the backs of small businesses.
As members know, I can speak for a long time about small business. The other piece is start-ups. The Liberals have completely abandoned start-ups, and those who started a business after March. They may have signed leases months and months, or even years, before. They have paid their employees and their rent through the pandemic. They have a record of receipts they have paid.
There are many different tools the government could use and industry standards it could look at. They have had leases and made these payable expenses. Liberals should set some criteria to save these businesses, or we are going to lose a generation of businesses. Throughout every riding in our country, we are hearing from people who have been abandoned by the government.
As members know, the other file I carry as the federal critic for the NDP is for fisheries, oceans and Coast Guard. We were happy to see the government finally listen to our call. Members heard me kicking and screaming in the House of Commons, calling on the minister to declare a wild salmon emergency and to make this a wild salmon recovery budget.
We are happy to see the Liberals put a significant allocation to wild salmon recovery, but we still have not seen the fine details. We have heard the broad framework of what they want to use to guide them in terms of delivering that funding, but we have not had the details of how they are going to spend that money, and time is of the essence.
Also, we have not had a commitment to reconciliation with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and we need a wild salmon secretariat that is government to government with the province, with indigenous leadership and communities, the nations on the coast and the federal government working together in co-management. We know what Liberals mean by “consultation”. They check a box, then they leave and abandon communities without listening and implementing what they have been told by those communities.
The other pieces we have not seen are the transition funding supports for those that were in the salmon farm industry. The government is hopefully following through with its commitment to move away from open-net salmon farming and to support those workers, their families and the communities in which those fish farms are in. The government made the right decision on Discovery Islands, but it did not come back with a plan to support the workers. This is something the NDP has been calling for. I have been calling for it. I tabled a bill about moving away from open-net salmon farming to closed containment, and the government abandoned it. I want to see the government do something significant around that.
Friday was the one-year anniversary of the death of Chantel Moore, a Tla-o-qui-aht member from my riding who was shot by a New Brunswick police officer. She was a Tla-o-qui-aht member, and she was killed on a wellness check. I think all of us can join together in offering the family of Chantel Moore our condolences, along with the nation and the Tla-o-qui-aht tribal council, especially as they seek justice. We need to work together to ensure that no one else suffers the same fate Chantel did during a wellness check. Canada needs comprehensive police reform.
In this budget, the Liberals put forward $100 million for mental health. That is not even close to enough. They put forward $108 million for first nations policing, which is not even close to what is needed. Police are supposed to be there to serve and protect people from our communities, but instead, the federal government has not acted to address the disproportionate amount of violence indigenous people are facing at the hands of police.
I will continue, and the NDP will continue, to advocate in Parliament for indigenous participation in investigations into police violence, ongoing mental health assessments of police officers, enhanced vetting of new recruits and cross-cultural training for police forces in all levels of Canadian society. There needs to be reforms to the police act.
I can speak in great detail about many other things. There is the opioid crisis, as I touched on earlier. There is the government's blue economy. The fact is that it is completely tainted and tilted toward industry, instead of doing the right thing, which is protecting our oceans. Our oceans are critical right now, especially as we are seeing a warming planet and a warming ocean.
View Brad Vis Profile
CPC (BC)
moved:
That, given that,
(i) the cost of housing continues to rise out of reach of Canadians,
(ii) current government policy has failed to provide sufficient housing supply,
the House call on the government to:
(a) examine a temporary freeze on home purchases by non-resident foreign buyers who are squeezing Canadians out of the housing market;
(b) replace the government's failed First-Time Home Buyer Incentive with meaningful action to help first-time homebuyers;
(c) strengthen law enforcement tools to halt money laundering;
(d) implement tax incentives focused on increasing the supply of purpose-built market rental housing units; and
(e) overhaul its housing policy to substantively increase housing supply.
He said: Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time today with the member for Mégantic—L'Érable.
In the Building the Future Together report, Canadians told the government that the most important outcome from the national housing strategy would be “an increase in the supply of housing that they can afford and that meets their needs.”
At a time when many expected the cost of real estate to drop, prices skyrocketed to stratospheric levels, leaving young Canadians, new immigrants and those seeking to enter the housing market with a general feeling of hopelessness as their dream of home ownership slipped away.
I table this motion today because housing is farther out of reach than ever before, and we find ourselves in an affordability crisis across the housing continuum. I will be using my time to speak to each aspect of the motion and to address the integrity measures, demand policies and supply deficit in our housing system. This crisis is multi-faceted and there are no easy solutions, but the status quo is not okay.
My first point addresses Canada's foreign buyer issue. We need to calmly, openly and comprehensively talk about the very real and at times negative role foreign buyers play in Canada's residential real estate markets. We know the actions of foreign speculators and investors are increasing home prices for regular Canadians.
Dr. Josh Gordon's report, “Reconnecting the Housing Market to the Labour Market: Foreign Ownership and Housing Affordability in Urban Canada”, has found that the decoupling of housing prices from local incomes can occur, and arguably is occurring in Vancouver and Toronto especially, when there is substantial foreign ownership in the market. This is defined as “the use of untaxed foreign income and wealth for housing purchases”.
While he makes good use of the data at hand, in my conversations with Dr. Gordon it became clear that the available data is insufficient. CMHC, StatsCan, and provinces and territories need to be collecting better data for this reason. For instance, a CMHC study found that in 2016-17, one in five new Vancouver condos was owned by non-residents, but we need more current and more comprehensive data. Housing in Canada must be for Canadians, first and foremost.
If we do not have the data, we cannot achieve this objective. The government's own parliamentary secretary for housing publicly admits that our system works better for foreign investors than for Canadians trying to find homes. However, the government's solution is a proposed 1% annual tax. It has not even begun consultations on this yet, and the exemptions are already longer than my arm.
Will the government commit to a meaningful disincentive to foreign buying of Canadian real estate? Why not a 10% tax? Better yet, the government should do what this motion calls for and freeze the flow of foreign money into our residential real estate sector until the supply deficit has been met and Canadians can afford homes in their own country.
People are losing faith in the institutions that are supposed to protect their interests. When the pandemic ends, and before foreign investors come back to our markets in force, we need to know who is purchasing homes and the sources of the funds they are using. UBC Professor Paul Kershaw of Generation Squeeze has suggested harnessing foreign investment for the types of housing Canada needs, such as co-operatives and affordable purpose-built rentals.
Point number two addresses first-time home buyers. We must ensure that there is a pathway for hard-working Canadians to achieve home ownership, but this dream is quickly moving out of reach for the middle class. Home ownership should not be based on being born to wealthy parents. It should be based on hard work and a fair system.
Habitat for Humanity recently shared that “home ownership matters for every social determinant of health”. Home ownership lifts families and helps them build bright futures for themselves.
The Liberal government, unfortunately, is absent on this issue. Its first-time homebuyer incentive program is a failure. Its original objective was to help 200,000 Canadians over three years. We are now in year two, and it has helped approximately 10,600 families. How on Earth can the government consider this program successful?
Why does it not look at extending amortization periods and mortgage terms to reduce monthly payments and provide more security for both lenders and borrowers, or help young families save for down payments through tax incentives?
What about adjusting mortgage qualification criteria in favour of first-time home buyers rather than investors, or expanding some of the initiatives from the private sector, including new shared equity programs?
The third point is money laundering in Canada. Yet another failure of Canada is our inability to address money laundering. The reason terms like the “Vancouver model” and “snow-washing” exist is because our nation is a global case study in how not to stop money laundering. Not only are our laws and regulations ineffective, but we poorly enforce the ones we have. Report after report shows that Canada largely fails to successfully convict money launderers. Almost three-quarters of people accused go free, a 2019 Global News investigation found. The Toronto Star found that 86% of charges laid for laundering the proceeds of crime were withdrawn or stayed. B.C.'s Attorney General shockingly found years ago that Ottawa had assigned precisely zero RCMP officers to fight money laundering in B.C. That only changed after January of this year.
At the finance committee, Transparency International highlighted that the 2016 release of the Panama papers showcased Canada's global reputation as a desirable place for dirty cash. Five years later it found that nothing had changed.
The government needs to implement recommendations from the numerous experts who have explored this issue. These include Peter German's “Dirty Money” reports parts 1 and 2, the Expert Panel on Combatting Money Laundering in B.C. Real Estate and the ongoing Cullen commission of inquiry into money laundering in B.C.
The fourth point is purpose-built rentals. Purpose-built rental construction has not kept pace with demand. Quite simply, there are no incentives for developers to build rental units in Canada and this needs to change. Much of Canada's current rental housing stock was built in the 1970s and 1980s through the multiple unit residential building program, or MURB. It was not a grant or a loan program, but a tax incentive program that unlocked the private capital of Canadians and directed it to rental housing. According to the Library of Parliament, MURB is estimated to have led to the construction of 195,000 units of rental housing at the lowest estimate. Studies have indicated that number could be as high as 344,000 units. It did all of this for the comparably low cost of $1.8 billion in forgone revenue, and that is in today's dollars.
The government is spending $70 billion on the national housing strategy, including provincial money, for 125,000 units. At some level, the federal Liberals know this is the way to go, hence the rental construction financing initiative, but this still ties developers to the federal bureaucratic process, which is slow. The Rental Construction Financing Initiative, RCFI, has quietly become the largest single funding envelope of the national housing strategy. Now at $25.75 billion, it promises to deliver 71,000 units of housing in approximately 10 years. This is not a great comparison with MURB's 195,000 units for $2 billion.
CMHC's new CEO, Romy Bowers, shared with the HUMA committee that the private sector is the only way we will meet Canada's housing needs. I agree. There are additional tools that could unshackle contractors as well. For instance, why not waive the GST for the construction of purpose-built market rental housing, or allow those with aging rental stock to defer the capital gain when selling provided the money is reinvested in rental housing? Increasing the nationwide stock of purpose-built market rental units serves to better everyone along the housing continuum. Canadians have never had more disposable income. Why not direct that to a social policy that could do some good?
The fifth point is increasing supply. We know Canada has a housing supply shortage. According to a recent Scotiabank report, Canada has the lowest number of housing units per 1,000 residents of any G7 country. Experts have been saying this for years, and COVID illustrated it better than anything else. Now many but not all of the policy levers to increase housing supply rest with provincial and municipal governments. Yes, red tape at these levels is a problem, but the federal government should incent the removal of restrictive zoning and NIMBYist bylaws by making any infrastructure investment conditional on their removal. Of course, any infrastructure funds must be accounted for transparently, unlike the current government's haphazard approach condemned by the Auditor General in report 9—
View Dan Albas Profile
CPC (BC)
Mr. Speaker, I attended the Federation of Canadian Municipalities' conference in Quebec City in 2019. At that conference, Selina Robinson, who at the time was the minister for housing for British Columbia, said that the government had come to the table with a national strategy but had actually not invested. I know the parliamentary secretary was there, and he seemed to take great umbrage at the time to that. I still have a copy of the talk because it was an interesting discussion.
Does the member believe the government truly has invested at this point? Selina Robinson is now minister of finance. I would just like to hear the member for Vancouver East's thoughts on the national housing program and whether it has worked in British Columbia.
View Jenny Kwan Profile
NDP (BC)
View Jenny Kwan Profile
2021-06-08 13:09 [p.8093]
Mr. Speaker, in 2019, the Parliamentary Budget Officer, in fact, noted that $11.6 billion of the national housing strategy is just matching dollars from the province, and it is not meeting the needs. Minister Selina Robinson is absolutely correct and British Columbia had actually been shortchanged with respect to the funding. Through my work in getting Order Paper questions and answers, we discovered that British Columbia, on one of the biggest programs under the national housing strategy, was only getting 0.5% of the funding at that time for the co-investment fund. The numbers have increased and improved somewhat now, but are still nowhere near what we need to address the housing crisis that the Liberals caused back in 1993.
View Adam Vaughan Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Adam Vaughan Profile
2021-06-08 13:19 [p.8094]
Mr. Speaker, the issue of British Columbia has been raised a couple of times now. Just to be clear, we have partnered with the provincial government to invest $517 million to assist over 25,000 households through the provincial-federal housing accords. We have invested, since 2015, not the paltry 2% quoted by the member for Vancouver East, but $5.8 billion in housing in British Columbia. These investments have supported 112,000 families throughout the province to find a place to call home. We are, right now, investing $205 million to support the creation of 700 permanent, affordable units for individuals in British Columbia through the rapid housing initiative. The dollars are real, and it is close to 30% of the total national housing strategy investment.
However, I do not think that the member who just spoke has even read the motion that his colleague passed, because the motion talks about a shared equity agreement program. Well, that is what the first-time homebuyers program is. The motion also requests action on money laundering. Well, that is in the 2021 budget, but the Conservatives voted against every single measure. They voted against the tax on vacant homes. They voted against the beneficial ownership disclosure rules and requirements. They voted against the additional investments in rapid housing and—
View Kenny Chiu Profile
CPC (BC)
View Kenny Chiu Profile
2021-06-08 13:20 [p.8095]
Mr. Speaker, I thank the parliamentary secretary for the intervention. It was as if he was giving a speech instead of asking a question. The only short answer I could provide is that it shows how out of touch the Liberals are. The drop in the bucket solutions and the reannouncing of the announcement that they had before will not help the housing crisis we are facing in Greater Vancouver or across the country.
View Tako Van Popta Profile
CPC (BC)
View Tako Van Popta Profile
2021-06-08 14:00 [p.8100]
Mr. Speaker, last week, I met with Marilyn Gabriel, chief of the Kwantlen First Nation community in my riding of Langley—Aldergrove, together with elders and other community members. It was a very difficult meeting, as we listened to heartbreaking stories from residential school survivors who are grieving anew with news coming out of Kamloops recently.
The pain is real. The memories are fresh and the anger is just below the surface, yet this news is not new at all because indigenous communities right across this country have known for years about undocumented burial sites at residential schools.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission brought this to the nation's attention, yet despite many promises, progress has been frustratingly slow.
As a member of Parliament for a riding that has a first nations community in it, they are asking me to do what I can to hold the government to account. The time for talk is over. The time for action is now. It is time to get the job done.
View Brenda Shanahan Profile
Lib. (QC)
Mr. Speaker, the tragic discovery of the remains of 215 indigenous children buried at the site of the Kamloops residential school shocked us all.
The people of Châteauguay—Lacolle reacted immediately, placing hundreds of children's shoes in front of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic church in a spontaneous gesture and holding a vigil in memory of those children and their families.
As a Canadian Catholic, I am ashamed that the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops has not complied with the TRC call to action 58 in requesting a formal apology from our Pope.
My dear friend, Christine Zachary-Deom, former chief of Kahnawake, wrote me, and said, “Canada is now coming to grips with the reality of truth. It is difficult to bear when we know there's more bad stuff to come. Yet our forgiveness is always ready. Better not to hide behind lies.”
The road to reconciliation is hard, but we must all undertake the journey together.
View Charlie Angus Profile
NDP (ON)
View Charlie Angus Profile
2021-06-08 15:09 [p.8113]
Mr. Speaker, I believe there have been consultations with other parties and if you seek it, I hope you will find unanimous consent for the following motion: That, in light of the horrific discovery at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School, the House reiterate the call it made in the motion adopted on May 1, 2018, and (a) invite Pope Francis to participate in this journey with Canadians by responding to call to action 58 of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's report and issue a former papal apology for the role of the Canadian Catholic Church in the establishment, operations and abuses of the residential schools; (b) call on the Canadian Catholic Church to live up to its moral obligation and the spirit of the 2006 Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement and resume the best efforts to raise the full amount of the agreed-upon funds; and (c) call upon the Catholic entities that were involved in the running of the residential schools to make a consistent and sustained effort to turn over the relevant documents when called upon by survivors of residential schools, their families and scholars working to understand the full scope and horrors of the residential school system, in the interests of truth and reconciliation.
View Kerry-Lynne Findlay Profile
CPC (BC)
Madam Speaker, the reality in my riding of South Surrey—White Rock is that the dream of working hard, saving up, taking out a mortgage and buying a home to raise a family has become completely unrealistic. It has gone from challenging, but hopeful, to impossible.
A constituent of mine recently sent me a listing in White Rock. It had two bedrooms, two bathrooms and was 1,600 square feet. It was a modest place to raise a family, built in the 1960s. It sold in December 2020 for just over $900,000. Now it is listed for more than $1.25 million. If it sells at asking, and most right now are selling over asking, that is a 23% increase in a matter of months.
How about the South Surrey home that was sold in February for $1 million and then listed again in April 2021 for $1.35 million? No, this is not an issue that arose overnight. I recently saw a small home listed in White Rock for $750,000. It sold in 2015 for less than half that. Housing prices should not double in a six-year period.
The average dwelling in my riding now costs about $900,000. In the Fraser Valley, average prices have risen 20% year over year, according to the Canadian Real Estate Association. What are normal Canadians, who earn Canadian incomes and pay Canadian tax rates, to do? For first-time buyers, the dream of home ownership has become a nightmare.
The Liberals' latest answer is to increase the qualifying interest rate across Canada for insured mortgages. Now it will be even harder for Canadian families to qualify. According to James Laird, president of CanWise Financial and co-founder of Ratehub.ca, this will decrease the value of the mortgage a family could afford by roughly 5%. Then we add on the B.C. property purchase tax of 2% on the first $100,000, and 1% on every $100,000 after that. That money goes into the provincial general revenues and is simply lost to the buyer.
Will this increase in the qualifying rate for mortgages cool a red-hot housing market? We see no sign of that. Does it make first-time home ownership more feasible? Absolutely not. It is designed to make it harder to get a mortgage. What it does do, by diminishing buying power, is chill new developments. Developers are the first to realize they might not be able to sell as many units under the new mortgage rules. The rising cost of lumber does not help either.
What we really need to do is increase supply. It is economics 101. Price is largely determined by two things: supply and demand. Of all G7 nations, despite our vast geography and comparatively low population, Canada has the fewest housing units per capita. One way to increase supply is to slow the rampant speculative foreign buying that is distorting our housing supply and squeezing Canadian families right out of the market.
Data for 2019 from the Canadian housing statistics program showed more than 6% of properties in B.C. were owned, at least in part, by a non-resident of Canada. That number is even higher in Vancouver, rising to 11.6% of condominiums there. At first, the government was, and has been, dismissive of this issue, calling those who raised it xenophobic. B.C. workers simply are not able to live in Vancouver. It is seen by many now as a vacation destination.
The parliamentary secretary for housing has said that Canada has become “a very safe market for foreign investment”, adding, “but...not a great market for Canadians looking for choices around housing”.
The latest Liberal budget, the first in over two years, promises to address foreign buying through a consultation on a tax that would apply to foreign buyers. The Surrey family of four forced into an endless cycle of renting because of a skyrocketing real estate market do not want consultation. They want affordable housing. They want to join the middle class. How many times have we heard this Prime Minister's phrase, “the middle class and those wanting to join it”? Seriously, we need a little less talk and a little more action, please.
How else can the government increase supply for prospective Canadian homeowners? It is through policies that encourage building more homes. The Liberal government needs to incentivize home construction and slash through the endless red tape. We need to make it easier to get shovels in the ground, and build. The complex web of bureaucracy that must be navigated to build in this country is extremely costly and time consuming.
The C.D. Howe Institute estimates that red tape and regulations add more than $600,000 on average to the cost of a new home in Vancouver. This is staggering. Sure, much of this is municipal and provincial, but we, in this federal legislature, have a role to play.
A highlight of my parliamentary career was being awarded the Golden Scissors Award from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business in 2015, an award for slicing through red tape. The government needs to get its scissors out to start clipping away, and it needs to challenge its regional counterparts to do the same.
Enhancing transit is another key part of the equation. Better, faster transit that reaches further beyond existing boundaries would create a whole new world of possibility for residential real estate development, allowing more commuters to live in areas beyond the downtown cores.
In the Lower Mainland, we need SkyTrain expansions to Langley and South Surrey. We have been waiting far too long for the replacement of the George Massey tunnel, a key artery along Highway 99 that serves commuters from White Rock, Surrey, Delta and more. There were 85,000 commuters a day in 2019. With only four total lanes of traffic, that means constant congestion.
Plans for an expansion were first announced 15 years ago. It is past time to allocate the funds and work with local governments to get these projects done. Better transit infrastructure encourages growth, development and home ownership. Let us unlock this new supply.
The Liberals’ infrastructure plan simply is not working. Their Canada Infrastructure Bank, which was established to disburse $35 billion to infrastructure projects over 11 years, has completed a grand total of zero projects in four years. The independent Parliamentary Budget Officer recently said that the Infrastructure Bank is likely to fall short of its mandate, predicting only $15.9 billion of the $35 billion will be spent by 2028.
Speaking of over-promising and underperforming, the Liberals’ first-time home buyer incentive is also failing. The shared equity mortgage program offered first-time buyers 5% on existing homes and up to 10% on new constructions, resulting in lower monthly mortgage payments, but with the catch the government owns that 5% to 10% of the home, to be repaid to the government after 25 years or when the property is sold.
Let us say a family in White Rock decides to purchase that two-bed, two-bath I mentioned earlier at the $1.25-million price tag. Using this 5% incentive would effectively be a loan of $62,500. Wait a minute, I was carried away with the promise of this program for a moment. This family actually could not qualify for this program at all because the limits on the program are such that it is not available. In other words, it is completely unworkable in my riding all together. Despite the fact that such a program could result in usurious repayment rates, it is irrelevant in my riding anyway.
Canadians were told the shared equity mortgage program would help 20,000 Canadians buy a home in the first six months. Instead, it has served fewer than 6,000 over seven months. Again, the Liberals over-promised and under-delivered. Two years in, and there is less than one-tenth of the Liberals’ promised uptake.
Canadians are not using the program because it is a bad deal. Home ownership is critical to ensuring lasting prosperity and financial stability of the middle class. Conservatives know this. Let us address speculative foreign ownership, cut through the bureaucracy, encourage new builds, increase supply and make the dream of home ownership a reality.
I listened to the Liberals all day during this debate brag about spending $27 billion on housing, so why is the supply of new builds, rentals and upgrades still a crisis? I guess they have not actually been in charge for the last five and a half years. They talk more about former prime minister Harper than Conservatives do, and today, they even reached back 30 years to former prime minister Mulroney.
We are here in 2021 to address 2021 and future Canadian issues, not to gaze back into history. This is why my colleagues and I have put forth this motion today. We are tired of the inaction, the waste, the talking points and the rapid decline of affordable housing in this country, particularly in ridings like mine.
Why not put all that profligate spending into something Canadians actually care about, such as affordable rentals, home ownership and infrastructure to support both? We need a lot less talk and a lot more action.
Results: 16 - 30 of 632 | Page: 2 of 43

|<
<
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
>
>|
Export As: XML CSV RSS

For more data options, please see Open Data