Jeff Kibble

Mr. Speaker, Procedure · 12 wordsI will share my time today with the member for Flamborough—Glanbrook—Brant North.Procedure Anecdote · 30 wordsBefore I turn to the business at hand, I would like to share that I was in Hamilton this morning for the change of command of the Royal Canadian Navy.¹Anecdote Thanks · 103 wordsI have had the honour of serving and sailing with both naval officers, Vice-Admiral Angus Topshee and Vice-Admiral Dan Charlebois. After four years of distinguished service and amazing leadership, Vice-Admiral Angus Topshee has turned over command of the Royal Canadian Navy.² I think of all the amazing things he did, and he should be acknowledged for his care of those sailors and the others who worked for him. As well, I want to send my congratulations to recently promoted Vice-Admiral Dan Charlebois, who will be taking over command of the Royal Canadian Navy.³ I have no doubt that he will lead with distinction.Thanks Procedure · 55 wordsToday, I rise to oppose Bill C-26, an act to authorize certain payments to be made out of the consolidated revenue fund for the purpose of improving housing supply. As always, I rise on behalf of the great people of Cowichan—Malahat—Langford on beautiful Vancouver Island, the seniors, the young families, the trades workers, the veterans, ProcedureClaims · 175 wordsand the men and women who get up before dawn, work hard, play by the rules, yet watch the dream of owning a home drift a little further out of reach every year that passes. In the Cowichan Valley today, the benchmark price of a single-family home sits above $780,000.⁴ Across Vancouver Island, it is close to $800,000, ⁵and in greater Victoria, including Langford, the average sale price is now nearing $1 million.⁶ However, there are people behind those numbers, and I know many of them by name. I know veterans, men and women who once wore this country’s uniform, who are now living out of their trucks. I know forestry and mill workers who have been knocked down by mill curtailments and closures and are now living in campers. I know people who have been taxed out of the very homes they worked their whole lives for, who are now living in trailers and tents. I know young couples who have all but given up on the idea that they will ever stop renting. Positioning · 62 wordsWhen I speak about housing in this chamber, I am not speaking simply about a line in a budget. I am speaking about the greatest single worry in people’s lives right now. This bill is such a disappointment to me because the people I represent do not need another illusion. They need a home. The government has a real gift for illusion.Positioning Claims · 30 wordsBill C-26 is dressed up as Emerald City on the Hill, with $1.7 billion announced with a great deal of fanfare, and all of it said to be for housing. The ask · 22 wordsWhat I would ask of every member of Parliament is that they pull back the curtain and reveal what the illusion is. Claims · 141 wordsWhen they do, they will find that the whole substance of this bill is in a single small section that says, “The Minister of Finance may make payments to the provinces and territories, the total of which is equal to $1.‍713 billion”.⁷ It also says, “The amount of each payment is to be determined by the Minister of Finance.”⁸ Those payments may be made “at the times and in the manner that the Minister of Finance considers appropriate.”⁹ That is the entire bill. There are no conditions attached to it. There is no requirement to come back and report to Parliament, no definition of what “improving housing supply” is even meant to mean, ¹⁰and nowhere does the government commit to building so much as a single home. The government claims there will be 11,000 for the $13 billion it is spending.¹¹ Positioning · 35 wordsWhat we are being asked to approve is not a housing plan at all, but a blank cheque, and we are being asked to trust the one man who gets to fill in that amount.Positioning Procedure · 9 wordsWe have seen this before, and not long ago.Procedure Claims · 102 wordsBuried inside division 16 of the last budget bill, Bill C-31, was the Defence Investment Agency act.¹² I studied it closely as a member of Standing Committee on National Defence, and tucked away in it was a remarkable power: the authority for a single minister to draw up to $1 billion at a time out of the very same consolidated revenue fund.¹³ It is the same fund, the same kind of open-ended discretion, and it is once again being slipped quietly into a budget where most Canadians would never think to look. I spent a better part of three decades in uniform, Reasoning · 28 wordsand I can plainly tell members of Parliament that we do not rebuild a military or a country on a blank cheque, a fancy press release and announcement. Procedure · 8 wordsNow, here we are again with Bill C-26.Procedure Claims · 44 wordsIt is a different minister and a different file, but the very same approach. The Minister of National Defence was reaching into that fund $1 billion at a time, and now the Minister of Finance is reaching into that fund for $1.7 billion more. Positioning · 24 wordsThe illusions have many names, and it is my job to pull back that curtain and expose the reality. This is not a coincidence.Positioning Reasoning · 44 wordsIt is becoming a habit of the government to gather the money and the decisions into as few hands as possible, strip away the accountability that ought to come with them and trust that the fancy announcement of the day will carry the day. Procedure · 14 wordsI would gently remind the House where that kind of governing tends to lead.Procedure Positioning · 112 wordsWhen enormous public resources can be moved around by a handful of powerful people with little real scrutiny, we are no longer describing a healthy democracy. We are describing something closer to an oligarchy. An oligarchy is never built one dramatic stroke at a time. Rather, it is built quietly, one billion unaccountable dollars at a time. When money on that scale can move on the say-so of one minister with no criteria and no audit, I think we all know who tends to benefit in the end, and it is rarely the young family in Langford or the senior in Duncan. Instead, it is the well connected and the well placed.Positioning Procedure · 13 wordsThis brings me to the real question at the heart of this bill.Procedure Claims · 29 wordsIt does not ask us to trust an institution with all of its checks and balances and safeguards. It asks us to trust one man: the Minister of Finance. Reasoning · 13 wordsI think it is fair to ask whether that trust has been earned. Procedure · 5 wordsLet us consider the record.Procedure Claims · 90 wordsThe minister told Canadians he had recused himself from the Alto high-speed rail file, one of the most expensive projects in our country’s history, ¹⁴because his own wife serves as vice-president at the very corporation building it.¹⁵ He wrote a letter, he announced a screen, and he assured us he had stepped aside. However, when a motion came before Parliament that would have stripped the high-speed rail provisions out of the government’s budget bill, the minister did not step aside at all.¹⁶ He stayed and voted to protect the project.¹⁷ Reasoning · 28 wordsBoth of these things cannot be true at the same time. Either he genuinely recused himself or he voted on a matter that reached his own wife’s employer. Claims · 22 wordsHundreds of millions of dollars have already been spent and poured into that project, ¹⁸and the track has yet to be laid.¹⁹Partly on point Procedure · 9 wordsI do not raise this to make anything personal.Procedure Reasoning · 36 wordsI raise it because accountability is the whole purpose of Parliament, and this is the same minister who is asking for the same trust on the same terms, only now the figure is $1.7 billion higher. Procedure · 13 wordsI have not risen here only to criticize and to show the illusion.Procedure Positioning · 12 wordsThe people of Vancouver Island deserve better than what this bill offers, PositioningProcedure · 13 wordsand there is a better way forward, so let me set it out.Procedure The ask · 123 wordsFirst, we could tie the money to results rather than to announcements. The funds should flow against real, measurable increases in housing starts and completions that are verified and made public. Second, we would put the conditions in the legislation itself, not in one minister’s head. We need clear criteria, clear timelines and clear reporting back to Parliament. Third, we would bring in the Parliamentary Budget Officer and the Auditor General to follow this money, from the first dollar to the last nail, and tell Canadians honestly whether it worked. Finally, we could direct the funding to the communities that are actually developing, improving and building homes, be it on Vancouver Island or across the country, rather than rewarding the ones that stall. Reasoning · 12 wordsThat is how a government could actually improve the housing of Canada. Positioning · 17 wordsThe people of Vancouver Island are not easily fooled. They have been shown the Emerald City before.Positioning Claims · 41 wordsWhat they are asking for this time is a home they can afford in a community they love and a government they can actually trust with every dollar it spends. They are watching this debate right now, and they are waiting. Procedure · 4 wordsLet me be clear: ProcedureClaims · 9 wordsI cannot support Bill C-26 as it is written. The ask · 52 wordsIf it does proceed to committee, it must not pass unchanged. It must be fixed. It must be amended to carry the safeguards I have set out today. We need real conditions, real reporting and real oversight so that every dollar is tied to a home built and not one more announcement. Positioning · 37 wordsThe people of Vancouver Island deserve nothing less. The people of Canada deserve nothing less. They deserve a government they can trust and a Parliament with the courage to hold $1.7 billion of taxpayers’ money to account.Positioning The ask · 13 wordsI urge every member of Parliament on all sides to summon that courage.