Carol Anstey

“Mr. Speaker, today we are debating Bill C-31, the second part of the budget implementation act of 2025. I am sure everyone watching at home would agree that this is a little bit ridiculous, given that budget 2026 is coming out on Thursday. They would agree even more strongly if someone forced them to read Bill C-31, as it is 350 pages of mishmashed measures, many of which do not immediately seem to pertain to the budget at all. For instance, division 13 of the act before us would end automatic, mandatory, periodic re-evaluations of pesticides; division 12 would reduce mandatory review of the Tobacco Act from every five years to every two years; and division 10 would abolish the deputy chief commissioner position at the Human Rights Commission. It is, of course, a pleasure and a privilege to stand in this House and debate the budget implementation act from last year, two days before the new budget comes out, which does not have much to do with the budget, actually, but gosh, allow me to remark, this is a strange place. This is not what I thought I would be doing when I came here. I have reviewed the 350 pages of the budget implementation act because I think that is what the people of Kitchener South—Hespeler expect of me, to see if there was anything sneaky or dangerous pertaining to the nation’s finance to debate with my colleagues opposite today. Many of my colleagues on the Conservative side have zeroed in on division 16 on defence procurement, which indeed is problematic, but as they have spoken so well on this issue, I would like to focus my remarks on division 7. Division 7 would increase the guaranteed loan ceiling of the Canada Housing and Mortgage Corporation to $1 trillion. It is one clause that would increase the ceiling to $1 trillion. That is an eye-popping figure. What does it mean? The CMHC guarantees mortgages. If I want to buy a home and I do not have a 20% down payment, my bank will not give me a mortgage because it is high risk and I might default. Another word for high risk in the mortgage world is sub-prime. I hope some ears are perking up at that. If I only have 10% for my down payment, CMHC can step in to say that although it knows the bank will not give me a mortgage, the Government of Canada will guarantee the mortgage. That means if I default on my mortgage, the bank will not take the haircut, but the taxpayers of Canada will. Division 7 of this bill would allow CMHC to put taxpayers on the hook for $1 trillion of relatively high-risk mortgage. This is on the same order as the national debt, which stands at $1.4 trillion. I would ask the Liberal members, is this prudent? Is this the direction Canada’s housing policy should go in? Is this the direction they meant to take it in? Canadians have been clear for a decade: We need housing. There is a housing crisis. The Liberals promised to build Canada strong, to build at speeds not seen at generations and to get homebuilding starts up to 500,000 units per year. They have failed in each of these promises. Housing starts are down this year from last year. They are going nowhere near 500,000. CMHC, the agency under question, in fact projects that they will continue to go down. Now, having failed all of these promises, their reaction is to raise the mortgage debt ceiling. We wanted houses and they have brought us more housing debt. The distinction here is between demand-side measures and supply-side measures. Imagine a town where 12 families want to buy a home, but there are only 10 homes available. If the Government of Canada swoops in and provides cheap financing to all 12 families, they will be able to bid more for a home. The price of homes will go up, but two families will still be left out in the cold, frozen out of the Canadian dream. That is a demand-side measure. That is almost entirely what Liberals have been up to with respect to their housing policy for the last 11 years. The Prime Minister, compared to Justin Trudeau, I will concede, is able to use more sophisticated language to hide the financialization of our housing market that he is perpetrating. He is able to blow more hot air, and hotter air, into the housing balloon, but it is just hot air and not houses that he is generating. The numbers do not lie. Again, I say housing starts are down this year compared to last. At every turn, the Prime Minister and his housing minister favour bigwig bureaucrats, high-flying bankers and fat-cat condo developers in Vancouver, with giant bailouts and other forms of gravy on the public dime. All of these demand-side measures have the effect of increasing asset prices and inflating investor portfolios, instead of putting dollars into the pockets of construction workers, carpenters, plumbers, electricians, electricians, stonemasons, drywallers, roofers, and my friends and neighbours in Kitchener South—Hespeler, and it does not put houses on the streets of our cities and towns. Our Conservative plan is focused on supply-side measures. I do not have time to review them all in this speech, but our every effort would be focused on building houses so that all 12 families would be able to bid on 12 homes at a fair price and no one would get left out. I often think of housing policy like the board game Monopoly. That is why the inventors of that board game created it. There are only so many properties on the Monopoly board. Once a group of players has bought up St. James Place, Boardwalk and Park Place, injecting more cash into the system by handing out $200 just because they passed Go allows the four players to bid up the price of each other’s homes. If a fifth player joins the game in progress, they will not be able to afford anything. This is the situation Canadians under 40 find themselves in today. The game of Monopoly has been going on too long with no new or sufficient properties being brought to the market. They have been frozen out of a game of Monopoly that has not been fair to new players since the 1990s. The Conservative supply-side plan is to put another fresh board into play by opening up federal lands to development, reducing taxes and increasing permitting. The Liberals know that what they are doing has failed. I have searched the Hansards. I think that is why none of them have ever mentioned division 7 in this House. Can members imagine that a clause that increases the ceiling to $1 trillion was snuck into a 350-page document that none of them have had the time to mention? We have been debating this bill for a year. They have not had the good graces to even mention in the people’s House this sneaky clause that puts the people on the hook for $1 trillion of high-risk mortgage debt. As my time is coming to an end, I very much look forward to hearing the Liberals finally speak about this clause. Maybe they could start by explaining to Canadians why they failed to mention it in the first place. Why is it hidden in an omnibus bill? Then perhaps they could explain to Canadians whether this is really prudent. Is $1 trillion of mortgage debt, inflating the cost of our houses, not building any homes and failing on their housing promises the direction they meant to take our housing market in? I am listening.”