“The government is spending lots of money, but housing costs are not going down. I want the minister to explain why spending more money and creating another government office will work this time.”

“Mr. Speaker, it is great to be here, and I am thankful this debate is allowed to continue. I am surprised that it has to go through this last half hour of questions for the minister, but it is an interesting bill we are debating here today. We want to make sure that we get to the bottom of everything that is happening in the House of Commons. Of course, we know it is springtime. It is actually a great time to be sitting in Ottawa and debating the business of the country, making sure we are moving forward in holding the government to account and making sure that the legislation we bring forward is the best it is going to be for Canadians. I beseech the minister, if he can, to actually take a look at the bill. This is his fourth Crown corporation, and there are no solutions so far. There is lots of money going out the door and there are lots of announcements, but no solutions have been put forth to actually aid Canadians and bring lower housing costs across Canada. What does the minister think he would accomplish with even more money and another bureaucracy that has not been accomplished along the way with everything else that has been done so far in this field? The lack of accomplishments is stark. Can he please address why he thinks it is going to be different this time?”

• Little substance
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  Question or comment in debate

  Signal 42 of 100

  Much of this statement went to praise, blame, greetings, routine procedure or general stories rather than reasons, requests or specific points.

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“I want the minister to tell us if small towns can get this housing money. In the past, federal programs ignored small, rural towns in Manitoba and across Canada. Will the government let all towns access this funding this time?”

“Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the minister minds addressing whether any of this money would be available for municipalities that are quite small. Despite their not being perhaps as flashy as big announcements in the major cities across Canada, these municipalities, in previous Liberal iterations of bloated federal government programs and funding, could not access the type of funding that they needed to spur small-scale housing projects in their municipalities. Can the minister comment on whether Liberals are going to get it right this time and ensure that all municipalities within the country can access funding for housing projects or whether they going to forget about rural Manitoba and rural Canada once again?”

“The government wants to force this bill through without normal debate. They are skipping committee study, amendments, and the final vote. I want the minister to explain why he is shutting down debate on this bill.”

“Mr. Speaker, we have a Prime Minister who is really eroding the foundations of our parliamentary democracy. He is never here, yet he is imposing some of the most draconian measures on parliamentary debate. The motion before the House would impose on Bill C-26 that there would be one more speaker for each party at second reading, and then after the vote at second reading, it would be deemed adopted at all stages, with no committee study, no report stage debate and no third reading debate. An hon. member: Oh, oh! Garnett Genuis: Mr. Speaker, the member for Whitby is saying, “perfect”. This is what Liberals want. They want to shut down debate. This would not just be closure of debate at a stage. It would be shutting debate down at all stages, with no possibility for committee study or amendment. This is just an unconscionable attack on the processes that are supposed to defend the rights and liberties of Canadians and to defend good decision-making. How can the minister, if he really thinks this is a good bill, justify the most draconian use of shutting down a procedure that we have ever seen in the House, shutting it down not just at one stage but at all stages, with no possibility for debate, study or amendment?”

“We have a housing crisis. People cannot buy, build, or sell homes. I blame the Liberals' high spending and bureaucracy for doubling housing costs over the last 11 years. They are offering more of the same, which will not fix the problem they caused.”

“Mr. Speaker, the minister already mentioned in the discussion today that we are in a housing crisis. He spoke earlier about the fact that buyers cannot buy and builders cannot build. I would agree with that. I would add that people who are looking to sell also cannot sell during this housing crisis. However, of course, we are in a housing crisis after 11 years of Liberal policies that have brought in more bureaucracies, higher spending and higher inflation that have driven up the cost of living and doubled the cost of housing for Canadians right across the country. That is why we are in this housing crisis. Now that the Liberals are bringing forward more spending, more bureaucracy and more of the same, how are Canadians supposed to believe that the Liberals are going to get us out of this housing crisis that they caused, with more policies that are right along the lines of the policies that caused this crisis in the first place?”

“The government is rushing this housing bill through without enough study or debate. Rushing laws leads to bad mistakes. I want the minister to explain why Canadians do not get to hear this bill debated properly.”

“Mr. Speaker, I have lost track of the number of times I have stood in the House in the last few days to talk about the government’s again ramming a bill through the House. In this case, the bill has not had the benefit of second reading, committee study, third reading or report stage. It has not been to the Senate. It has not had the benefit of being studied in either House. It concerns an extremely important area of policy and law in this country, and we have seen the unintended consequences of badly drafted Liberal bills being rammed through the House. We saw it with Bill C-3, wherein there are unintended consequences, including lots of Americans who are discovering their connections to Canada. We have seen it with the minister’s actions when he was the mayor of Vancouver. This is an area that we have to get right, and I would urge the government not to do this. I would challenge the minister to explain why Canadians should not get the benefit of debate on the bill.”

“I do not want this bill to pass. It gives the Minister of Finance over $1.7 billion for housing with no rules, no goals, and no plan for how to spend it.”

“Mr. Speaker, what I find most troubling about this particular bill is that it is not too dissimilar from the government’s Build Canada Homes creation, an agency created with $13 billion, with zero targets, zero metrics and no transparency. Nobody knows how it is really supposed to work or what it is going to do. It is just going to do non-market housing. The bill before us would involve $1.713 billion that the minister could spend at his whim. There is nothing in the bill about what the metrics would be nor what the housing needs are by province. It is just $1.713 billion, and the Minister of Finance could spend it however he chooses on housing supply. There would be no requirement for him to talk to the Minister of Housing. There would be no requirement for him to understand CMHC data on the need by province. It is nothing. It would just be a blank cheque for the Minister of Finance. The House is responsible for the public purse. Why would there be no scrutiny of the $1.713 billion?”

“First Nations need 157,000 homes, and national or provincial building codes do not apply on reserves. The government makes big funding announcements without details. I want to know if the minister will spend this public money on First Nations homes, and which building codes he will use.”

“Mr. Speaker, the Liberal government has been good at announcing programs, dollars and funds, but it is really blank on the details. I am wondering if the minister knows what codes are on the first nations themselves and if he is going to invest from the public purse into first nation homes. There is a shortage of 157,000 homes, and the national building codes and provincial codes do not apply on first nations. What codes will he be building to when investing this money from the public purse in first nations?”

“The government is rushing this housing bill through without letting a committee study it. I want the housing minister to come to our committee for at least one hour to answer questions about the bill.”

“Mr. Speaker, in response to what the parliamentary secretary just said, it is important for Canadians to know that there is a big difference between using closure or time allocation at one stage of a bill in the House and shutting the bill down at every stage so there is no possibility of committee study. On Bill C‑5, we moved it forward, but we had detailed committee study and amendments from the Conservatives that improved that bill. In this case, the bill is being shut down at all stages with no committee study, no report stage and no third reading debate. I think it is because, in part, the housing minister is afraid to come to the human resources committee, where we sit— An hon member: Oh, oh! Garnett Genuis: Mr. Speaker, the member is blowing that off. I will ask the minister a simple question. This motion is going to pass; they have their majority, so it is going to pass. Will the minister agree to come to the human resources committee, even for one hour, to talk to us about the bill? The human resources committee is supposed to be studying housing. We have two studies going, one on housing starts and one on homelessness. We have not heard from the minister. We also have this bill going through on housing. The minister is trying to skip coming to committee. Will he come to human resources committee for an hour to talk about this bill, yes or no?”

“I do not want the government to end debate on this housing bill. Doing so stops it from going to committee, which means experts and regular Canadians cannot share their ideas on it.”

“Mr. Speaker, we have heard a variety of arguments from this side of the House as to why cutting debate off on this bill is short-sighted, but perhaps one of the most important reasons is because, as my hon. colleague explained, it does not just cut off debate in the House; it also means this bill will never go to committee. What that means is that the experts, the constituents, the members of civil society in this country who might have something to say with respect to this bill, which might actually be useful to the government, will not get the chance to be heard. I certainly understand why the member does not want to go to committee. I have seen him there, and it is not good, but I want to know why the minister is also cutting off Canadians from having their say about the bill through our committee process.”

“The minister wants to spend another $1.7 billion on housing, but his plans have not fixed anything. He wants to spend this money without a committee checking how it is used. I want him to tell us how he will make sure this money is spent properly.”

“Mr. Speaker, the minister knows this because I met him when he first got elected here on the floor of the House of Commons, and when he was named the housing minister, I told him that the first thing he had to do was to get rid of the people who have led us into this trap in the first place. Those are the people in his department, the ones whose advice he is following now to spend another $1.7 billion of Canadians’ money in accomplishing what they have accomplished so far, which is just spending money and not fixing the situation at all. He keeps referring to a crisis. This crisis is a crisis of his party’s causing, along with the officials who have led him to this trap. Not getting this to committee means another $1.7 billion of Canadian taxpayer money going out the door without anybody seeing what it is about, what the accountability mechanisms might be or if the money is being spent wisely. It is just another cheque that the minister is trying to bring in front of the Canadian people. Will he please tell us if he is going to entertain any input on the accountability mechanism assigned to the $1.7 billion of new taxpayer money?”

“We should keep debating this bill. The minister has not answered how many homes his 1.7-billion-dollar plan will actually build.”

“Mr. Speaker, we have heard a lot about process from the minister and in the House as to why this bill should be closed for debate. However, what we and the industry have not heard from the minister is how many homes the $1.7 billion that he wants to spend of taxpayer dollars is going to build. He has not answered that question, which is why we should continue to debate this.”