Official Hansard
Mr. Speaker, I would like to start off by recognizing a great event that happened in Oxford County not too long ago, the Woodstock Truck Show. It started out in Woodstock 12 years ago, but it has, sadly, moved out to the border with Burford, which falls in Brant County. This group does fantastic work uniting truckers from North America, who come together and raise money for such great causes. This year alone, they have raised almost $150,000 to support the Special Olympics and also WDDS in Woodstock. These guys deserve respect. Our truckers move our goods. They feed our families. They are always there, so we want to recognize them for that great accomplishment. Today’s topic of homebuilding is an important one. The government for the last 11 years has been making these big promises, grand announcements and photo ops, saying it is going to start building homes and going to build 500,000 homes in a single year, but instead, we have had the opposite. Housing costs have doubled. Mortgage payments have doubled. Rent payments have doubled. The down payment needed for a new home has doubled. A whole generation is now out of the market. There are builders who are not building, sellers who are not selling and buyers who are not buying, and that is taking a great toll on Canadians. Young entrepreneurs and young Canadians have always dreamed of owning a home one day. That is gone. Nine in 10 young folks believe they will never be able to buy a home. They want to have their own home. They want to start a family. We had that in Canada before, where if someone worked hard, played by the rules and had a decent job, they could save money for a down payment, buy a decent home in a good, safe neighbourhood and raise their family with their values. That was the Canadian promise, but we are not seeing that anymore. Instead of standing up for Canadians and actually making their lives easier, what do we get from the Liberals? It is the same old same old. The Prime Minister made all these big promises, that this is a new government, that it was going to change things and that it was not like the old government, but if I look across the aisle, I see the exact same ministers and the exact same MPs. They are the same MPs and ministers who caused this housing crisis we have today. The former housing minister caused the immigration crisis, and then he became the housing minister and destroyed the housing industry. Now he is justice minister, and he has destroyed the justice system. The Liberals have caused these crises in our communities. Before someone can even buy a home, they have to survive. Right now, Canadians are working harder and harder but barely getting by. They cannot save for that down payment anymore. Heck, they cannot even buy groceries anymore. We have 2.2 million Canadians visiting food banks in a single month, which is a record high. One in 10 of them are seniors, and one in four of them are young children. As a father, knowing that kids are going to school hungry bothers me. It should bother every single member in the chamber. Children should be going to school with full stomachs, with food in their bellies, ready to learn to be the leaders of the next generation, but thanks to the government, we have seen the opposite. The Liberals could heckle me. I know they love heckling. They get upset when we talk about the facts because it goes against their narrative and what they are selling to the media, but Canadians know. They see through this nonsense. They are seeing through it. They are seeing that Canadians are struggling. I can tell the House a few stories from my riding, Oxford, just from this last week. The government said it was going to hand out these food credits. Some people got $18. Some of them got $5, but the government promised them a lot more than that. On this side of the House, we will always stand for tax cuts and we would make sure that money goes back in the pockets of Canadians, but not how the government does it. Here is a story from Dezmond. He says that “life gets harder for young Canadians with families like myself with additional taxes and the increase in cost of living, as an apprentice I’m losing hours for my full time job [and can’t] start a career”. He cannot afford to live in this country. Tiffany is a single mother raising two teenage boys. Her aging parents, who are retired, are sending her $1,000 a month for food and to help with rent money. This is despite her having a job, and at the end of the month, she has $64 left from that $1,000 transfer. That is a story we are hearing right across our country: Parents are now subsidizing their kids’ future. This new bureaucracy the Liberals announced would do absolutely nothing to fix the affordability crisis, but it would continue to line the pockets of Liberal insiders. They want to make another bureaucracy, another one, on homebuilding, where they choose the executive, they choose the projects, they choose the dollar amount, they try to hide behind closed doors, and there is a lack of transparency. Again, the rich get richer, and average working-class Canadians continue to struggle. Here is a coincidence. I wonder what one of the biggest real estate asset managers in the country is. Does anyone know what company it is? I wonder. It is Brookfield. Surprise, surprise, Brookfield is one of Canada’s largest asset managers. I wonder who has connections to that company. We have to ask these questions. We need transparency in the House. We need to know where the funds would be going. It is not fair that Canadians work their butts off, make the sacrifices, stay away from their families— An hon. member: Play by the rules. Arpan Khanna: That’s exactly right. They play by all the rules, Mr. Speaker, yet they are being pushed right to the back. As for the numbers on housing that the Liberals have promised, they are not even meeting those targets. I think they hit 2.1% of the target they themselves set. In what occupation or job is failure rewarded like that? They should be held accountable for their failures. Canadians see right through these illusions that the Prime Minister is creating. Canadians are waking up. The Prime Minister is great for giving large, grand speeches, and I will be honest. In his Davos speech, the Prime Minister said some of the right stuff. Some stuff made sense, but homes cannot be built with empty words, stomachs cannot be filled with empty words, and jobs cannot be created in this country with empty words, and that is all we are getting with the Liberal government. There is another concern we have when the Liberals talk about homebuilding. I am seeing this rural sprawl happening into our farmland. We are seeing our farms being taken away. In Oxford County, that is a big concern for us. Our farmers are the backbone of Oxford County. They are the backbone of our country. They feed our families. It is a very big concern for me to see some of that farmland being taken away. Once farmland is paved over, it is gone forever. In Oxford County, we have class 1 land, which is some of the best farmland in the country. Members talk about a self-reliant country. Food security is a priority. Domestic production, making more, growing more and harvesting more here in Canada, should be a priority. When the Liberals have reckless projects taking away our farmland, that is a problem. One of those projects that we hear about is happening in eastern Ontario. My colleague is here today. She has been a great advocate fighting against the Alto train project, another boondoggle waiting to happen. The Liberals are taking away land from our farmers. Our farmers need that land, and they will be here in Parliament to raise their voices. I really encourage the members across the aisle to please join the Conservatives, to join colleagues like mine from eastern Ontario, who are raising serious concerns about this. The Liberals can talk all they want. The words are not meeting the action. We are not seeing the results. It has been over a year now. They have their majority government. They have no excuses. Homelessness should not be going up, but it is, under their watch. Tent cities are popping up everywhere, in Winnipeg too. I was there a few months ago, and I met with the mayor. He is seeing a crisis in his community with crime, and he is seeing tent cities. They are raising serious concerns. Again, there is money for the wealthy but nothing for those who are struggling. That has to change. That is why Conservatives have always put forward solutions to make sure we can build more homes at an affordable price that all Canadians would be able to purchase. That is why we raised the issue of cutting GST on new homes priced up to $1.3 million, saving the average family $65,000. That is a big chunk of change that would help stimulate the economy but also give that first-time homebuyer a chance to get into the market. We have talked about removing the capital gains tax, so investors could invest and those folks who want to buy their first rental property could get into the market. We want to create that economic environment where money is coming back to our country, unlike the Liberals. We have seen money going down south in the last 11 years. We have talked about incentivizing municipalities, making sure that we could become one of the fastest places to permit. Canada is one of the slowest permitting jurisdictions in the OECD. I think we place 63rd out of 67. That is pretty bad. We have the highest housing cost per capita in the G7 and the highest household debt in the G7. Those are serious concerns. Conservatives would incentivize municipalities, so if they permitted faster, they would get a bonus when it came to infrastructure funding, as well. We want to get out of the way. These reckless red tape regulations that profit only the insiders have to go. Let the builders build. Let our farmers farm. Let us not block progress happening in our country. That is our Conservative plan, a plan where young Canadians could buy a home, where our seniors could retire in peace, with dignity, and where our workers, when they make that sacrifice, would be able to purchase a home. Let us stop the bureaucracy. Let us get shovels in the ground. With that, I move: That the House do now adjourn.
