Mr. Speaker, we are debating the estimates tonight, and I want to focus my attention on housing, which finds much support in the estimates. We have a variety of federal initiatives that are given further support or created anew where they did not exist before.

The first, which I think it is fair to say is the signature program of the federal government with respect to housing policy, is the housing accelerator fund. The fund has been topped up by the amount of $400 million. The fund is ultimately about working with municipalities. We cannot address the housing crisis, and we have to call it that, call it what it is, if we do not do so through partnership, working with municipal councillors, with mayors in particular and with public servants at the local level to see critical changes that will address what ultimately underpins the housing crisis, and that is a crisis in supply.

When there is a lack of supply, inevitably costs go up. That is true for anything, and it is true for housing. Let us be clear about something: We are all diminished by that. Whether it is young people or people across the demographic spectrum, when they cannot afford a home, we are all less. When they do not have a roof over their head, that is particularly tragic. That is something we are all especially diminished by.

What the federal government has said is that if cities and towns are willing to move forward in an ambitious way and make the necessary changes to zoning, for example, which we know is absolutely critical when it comes to getting more homes built, and if cities in particular are more open to densification, then there are federal dollars that can flow to cities.

For instance, there is putting in place zoning changes that will allow for more missing middle homes to be built. We are talking about duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, mid-rise apartments and row houses. That is what is meant by “missing middle homes.” When those zoning changes come, we see a green light given to developers and builders that they can build more homes that way. When densification is embraced, we get the same outcome.

Already the government has concluded no less than 179 agreements in this regard, and we will continue. This supplementation of $400 million would allow the program to do exactly that, to continue. It is there for municipalities, in return for making those kinds of changes. It is not simply federal dollars that go to municipalities without any expectation. There is an expectation here. The expectation is that if those changes get put in place, federal dollars can go to a variety of things that will create more incentives, a greater push for housing to be built.

We are talking about permit modernization. All too often, I hear in my capacity, not just as parliamentary secretary responsible for housing but from colleagues across the aisle, about cumbersome permitting processes in municipalities, large and small, that extend the length of a building project. What we are seeing is that with federal funding that comes through the housing accelerator fund, part of that funding can go to modernizing permits, including through the use of artificial intelligence. There is a whole debate, obviously, transpiring across democracies about the place of AI, and that is an important debate to have. There are many negatives, of course, that come with it, but there are also positives that can be embraced as well. A modernized permitting system is something that can have a very good impact.

We are seeing in Kelowna, for example, through funds secured through the housing accelerator fund, permitting modernized with the help of AI. It is cutting down on application approvals, not just by months, but even better than that. What used to take years could potentially take just days and maybe even just a few hours. We are seeing Kelowna just start this. It is a pilot project, but let us see where it goes. There are other cities that have embraced that kind of vision as well.

Housing accelerator funding can also go to community-related infrastructure. Local roads, bridges, sidewalks, lighting, bike lanes and even fire halls are eligible for financial support through this program. Again, this is if cities and towns step up and decide to be ambitious with what I talked about before, the necessary zoning changes and densification in municipalities that should be embraced.

Transit, for example, where it connects to housing, can be funded through this particular program and, of course, non-market housing, which colleagues in various parties, not in the Conservative Party unfortunately, have brought up.

Just yesterday, I was in my community of London, where $2 million was allocated for a supportive housing project that will see 50 fellow community members, who unfortunately have experienced homelessness, taken off the street with the support of a not-for-profit and given access to wraparound supports on site. Those wraparound supports include mental health support, addiction support, employment training and a variety of other basic supports that will allow them to transition to something better.

Opposed to the housing accelerator fund is the Conservative Party. Just a couple of weeks ago, one of the longest-serving members of the Conservative Party, who I believe is the dean of the Conservative caucus, the member for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, made clear her view, and I think she spoke for her party when she did so, that the federal government has no role to play in housing policy. She said it is outside of federal jurisdiction to worry about housing. It explains, for example, why the Conservatives' so-called housing plan is so weak. There are no details in their plan on how to get more homes built. There are a few details, but nothing substantive. That is the reason why I do not believe they think that the federal government has any meaningful role to play.

How else would we explain the fact, and it is a fact, that the Leader of the Opposition, at every opportunity, has found ways to insult mayors and has found ways to insult councillors, instead of wanting to work? Yes, difficult conversations have to sometimes take place around issues like zoning, around the culture of NIMBY. All of these things do play a role, but constructively we can overcome them. The Leader of the Opposition has found ways to create difficulties, to create a difficult relationship already with municipal leaders, with mayors in particular. That is not acceptable, certainly for someone who aspires to be prime minister. We know what is at stake, and that is why we are pushing back against it.

Also in the estimates, there is $6 billion for the Canada housing infrastructure fund. That funding will go to what is called housing-enabling infrastructure, namely water, waste-water, stormwater and solid waste infrastructure. We cannot talk about housing without talking about the enabling infrastructure that makes housing possible, that makes communities possible. As part of this, as part of ensuring that communities have the infrastructure they need to ensure that housing happens, we have attached conditions to make sure that more housing gets built.

I raised a point earlier about missing middle housing. The condition that we are leading with is that provinces have to sign on to agree on four-unit buildings as of right. In other words, fourplexes, for example, do not have to go through a cumbersome bureaucratic process at the municipal level to get approval. We have seen this before, where builders want to put up a fourplex, and where the members of the community want to put up a fourplex, but there are all sorts of local restrictions and bureaucracy in place that prevent that from happening. As part of the conditionality that we have attached to infrastructure funding, we are saying that as of right, these kinds of projects need to be given approval.

Conservatives, again, are opposed. I am not saying anything that we do not already know. They are on the record, but it bears emphasis for a party that talks a lot. I will give Conservatives this credit. They talk a lot about housing. They talk a lot about problems that exist in our democracy. We have challenges. We have a housing crisis, as I said before. However, they never offer solutions. Like any good right-wing populist party, I suppose, they never have solutions to the problems they identify.

What we are saying is that if one is serious about getting more homes built, then attaching this kind of conditionality is important. What did we see? Just a few weeks ago, the deputy leader of the Conservative Party stood on a yacht and declared that missing middle housing is not a priority, that we do not need to see more homes built. That is not an acceptable position, not for a deputy leader, not for a leader, not for any member of Parliament.

Furthermore, in the estimates, we can see $1.5 billion for affordable housing. This is the affordable housing fund that will help to fund non-market housing in this country. We do need to see more non-market housing in Canada. There is no question about that. Currently, it is estimated that around 4% of the overall housing stock is made up of non-market housing. We need to go beyond that.

As I said, 4% of the overall housing stock is made up of non-market housing. The OECD average is around 8%. We certainly need to meet at least that average, and I believe that a measure like this can help us get there.

It is not enough to focus only on market solutions. Our government is doing that. We understand that there is a place for market solutions to incent the private sector, and the building sector specifically, to get more homes built. Months ago, we lifted the GST from the construction of purpose-built rentals, and it took a while to get it through the House because of unfortunate Conservative filibustering. Those are rental apartments that will be for the middle class or for lower-income Canadians who are working hard to join the middle class.

In an environment where we have high interest rates, where we have high construction costs and where we have high costs related to labour as well, we have to think outside the box. We have to do things we have not done before, and lifting GST is something that we have done to incent the private sector, recognizing that market-based housing—in this case, apartments—has a place. That private sector has seen a green light already. I think any member of Parliament in this House who has engaged with builders in their community will say that this is exactly a green light.

Builders are quite excited by this prospect, but the Conservatives have a so-called “housing plan” that does not include this vision at all. They want to attach the GST. They want to keep it in place for the purposes of putting up rental apartments. It makes no sense.

Deeply related to this, when we are talking about ensuring that people have a roof over their heads, we have to look at non-market options. I talked before about the vision for supportive housing that programs like the accelerator fund make possible. This affordable housing fund also makes that possible. It allows people to find something better, a new path, a path with dignity, and already we have seen 71,000 people taken off the street through the national housing strategy. We have seen 125,000 people who were very close to being homeless but are not homeless and have a roof over their head.

Every year, as we saw in a recent report by the Parliamentary Budget Officer, 50,000 Canadians are supported through our affordable housing programs that exist right now. This supplements those programs, but the Conservatives, in their housing plan, never mentioned homelessness, not once.

There is $1.5 billion for co-operative housing as well. This is another affordable option. Of course, it is a perfectly good example of affordable housing.

What are co-ops? They are not-for-profits. At a co-op, residents own jointly and manage jointly their homes. Surplus dollars go toward the upkeep of the co-op. The form varies. They be large apartments or smaller townhouses. In either case, they provide a sense of community and a sense of democratic decision-making. So much is the Leader of the Opposition insulted when he sees visions like this come to fruition that he called it Soviet-style housing just a few months ago.

That is something that the 250,000 Canadians who live in co-ops have not forgotten. He was criticized roundly, and not just in this House of Commons. Even this morning, I was sitting with the Housing Advocate in the House of Commons committee that is responsible for housing, and we do have a Housing Advocate in this country. It is an important role. It is something that this government created to ensure that we had monitoring of the overall housing situation, and that includes understanding where we are with respect to non-market housing.

Madam Houle made it clear that the position of the Conservative leader is an unacceptable one when it comes to co-op housing. In the 1970s and 1980s, we saw thousands of co-op homes built. In the 1990s, different governments of various partisan persuasions—not just Conservative governments, but Liberal ones too—decided to invest elsewhere, or not at all, with respect to housing. As such, we saw far fewer co-ops, but just a few days ago, the federal government put forward an initiative that would invest $1.5 billion, as I mentioned already. That is the single largest investment in co-op housing that we have seen in the past 30 years. That is transformational when it comes to getting more homes built.

Again, the co-op model offers a lot. It is not an example of Soviet-style housing at all. The Leader of the Opposition says he is a student of history; he really ought to go back and look at that history. Co-op housing is something that allows for people to live with dignity, and that is why Liberals have embraced that vision for housing, along with other visions,.

There is $1.5 billion in the estimates for the Canada rental protection fund. We see that grants and loans will be provided to not-for-profits so that they can purchase apartments and keep rates of rent affordable. Rental rates in Canada have gone up. We know that. They have gone up dramatically in many cases. That is not an acceptable situation.

We are incenting the private sector. I already talked about the GST waiver the government introduced, and we are incenting the private sector in other ways, such as with low-interest loans facilitated through the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, CMHC, to allow builders to have another option. When we look at what CMHC can provide in terms of a low-interest loan compared to what the big banks would provide, the CMHC option is much more affordable. It gives builders the opportunity to build and add more apartments to the market.

When we have a situation like the one we have, a supply crisis, it makes sense to work with not-for-profits to give them the resources they need, either in the form of grants or loans, to go out and purchase apartments and keep that rental rate at an affordable level.

Having only a market-based solution as a vision is not recognizing that there is a continuum that we need to understand with respect to housing. We need social housing on the one side, all the way to market-based options on the other. Rental options and options for prospective homeowners all have to come together in policies to address the continuum that is housing. That is the vision on housing that the government has put forward.

Let me also talk about other measures that go hand in hand with that vision for housing.

I said earlier that we are all diminished when people do not have a roof over their heads. We are all diminished when people cannot afford to buy a home or rent a home. These are all questions of well-being. That is what we ought to be pursuing: the politics of well-being and the policies that allow for people to live with dignity.

Hand in hand with that kind of approach is a vision that allows people to get access to health care in ways that they have not had before. We talk about oral health care. Going to the dentist is as important as any type of health care. We cannot talk about healthy people without talking about housing. We cannot talk about people living in a healthy way unless they have access to dental support. That is why $8.4 billion is in these estimates to go toward people in a middle-income situation and in particular a lower-income situation.

Just on the weekend, I had the opportunity to speak to seniors in my community. I was approached by two seniors when I was out in London who thanked me for the federal initiative. I will have to thank the government and the Minister of Health in particular for their vision on this. The seniors will get dentures for the first time in a decade. In fact, in one case, it was over a decade. Imagine the dignity that flows from that. Imagine the pride that they can have now. In fact, I do not have to imagine it because they shared it with me. It was really quite moving to hear, and that is why the government believes in programs exactly like this.

We can add to that a vision on child care, a vision on pharmacare and a national school food program. They are all examples of the kinds of programs this government is championing, is going to fund and is funding already.

Finally, the Canada child benefit attaches to that. Hundreds of thousands of children and 2.3 million families have been lifted out of poverty as a result of that particular benefit. To my estimation, that is the most important advent in social policy that we have seen since the introduction of public health care in the 1960s. It has ensured, as I said before, a dignified life for everyday Canadians. That is something that all of us have the responsibility to work toward.

Peter Fragiskatos

$569,387.00