QUESTION PERIOD — Infrastructure and Communities
Affordable Housing
June 18, 2024
The facts that I will quote are from Statistics Canada. On Monday they reported that investment in residential housing construction was down again, falling 2.7% in April as compared to March. Single-family home construction investment fell by 4.7% and was down across almost every province and territory. Investment in multi-unit housing for families was also down in six provinces and one territory. Nine years after Prime Minister Trudeau promised to lower the cost of housing, rents and mortgages have doubled. In my province of B.C., people are living at highway rest stops in RVs or other vehicles as they cannot find housing.
Leader, with all of the billions of dollars for housing announced by your government, why is it getting worse, not better?
Hear, hear.
I remember that when I moved to Vancouver in 1975 I paid more for a crummy apartment than I had ever paid in my life — before or after — and that was long before your government or this government.
The fact is that supply and demand in the housing market, as we all know, is a complicated matter. Clearly, I have no audience across the aisle for facts.
The fact remains that housing starts are up in my city and in other cities; they’re down in others. Investment and capital follow opportunities, and those opportunities are a function of a myriad of things. Although it may not serve the talking points to which you now seem to be addicted, the facts remain facts regardless of rhetoric.
This is not rhetoric, senator. It’s from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, or CMHC, and from Statistics Canada. CMHC reported that despite an increase in May it expects downward pressure on housing starts for the rest of 2024.
Leader, if that’s the case, the housing crisis won’t improve any time soon. Does the Trudeau government agree with the CMHC’s position?
Shameful.
The CMHC does important work in terms of projections and assisting Canadians. I believe all Canadians hope — and I hope your party does as well — that the situation will improve so that Canadians can have access to affordable and decent housing.
