Madam Speaker, we are here today to discuss an opposition day motion from the Conservative Party in relation to housing. I welcome the opportunity to rise in this place and talk about the importance of housing, because this is a national conversation right now.

I want to give some context from my own riding of Kings—Hants. I was elected in 2019. I remember going to communities, particularly in rural parts of my riding, in Hants County and Kings County, and we would have conversations. We would knock on the door, and people would say they were worried that they would not be able to actually sell their home. It had been on the market for a year or two, and no one seemed to want to buy it.

Fortunately, that is no longer a problem in Nova Scotia, at least in the Annapolis Valley and in Hants County. There has been a growth and an interest from people who want to live in rural Nova Scotia and, I would say, also rural Atlantic Canada. Particularly during the height of the pandemic and afterward, we saw large migrations across Canada. People from Ontario and western Canada wanted to come live in Nova Scotia for the quality of life our communities offer. This is a very good thing because, for years, our province has been chasing, desiring and wanting to welcome newcomers.

It may sound like a very modest number, but we just eclipsed a million people about a year and a half ago in our province. This was a number that came after projections showed that our population was going to decrease. As Nova Scotians, we should be welcoming the fact that people want to live in our communities. I live in East Hants, one of the fastest-growing municipalities in Atlantic Canada.

At the same time, we need to make sure that we have the proper housing, infrastructure and social services to keep pace. This is what the conversation is about today. The Conservatives have put on the table a suggestion that the government should move forward with a GST cut for newbuild homes in the country up to a million dollars. I will be honest; in and of itself, that idea is not a terrible one. The catch is the fine print that the Conservatives do not put in the opposition day motion, which they have said outside this place. That is the way they would go about paying for that type of expenditure, which would be to cut the programs that are driving supply.

It is extremely important for Canadians at home to understand that, when we rob Peter to pay Paul, that is not getting us any further ahead. In fact, it is actually narrowing the portion of Canadians who could benefit from a housing initiative. I am one of the younger members of Parliament in the House. There are a lot of people in my age bracket who are looking to buy their first home, looking to get in and start a family. They may not be in a position to purchase a brand new, just-built home.

One thing I have not heard the Conservatives address so far in the debate is why we are going so narrow on just newly built homes. Why is this not an affordability measure that is extended all the way across? Why are they proposing to get rid of the programs that are increasing supply, which could help support this initiative in the first place? By stunting the ability to build the supply, they are narrowing the benefit they would even be offering as part of their public policy choice to Canadians.

First and foremost, the Conservatives have to be clear on why they are cutting the programs that are important for the supply that is needed. We have heard premiers and, frankly, all members of Parliament on all sides of the House say that we need more supply in this country. I agree. Why are we taking away the programs that are giving us just that?

This gives us an opportunity to examine the programs the government has put out. I am not the housing minister, but I would suggest that the government has four different cadres of initiatives. We have put out support directly to developers to build, whether that is in very low-cost financing for developers to be able to build either new homes or new rental units, or whether it is in money given directly to the provinces to support public housing.

Part of the reason we are in this situation is that, for 35 years, starting with the Chrétien government, there was an exodus of federal involvement in social and public housing. I have a lot of respect for Mr. Chrétien. His government was good for this country. However, it is the current government that has sought to actually return these things. These things do not turn around overnight. This is part of the reason we find ourselves in the situation that we do.

The third element is working directly with municipalities, whether that is providing the infrastructure needed for housing or putting money on the table that is tied to incentives. We have heard a lot that the Conservatives want to sit down and negotiate with the municipalities and withhold federal funding. On the positive side of the stick, that is exactly what the government is doing. It is sitting down with municipalities and putting in funding that is conditional on homes getting built in their local area. It is not pulling back federal funding if they do not hit a 15% target. I will get into more of what the member for Carleton's plan entails; experts have said that it would build less housing in this country, not more, and it is actually a very benign policy.

Finally, we are also working directly with the people who would buy the homes, primarily young Canadians, via the first home savings account. There are a number of initiatives to try to help support young Canadians in getting into a home, with ways they can save up tax-free to do just that.

What is the evidence of our plan working? In Nova Scotia, we have good news. In 2023, Nova Scotia had the most housing starts since 1940. I want to repeat that. By virtue of federal leadership on this file, our province of Nova Scotia had the most housing of the last 83 years. Even better news is that Nova Scotia is actually on pace to exceed that this year.

I can see concretely, in my own backyard, the work that the federal program is doing to increase supply. We know it cannot just be supply. Yes, that is important and that, in and of itself, will create more of an affordability context for Canadians, but we have targeted programs to actually help with affordable housing units. What the Conservative Party is offering my constituents is to cut the programs that are promising to help deliver almost 5,000 new housing units in Kings—Hants over the next decade.

The leader of the official opposition stands up and calls mayors incompetent. Does that extend to Mayor Dave Corkum in Kings County? Does that include the warden, Eleanor Roulston, in East Hants? Is he going to come into the place and tell her that she is incompetent? How about Mayor Abraham Zebian in Windsor-West Hants? Is he incompetent? How about his council? How about the Conservative candidate in Kings—Hants who was a municipal councillor? Is the leader of the official opposition suggesting that he is incompetent as well? I would like to know the answer on that because, of course, he was part of the Kings County council that welcomed the federal investment in housing to build more housing in Kings—Hants.

It is not constructive to have someone who wants to be the prime minister of this country going around trying to beat up every other level of government. That is not the type of leadership we should expect in this country. It is not the way we should be going about it.

I want to get to the leader's plan and talk about the ridiculousness of his plan. His private member's bill, which has been widely critiqued by housing advocates in this country as being ineffectual compared with the government programs, actually proposes that if municipalities do not build 15% more housing, then they do not get federal funds. There is irony in that.

We may have a municipality that is doing very well, working in a pro-development way to build new housing. Let us say it built 100 houses this year. Under the leader of the official opposition's program, if it did not build 115 next year, he would not give the municipality any federal money to help support the continued growth.

However, what if a municipality was perhaps underperforming, doing terribly and standing in the way? With the big bureaucracy that the leader screams against, if it built five houses, it would only have to build one more in order to get his 15% funding on the Government of Canada side. It makes absolutely no sense, and it is the result of policy and slogans being written on the back of a napkin. It is not good public policy.

I welcome a conversation on housing, as the member for Ottawa Centre said, but let us have a conversation about concrete ways to get out of this situation. It is not going to be by cutting programs that are helping to build more housing in this country. It is not by cutting programs that are helping with affordable housing units. The Conservatives suggest that they will cut funding to municipalities that, in many cases, need the critical infrastructure to build out. It is easy to say that we want to build a house, but if we do not have the waste water and water infrastructure to do it, it is not going to happen.

Kody Blois

$557,601.00