Scott Aitchison
Parry Sound—Muskoka, Ontario · Conservative · Canada
“Mr. Speaker, the member just described what happens in a recession. The fact is that Canadians need results. This Prime Minister promised results.”
“Mr. Speaker, where are the results? The Prime Minister promised to double the pace of housing construction to almost 500,000 new homes a year, but his own budget watchdog said his new $13-billion housing agency will build only about 5,000 homes. The CMHC's chief economist pointed this week to “weaker momentum for future supply”.”
“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.”
“Mr. Speaker, home builders and homebuyers in Ontario are still waiting for the federal government to finalize the regulations to permit them to rebate the HST on all new homes. This is creating more confusion and uncertainty in the market, and it is leaving both buyers and builders in limbo.”
“Mr. Speaker, the fundamental difference between that member and me is that I recognize the importance of getting things done. Conservatives have proposed all along that we use federal dollars as leverage to make sure that municipalities are getting the job done.”
“What it did was adopt projects that were already years in the making and already well under way. If the Liberals slap a new corporate logo on the side of a train that has left a station and is moving down the track and then claim they built the engine, that is ridiculous. It is rebranding.”
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Every one of 156 lines we hold for Scott Aitchison, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 3 of 4.
“After the war, we did not back away from the scale of the challenge; we met it head-on, and in the process, we built a future that gave families hope, stability and prosperity. Budget 2025 fails all the Canadians who believed the Prime Minister when he promised to build at a scale not seen in generations. We can do it again. The example is in our own history. Young Canadians deserve a government that works as hard as they do, that cuts red tape instead of adding it, that empowers builders instead of blocking them, that rewards cities that are getting the job done, not the ones that are not doing the job, and that focuses on what matters, which is getting more homes built so every Canadian has a safe place to live.”
“They partnered with builders instead of fighting them, and they measured success by one outcome: getting homes built. This is the approach the Conservatives would bring back. We would lower the cost and burden of government, because every delay and every dollar added by government adds to the price of a home. We would eliminate duplication, streamline approvals and bring common-sense timelines to projects. We would reward municipalities that open doors and stop giving money to those that slam them shut. We would treat housing as a national priority, not just as a slogan but as a mission grounded in results. Canadians are practical. They are builders and problem solvers, and our history proves it.”
“CMHC tells us that Canada needs 480,000 homes a year for the next 10 years to restore affordability. This year, we have not yet reached 200,000 starts. In fact, 2025 is on track to being the worst year for homebuilding in three decades. Young Canadians are doing everything right. They are working hard and are saving what they can, but they still cannot afford a home. They are delaying families. They are delaying their careers. They are delaying life itself because they cannot find or afford a place to live. This is not the Canada we want to leave them, and it does not have to be this way. The postwar generation showed us exactly what works when we take the housing crisis seriously. They kept costs down. They reduced government barriers. They aligned federal, provincial and municipal efforts.”
“He promised a “generational shift”, but we know the first six projects announced under the Build Canada Homes announcement are all Canada Lands Company projects that it has been working on for years. (1335) While the government claims to be fighting the gatekeepers, it continues to reward the worst offenders. Let us look at Toronto. After charging massive development fees, including a 40% increase just after receiving approval for its $471-million housing accelerator fund, a deal it is not even honouring today, the federal government still handed the city $283 million for a sewer project that it had already charged developers for. The government is rewarding failure. It is rewarding the worst housing gatekeepers in the country. Meanwhile, the scale of the crisis continues to grow.”
“It is a system so slow and so expensive that viable projects become unaffordable before a shovel even hits the ground. Instead of cutting through the barriers, the government keeps building new bureaucracies, including a fourth federal housing body. They then call it ambition. Budget 2025 was supposed to break this cycle, but instead of addressing the real structural problems, it would simply repeat the approach that has been failing Canadians for almost a decade. The Prime Minister promised to cut development charges in half, for example. In budget 2025, there is nothing about that. He promised to incentivize private rental construction through the old MURB program. Budget 2025 says nothing about that either.”
“Howe Institute and the Canadian Home Builders' Association have been telling us this. The CMHC, the very agency created to cut red tape back then, now warns that red tape is one of the biggest barriers to building the homes Canadians need. Their 2023 “Housing Supply Report” confirms that Canada builds fewer homes per capita today than we did in the 1970s, despite having the fastest population growth in more than half a century. This is not because Canadians have somehow forgotten how to build. We have some of the best builders and tradespeople in the world. It is not because we lack the land, the lumber or the talent. This is a crisis created by government, with layer after layer of fees, years-long approvals timelines and endless paperwork.”
“Entire communities were built from the ground up. Neighbourhoods in Toronto, Ottawa, Calgary, Vancouver and Halifax flourished. Builders built, trades worked, families prospered, and the government kept costs low and approvals fast. It stayed in its lane. It empowered Canadians instead of layering on more red tape. That was the formula. That is the lesson. The contrast with today's reality simply could not be sharper. Young Canadians now face a housing crisis that by many measures is even worse than what we faced in 1945. The Bank of Canada and Statistics Canada tell us that housing is more unaffordable relative to income than at any other time in our history. Government-imposed costs, development charges, fees, taxes and regulatory delays equal between 30% and 50% of the price of a new home in major cities in this country. The C.D.”
“Cities were reporting families living in garages, converted barracks and temporary wartime huts. Wartime Housing, which was a temporary agency during the war, had to expand its operations because so many Canadians simply had nowhere else to go. Here is the critical lesson from that era: Canada solved that crisis. We solved it with focus, with urgency and with a government that understood that its job was not to control everything but to clear the way for builders, for communities and for families. When the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation was created in 1946, its mandate was clear: accelerate construction, cut through bureaucracy and partner with the private sector to rebuild the country. It worked. Between 1947 and 1955, Canada built more homes per capita than at any other time in our history.”
“Ten years of economic depression, followed by six years of war, had nearly wiped out homebuilding in Canada. When peace finally came, over a million veterans returned in a matter of months. They were getting married, starting families, looking for work and looking to start their futures, but Canada simply did not have any homes. We know this from the debates in this very House. On August 12, 1944, then finance minister James Lorimer Ilsley warned Parliament that housing had become one of the gravest domestic problems facing the nation. He described overcrowding, rising rents and a shortage of adequate dwellings in every major centre, and he was not exaggerating. According to the government's own 1946 report on housing and community planning, Canada was short more than 200,000 homes.”
“Mr. Speaker, budget 2025 was supposed to mark what we were told was going to be a generational shift in this country. That is what we were told. When it came to housing, the government promised something truly historic. In fact, the budget documents declared rather boldly, I might add, that budget 2025 was the most ambitious housing plan since the Second World War, backed by more than $11 billion in a brand new top-down federal initiative called Build Canada Homes. That is a pretty big claim, and when a government promises to match the scale of what Canada achieved in the Second World War, it is probably worth remembering just how extraordinary that moment was in Canadian history. Back then, Canada was not just short on housing; we were in a full-blown emergency.”
“Mr. Speaker, if spending money could solve the housing crisis, we would have a surplus right now. This is a government that named a housing minister who made housing taxes 141% more expensive in Vancouver and increased the price of homes by 149%. We are in a housing crisis now, and it is clear this guy does not get it. The experts are warning of 100,000 job losses in this sector. If the government will not listen to us and to what we are saying about cutting the GST on homes under $1.3 million, why does it not listen to the experts?”
“Mr. Speaker, the Toronto homebuilding industry released a scathing report on the government’s budget, warning of 100,000 job losses in the sector despite the Prime Minister 's promising 500,000 new homes a year during the election. The government continues to refuse to implement our policy of cutting the GST on all new homes under $1.3 million. Now, housing starts have plummeted and developers are laying off their trained staff because the cost of government is just too high. Why will the government not listen to the experts and cut the GST on all new homes under $1.3 million, so builders can get back to work and build the homes Canadians so desperately need?”
“From communities like Bracebridge and Huntsville, which are towns with three different food-distribution charities, to the many tiny communities of a few hundred people, like Argyle, Burk's Falls and Honey Harbour, food banks are essential lifelines in every corner of the riding. These small food programs in Parry Sound—Muskoka are struggling to keep up with the need. As the amazing people of Parry Sound—Muskoka continue to support each other, they also beg the government to please stop making life so expensive for them and all their neighbours.”
“Mr. Speaker, Tuesday's budget presented a $78.2-billion deficit, driving up prices and making life more expensive for families all across Canada. Food inflation is skyrocketing and made worse by the government's massive debts. This year, food bank visits in Canada hit 2.2 million. Ten years ago, in Parry Sound—Muskoka, an idyllic rural collection of small communities where neighbours take care of each other, the food programs that were needed back then were Salvation Army food drives at holiday times. Today, there are 16 food-related charities in Parry Sound—Muskoka.”
“Mr. Speaker, food bank visits have skyrocketed to 2.2 million this year. Home prices are 54% higher today than they were in October 2015. CTV reported this morning that a 76-year-old man in Prince Edward Island has been living in his car for the last two months because he cannot afford rent. The Prime Minister has told young Canadians that they need to sacrifice. The question is very simple: How much more sacrifice does he require from struggling Canadians to pay executive bonuses?”
“Mr. Speaker, after 10 years of the government, Liberals friends and insiders have never had it so good. We just learned that the government's own housing agency doled out over $3.6 million in bonuses to all but one of their 86 executives. That is about $43,000 per executive. Meanwhile, rents have doubled, mortgage payments have doubled and home prices have doubled. I am just wondering if the minister could tell Canadians who cannot find a home how much more he requires them to sacrifice while he pays his executive bonuses?”
“We do not need another national strategy to solve it because we also know the solutions. The crisis is today, not years from now, and it is time for results today. Young people in this country deserve a home. They deserve the promise of Canada that previous generations have enjoyed. They need a government committed to removing the lines that divide us, class by class, into those who have homes and those who are giving up hope of ever owning a home. To all young Canadians holding out hope for one day owning a home of their own, do not give up hope. There are solutions, and there is a path for them to own a home. Our Conservative team will never stop until those solutions are implemented and we restore the dream of home ownership to every single one of them.”
“Fifty years ago, $50,000 could get someone a beautiful home. It was a great start. After inflation, that is about $300,000 today. The problem is that the average cost of a home today is $700,000. The desire of young people to become homeowners has not changed. Young people are willing to compromise to make it a reality, and facing the new reality, young Canadians are adapting their expectations. For 60% of first-time homebuyers, this means compromising on the size, location or type of home. Young Canadians are willing to change; they see home ownership as a core part of their identity and aspirations. It remains central to how people define progress, belonging and fairness in this country. Bill C-227 seeks to assess the current state of housing for youth, but we know the problem is bad.”
“These are proposals supported by industry, housing advocates and housing experts that will restore the dream of home ownership once again to the millions of young people in this country who are tired of being patronized with Liberal promises and spin. Owing a home is an important source of stability in our lives. For generations, owning a home has formed the foundation for building a life. I want to speak directly to the millions of young Canadians who see that foundation slipping further away. To the young people who have been told by older generations that it was hard for them to buy a home too and that if they work a little harder, they can buy a house, Conservatives know that it is not just a matter of working a bit harder or sacrificing even more. The deck is literally stacked against them.”
“To all the people who accuse nasty Conservatives of only criticizing the government, I want to be very clear that while we criticize on housing, we have also proposed many great ideas and solutions, such as cutting the GST on all new homes under $1.3 million, which would get homes built; tying federal infrastructure dollars for municipalities not to promises on hopes and dreams of being better, but to real results; cutting local taxes, charges and fees on housing, something the Liberals promised in their election campaign and have not done anything about yet, to make homes less expensive; and cutting the capital gains tax on reinvestments into new housing to attract more capital and investment and get more homes built.”
“We have a proposal from a very well-meaning and earnest new Liberal MP who wants to make a difference, and I applaud that. The problem is that his proposal is to offer more studies, analysis and reporting back to the House of Commons about what the federal government intends to do to solve a problem that has become a national crisis under its watch and national strategies. They say insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. While the Liberals build more bureaucracy and engage in further studies, the Conservatives just want to get more homes built.”
“Here we are with a crisis that is quickly becoming a catastrophe. We know what the housing problem young people are facing in this country is. Industry stakeholders and housing experts and advocates have been abundantly clear that the cost and burden of government make it too expensive to build. The national price of a home today is 58% higher than it was in October 2015. We know what the solutions are. We must cut the cost of building by getting the government out of the way on market housing. We must incentivize the private sector to build affordable units. We must focus scarce public dollars on social and supportive housing for the most vulnerable in our society. The last thing we or young Canadians need is yet another bureaucratic report for the minister to review and update the House on, yet here we are.”
“All new homes are subject to the high cost of red tape, reports and studies by experts, as well as studies of those studies by other experts. The cost of approvals has skyrocketed. (1755) On top of all those layers of bureaucracy, many cities also use a tool called development charges, a tool designed to help municipalities offset the cost of new housing infrastructure, all related to growth. It has been fairly abused by a lot of municipalities to pay for pet projects and overpriced infrastructure under the mantra that growth will pay for growth. Municipalities in Ontario alone sit on development charge reserve funds of over $12 billion. Housing-enabling infrastructure is not getting built, and development charges continue to rise, in many cases to over $200,000 per home, which just sits in these cities' bank accounts.”
“He recognized that there was a growing homeless population all across the country. His government's housing first policy aimed to focus on just that. Non-profit organizations and community groups had funds available for housing, and those organizations actually committed to getting it built. Then came the second Trudeau era. Before Justin Trudeau, it took 25 years to pay off one's mortgage. Now it takes 25 years just to save up for the down payment. Taxes, charges and fees make up almost 30%, on average, of the cost of every new home. Cities and towns have planning departments that have slowed the approvals process by adding layers of reports and processes and new and ever-more-complicated zoning regulations.”
“The first Prime Minister Trudeau also brought in a special tax program to incentivize the private sector to build rental units. It was called the MURB program. It was wildly successful. It worked, so he cancelled it. In the 1980s, the federal government began engaging more, and more directly, with the provinces, and it began to reduce its own leadership role. Recessions and budget constraints led to a slowdown in new social housing development. The focus began shifting away from building new units to maintaining the existing stock. By the early 1990s, the federal government withdrew completely from funding new social housing, transferring responsibility to provinces and municipalities. By the 2000s, Prime Minister Harper, to his credit, saw this crisis coming.”
“Some think this is when the national housing crisis began, when the national housing strategy actually turned out to be a bureaucracy-building strategy. While the Liberals have made things exponentially worse, the genesis of our current mess actually began with the first Prime Minister Trudeau. Back in the 1960s, there was a period of significant expansion of social housing. The federal government, through the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, partnered with provinces and municipalities to build large-scale public housing projects, for example, Regent Park in Toronto, Bayers Road in Halifax and Churchill Park in St. John's. The government's aim was to address housing shortages with a focus on integrating public housing into existing communities, thereby making complete communities.”
“Tradespeople are sitting at home, waiting for that phone to ring to get back to work to build more homes; meanwhile, housing starts are plummeting in this country at a time when we are desperate for millions of new homes. For over 10 years, we have heard about Liberal promises with respect to housing. We heard Justin Trudeau tell young people in 2017 that his national housing strategy was going to be “transformational” and “life-changing”. Many young Canadians thought this was the first time that the government was going to take housing seriously in their lifetime. Maybe, just maybe, they were going to be able to afford to buy a home, as the generations before them did. However, we know that this is not what happened. Since then, rents have doubled, prices have doubled, down payments have doubled and mortgages have doubled.”
“In our housing system, the lines have quite clearly been drawn. While Teddy Roosevelt was clearly not talking about housing that spring in Paris, his words ring true today here in Canada in an uneven housing system of over-regulation, painfully long approval processes and skyrocketing government charges, taxes and fees on housing. Seniors, on the one hand, are counting on the equity in their homes to retire; young people, on the other, are saving every penny, hoping that they can one day buy a home. There are young people who know for sure that the bank of mom and dad will be there when they go to buy a house, and then there are other young people who are not too sure how they are going to make the rent payment next month.”
“Mr. Speaker, in April 1910, Teddy Roosevelt arrived in Paris on the heels of his Smithsonian-sponsored, year-long scientific expedition to East Africa. While he was there, he delivered his famous “Citizenship in a Republic” speech at the Sorbonne, made famous largely because of that stirring “man in the arena” passage. However, in his speech about the importance and the value of public participation in our democracy, there is actually another line from that speech that I am thinking about today, which would be this line: “The gravest wrong upon his country is inflicted by that man...who seeks to make his countrymen divide primarily on the line that separates class from class”. Today, in Canada, we have a housing system that has become a division, class from class, between those who have and those who have not.”
“Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague rhymed off a number of federal programs from the Liberal government that have existed for about 10 years. He talked about a whole bunch of different ones. One of them, of course, was the national housing strategy. If these programs have worked so well, why is the problem as bad as it is today? What does he hope to achieve with yet another national housing strategy?”
“It is all talk and no action. Canadians need our Conservative plan, which will restore affordability, get homes built and restore the dream of home ownership to Canadians once again.”
“Mr. Speaker, the government's own housing agency reports that mortgage delinquencies are up, but the worst is yet to come. The CMHC estimates that interest rates for homes will continue to climb. About two million Canadians will renew their mortgages next year, and they will face new rates that are 3% higher than they were during the pandemic. The housing crisis in this country is quickly becoming a catastrophe under the Liberal government. The Prime Minister 's promise was to “build, baby, build”, but under his government, home starts have stopped in Toronto and Vancouver and mortgage delinquency rates are skyrocketing. In fact, since 2022, mortgage delinquency rates have shot up 64%. It is no wonder that nine in 10 Canadians are now worried about housing. The Prime Minister 's plan looks an awful lot like the last prime minister's.”
“Mr. Speaker, after 10 years of the Liberals, experts are now warning of up to 100,000 job losses in the housing sector by 2027. Builders are laying off their trained staff, even though the Prime Minister promised to double housing construction. Housing starts have stalled completely in the GTA and the Lower Mainland, where the housing crisis is the worst. In Ajax, housing starts are down 100%. Builders are praising our common-sense plan to remove the GST on all homes under $1.3 million, saying it will restart homebuilding. Why does the Prime Minister not want home builders building homes?”
“Mr. Speaker, $13 billion for a fourth federal Ottawa housing bureaucracy to build 4,000 homes is not a solution. It is yet another Liberal boondoggle that will cost Canadians a fortune and will solve nothing. The Prime Minister said, “The core challenge present in the housing market is it’s just too hard to build.” It is hard to build because of government taxes and red tape. In Toronto and Vancouver, the cost of government on a new home is over 25%. Housing starts there have stopped. Why does the Prime Minister not understand that if we are going to get homes built, we have to cut the bureaucracy, not add $13 billion more?”
“Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister promised to double homebuilding to 500,000 homes per year, but today, housing starts are down 13%. It is another broken Liberal promise. Yesterday, the Prime Minister introduced a fourth $13-billion housing bureaucracy to build, wait for it, 4,000 homes. What blocks homebuilding is government bureaucracy, red tape and taxes. Why does the Prime Minister believe that adding $13 billion in more bureaucracy is now suddenly going to solve the housing crisis?”
“Mr. Speaker, it sounds like more bureaucracy, and I will give an example of Ottawa bureaucracy. Here in the city of Ottawa, the federal government closed its training centre. Nine years later, it finally sold that training centre to its own federal housing developer at market price. Then it took the federal developer five years and 79 different reports at the city planning department to deal with the neighbours and the local Liberal MP, who tried to block the redevelopment. Construction finally started. It took 16 years for the federal government to turn its land, using its developer, into 1,100 desperately needed homes. Why does the government think that more bureaucracy is the solution?”
“Mr. Speaker, the Liberal government's own housing agency has given up on the concept of housing affordability. It reported that Canada needs to build 480,000 homes a year to restore affordability, something TD Bank says is impossible. Earlier this week, the latest housing minister boasted that he was on pace for 280,000 starts this year, and he plans for 500,000 a year. In the GTA and the Lower Mainland, the bulk of our housing market starts have gone off a cliff, so the question is simple: If we are to take the minister at his word, where are the other 200,000 units coming from?”
“Mr. Speaker, it does not just stop there. Hamilton got $93.5 million, and housing starts there are down 50%. Toronto got $471 million, and they are down 58% there. Guelph got $21.4 million, and housing starts there are down over a whopping 78%. The Liberal plan is to continue spending on city bureaucracies, and now they want to build a third federal housing bureaucracy. When will the government learn that repeating its same mistakes and expecting a different result is not going to solve what is quickly becoming a housing catastrophe?”
“Mr. Speaker, the Liberals' own housing agency's latest numbers on housing starts are out, and they are bad, particularly in cities that receive money from their housing accelerator fund. For example, Vancouver got $115 million and starts are down 10%; Kelowna got $31.5 million and starts are down 33%. On May 13, the latest housing minister claimed he wanted to build on the housing successes of the last few years. What success? When will the Liberals learn that bureaucrats do not actually build houses?”
“Mr. Chair, the government gave $478 million of its housing accelerator funding to the City of Toronto, which turned around and increased its development charges by 42%, making housing more expensive. Will the minister ask for the money back?”
“Mr. Chair, the minister talks about partnering with mayors. One of the challenges, of course, that the Canada Lands Company has in trying to get more homes built is dealing with municipal planning departments. It takes them years to get things approved. What does he plan to do to solve that problem?”
“Mr. Chair, the minister told the House in one of the earlier questioning rounds that “it is time to build”. This is what I am wondering: If, in fact, he believes it is time to build, why not have the agency he already owns, which is already building, build more instead of creating more bureaucracy?”
“Mr. Chair, Canada Lands is currently developing a number of residential housing projects, in Downsview Park, for example, in Toronto. Also here in Ottawa it has a number of projects on the go. Is the minister aware of those?”
“Mr. Chair, I wonder if the minister could comment on a report from the Auditor General. A federal lands initiative of $200 million was given to CMHC to be spent at an increment of $20 million a year for 4,000 units. That has subsequently been transferred over to the Department of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities, and only 309 units of the 4,000 have been built. Can the minister tell us how much of the $200 million has been disbursed to build those 309 units?”
“Mr. Chair, when the minister was mayor of Vancouver, over his tenure, the city increased development charges by 141% in that time period. Does the minister agree that this made housing more expensive in Vancouver?”
“Mr. Chair, I recognize that municipalities need to invest in infrastructure. I was a mayor myself at one point and did the exact same thing. My question was this: Does the cost of government need to come down on the cost of a new home?”
“Mr. Chair, the cost of government charges and fees in Vancouver is about 20% as well. Would the minister agree, though, that if the cost of homes has to come down, the cost of government needs to come down on those homes?”
“Mr. Chair, I will help the minister. The average is about 25% of the cost of every new home in the GTA, 25% in government charges and fees. I will ask a similar question closer to home: Does the minister know the average cost of government on a new home in Vancouver?”
“Mr. Chair, on May 14, the minister said that he did not think that prices of homes should come down; then, on June 9, the minister said in the House that he believes the cost of homes needs to come down. Which of those statements is correct, and which one does the minister believe?”
“Mr. Speaker, here is what we know. We know that Toronto and Vancouver are two of the most unaffordable cities in the world. We know that the cost to construct a residential building in Canada has increased by 58% in the last five years. We know that the latest housing minister increased homebuilding taxes by 141% while he was mayor of Vancouver. We also know that TD Bank has declared that the government will not come close to its promise to build 500,000 new homes per year. Are the Liberals refusing to deliver a plan because they do not have a real one?”