Jacob Mantle
York—Durham, Ontario · Conservative · Canada
“Mr. Speaker, I am rising to follow up on a question I asked the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food about the troubling implications for family farms and the ability to pass family farms on to the next generation.”
“He wanted to pass his farm on to a nephew but could not do so because of the dramatic tax implications. The problem will only compound in the future because right now the average Canadian farmer is in their mid-fifties, and fewer than one in 12 has a successor under the age of 40. This is data from Statistics Canada.”
“Mr. Speaker, I look forward to hearing what the government proposes in the fall. In the last minute I have, I would like to comment on the Speaker's ruling from yesterday. I appreciated the Speaker's ruling but I was deeply disappointed by it.”
“Mr. Speaker, I am rising today to present a petition on behalf of residents in my riding of York—Durham, particularly those from the town of Georgina and the community of Keswick on the south shore of Lake Simcoe, with respect to a new invasive species called water soldier.”
“The response at the time was an acknowledgement of the problem and a commitment to speak with the Minister of Finance and to come back to the House to inform us.”
“Therefore, residents in my riding are calling on the government to list or otherwise identify water soldier as an invasive aquatic plant under relevant federal law; to nominate a single federal department or agency to take responsibility for the federal government's response to water soldier; and then, to allocate sufficient financial and…”
The complete record
Every one of 466 lines we hold for Jacob Mantle, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 3 of 10.
“Mr. Speaker, last week, Parliament's budget watchdog said the Liberals are engaging in a trade-off with the spring economic update. She called it potentially a spend now, pay later situation. We have all seen this scheme: just five easy payments, $19.95, and someone can have the newest thing. They just put it on their credit card, and they pay for it later. It sounds like spend less, invest more is really just spend now, pay more later. Can the Minister of Finance tell us how much Canadians will pay in the future for all the debt spending he is doing today?”
“Mr. Speaker, for generations, family farms have fed Canadians and the world. For generations, those farms have been passed from one family member to the next. The Liberals should not be making that harder, but that is where we are. If a farm is passed to a child, it is tax-deferred. If a farm is passed to another family member, it is fully taxed. The result is that over 57,000 farms have been lost in the last 20 years. That hurts farming families in my community, like Steve Cooper in Uxbridge, who wants to pass his farm to his nephew, but he cannot. Will the Minister of Finance fix the Income Tax Act and make it easier for families to pass on farms to the next generation?”
“The Prime Minister 's contradictions and confusion have led to more tariffs, higher tariffs and broader tariffs on everything from lumber to manufactured goods. Now, his absence from the negotiating table is putting in peril the millions of Canadian jobs that rely on a strong, stable relationship with the United States.”
“Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister was elected on the promise that he alone could handle the United States. He went further. He told Canadians, “we will get an even better deal”, so Canadians have every right to judge him by the promises he made. On top of that broken promise, we now have contradictions and confusion. This week, the Prime Minister said our relationship with the United States is a weakness, but days later he said he could still get a good deal. Which is it, a rupture with the United States in favour of China or a good deal with the United States? Canadians fear that history is repeating itself. Just like the last time, the Mexicans are in advance negotiations with dates scheduled for May. Canada is on the outside looking in.”
“Mr. Speaker, I have heard the sales pitch before. We have all heard it, but what we are looking for are goalposts, accountability and KPIs. How will we measure this success? I did not hear any explanation of that. My follow-up question is about accountability. The government's promise was 500,000 new homes each year. I wonder if the parliamentary secretary could give us an update this evening on how many homes have been built to date in 2026.”
“Could the parliamentary secretary tell me what success looks like here, and how we shall measure whether their policies actually bring down the cost of a home?”
“As I have said in this place before, in my area, in Durham and York regions, the price-to-income ratio is about 10 times, so it is essentially unaffordable for any new homebuyer to get into the market. I am glad that our work as an effective opposition has dragged the government, somewhat kicking and screaming, to agree with our policies with respect to GST and homebuilding taxes. That is a start. What we need now is accountability. We need to understand what accountability measures the government will impose on municipalities for the money that would be provided to defray the costs of infrastructure. The Liberals say this will bring down the price of housing. Maybe it will, maybe it will not. What I want is some KPIs. I want accountability.”
“Mr. Speaker, “It takes too long and costs too much”. That was the message this week from the Ontario Home Builders' Association, which met with many of us. Of course, when it was saying, “It takes too long and costs too much”, it was talking about the government. Just yesterday, Ratehub's affordability report came out, and it confirms the consequences of what the home builders told us. The consequences are that home prices continue to rise and sales continue to decline. In fact, home prices have risen in 10 of the 13 metro areas the report looked at, including Toronto, which is the largest metro area for me. The cost of an average home continues to rise.”
“Mr. Speaker, we often hear from the other side that Canada is the only country that does not have this type of law, but what they sometimes forget to talk about are the damages and deleterious effects that have come from creating these back doors or front doors. Does the member have any examples of bad things happening, either by government abuse or by hackers and bad actors?”
“Mr. Speaker, of course, the opposition is always open to considering all reasonable amendments to the bill. At the very least, I would like to hear what the Privacy Commissioner's view is on the bill. Whether the Privacy Commissioner could provide that via testimony in committee or via a public letter to members of the House of Commons, I would welcome those comments.”
“Mr. Speaker, the short answer is no. I do not see that as being a robust portion of part 2 of the bill, in part because much of what the minister would do and the regulations that would be made would be done in secret. Moreover, the provision of sending ministerial orders to the Information Commissioner is, in my view, somewhat misguided. The Information Commissioner deals with national security issues and signals intelligence, among other things. That individual is not tasked with protecting Canadians' privacy rights. That balance is not there in the review.”
“Mr. Speaker, my Bloc colleague has, of course, pointed out a contradiction in the government's position. I also want to thank the Bloc for pointing out, in their earlier speeches on this, the lower threshold of suspicion in part 1 that the government introduced. This is exactly why we have this debate. That is a question for the government to answer, why they have this contradiction: on the one hand, wanting more power but, on the other hand, reducing law enforcement's resources to exercise those powers.”
“Mr. Speaker, as I clearly said in my remarks, the goal here is to strike the right balance between the interests of protecting public safety and suppressing crime and the protection of Canadians' right to privacy, the right to not be intruded on by the government or its agents. Contrary to what the hon. member said, the purpose of this place is to debate those issues. We are here, once again, because the government has consistently failed, over 10 years, to bring forward a piece of legislation that adequately balances those rights.”
“In summary, Bill C-22 would create a broad surveillance framework covering vast amounts of Canadians' data, and it would do so largely in secret and without sufficient oversight or remedies for misuse. It would also introduce new vulnerabilities into our digital systems that would make Canadians' data less secure. These are vulnerabilities that bad actors and even governments themselves may abuse. With all these things taken together, the government has failed to demonstrate why these expansive new powers are necessary, why the current system cannot be improved upon, and that Bill C-22 strikes the right balance between public safety and the protection of Canadians' privacy interests.”
“In both cases, systems built for authorized government access became gateways for serious abuse, including by Communist-backed hackers. These systems would be abused by government. I do not trust the government to exercise these powers in the public interest, because it has shown itself to be untrustworthy. There is another path. Our current legal framework already provides for police to obtain court authorizations for information, preservation orders and assistance orders. Critics argue that the process is slow and burdensome, and those are serious concerns that deserve serious merit. However, the solution is not blanket authorizations to retain vast amounts of data by an untold number of service providers.”
“These requirements to build systems into electronic service providers' provision of electronic services to Canadians would create serious vulnerabilities in our infrastructure. Providers would be creating a front door for government access, one that can and likely will be exploited by bad actors or the government itself. That is not my conjecture; that is a demonstrated fact. I have two examples. First, in 2004-05, hackers exploited Vodafone Greece's built-in lawful interception systems to illegally tap the phones of the Prime Minister, cabinet ministers and other senior officials for months. More recently, the China-linked Salt Typhoon hacking group breached lawful intercept systems operated by major U.S. providers, including Verizon and AT&T.”
“Proposed subsection 7(1) allows the minister to issue an order to any electronic service provider imposing the same obligations that can be required of core providers. All of these powers, whether exercised with respect to core providers or any other electronic service provider, can be exercised in secret. Regulations made by cabinet for core providers are exempt from the Statutory Instruments Act. Ministerial orders for electronic service providers are exempt from the Statutory Instruments Act. That means they would not be published in the Canada Gazette. That means they would be secret. Worse still, electronic service providers would be prohibited from publicly disclosing that they are even subject to such an order.”
“Those are the restrictions around browsing history and social media. Even if the requirements were restricted only to certain metadata, the proposal would still be overbroad. Metadata, including location data, is far more revealing than, as the minister said, what messages were sent at what time. Metadata is a comprehensive record of communications behaviour. Combined with the subscriber data available under part 1 of the bill, it creates a detailed picture of Canadians' daily habits, places of residence, movements, social relationships and private lives. This is exactly why similar blanket retention laws in Europe were struck down as a disproportionate interference in privacy rights. For all electronic services providers, whether they are core providers or otherwise, the government maintains even more sweeping powers.”
“(1220) The Liberals have attempted to assure Canadians that these obligations will be limited to a narrow subset of metadata. The justice minister reiterated this when he said in his speech that the goal is “not specifically requiring the individual content of every message, but only trying to identify what messages may have been sent at what time”. However, that is not what the bill says. Proposed paragraph 5(2)(a) allows cabinet to make regulations requiring core providers to develop, implement and maintain these technical capabilities. Importantly, regulations may be made “related to extracting and organizing information”. The phrase “extracting information” is extremely broad and goes well beyond metadata. Moreover, proposed paragraph 5(2)(a) is not limited by the restrictions respecting metadata in proposed subsection 5(4).”
“They all create, store and transmit electronic information to Canadians. Where exactly are the boundaries? I have not heard them yet, including from the Minister of Justice . The Liberals, who proposed this, bear the burden of delineating those boundaries clearly and narrowly, and they have failed to do so. This failure becomes problematic when we get to secret orders, which we will do shortly. A subset of these electronic service providers will be designated as core providers. We do not know which companies will fall into this category, because the Liberals have not told Canadians. It will be proposed in regulations sometime in the future. What we do know is that core providers will be required to build technical capabilities into their systems allowing government to access Canadians' data.”
“It means that the definition of “electronic service provider” will capture much more than just those who are enabling communications, much more than just big telcos and big tech. That becomes even more clear when we look at the second definition, of electronic service, which reads, in part, as follows: “a service, or a feature of a service, that involves the creation, recording, storage, processing, transmission, reception, emission or making available of information in electronic, digital or any other intangible form”, and the definition goes on. I realize that is a mouthful. Taken together, these definitions create an extraordinarily broad scope. Based on the text as written, I could qualify as an electronic service provider. Banks could qualify, law firms could qualify and news media could qualify.”
“An electronic service provider is defined in the relevant part of the act as a person who “provides an electronic service, including for the purpose of enabling communications”. The keywords here are “electronic service” and the phrase “including for the purpose of enabling communications”. The Liberals would have us believe that this definition targets only telecoms and big tech. The Minister of Justice said so in his speech. He said, “we are mainly focused on large-scale networks to ensure that we understand the metadata behind messages”, but that is not what the bill says. The bill says, “including for the purpose of enabling communications”. The word “including” is a deliberate drafting choice, and it signals a non-exhaustive list.”
“As I will show, there are almost no guardrails respecting who will be caught by this proposal, nor are there sufficient limits on the data that it proposes to capture. Perhaps most troubling is that the data includes location data, effectively turning every connected device into a government-spying device. On top of it all, the minister is given power to do all of this in secret. Part 2 of Bill C-22 will require a wide range of electronic service providers to build interception and monitoring capabilities into their system. A plain reading of this proposal leads to the conclusion that nearly any entity providing electronic services to Canadians will be caught. Let me unpack two key definitions to show just how broad the proposal really is. The first is “electronic service provider”, and the second is “electronic service”.”
“In my view, the Liberal government bears the burden of demonstrating, one, why these new powers are necessary; two, why our current system is inadequate; and three, that the measures in Bill C-22 strike the right balance between the protection of privacy and public safety. In my view, the Liberals have failed on all accounts. They have failed because Bill C-22 is overbroad and disproportionately interferes with the privacy interests of all Canadians. It does this by forcing what are known in the bill as “electronic service providers”, who provide to Canadians what is called in the bill “electronic service”, to build into their systems interception and monitoring capabilities to collect and retain data about Canadians.”
“Mr. Speaker, the focus of my remarks today on Bill C-22 will be on part 2, which is the so-called lawful access proposal, and specifically what the bill as written actually does and why Canadians should be deeply concerned about it. There are two competing interests at play here, in this so-called lawful access proposal. On the one hand, there is the public interest in safety, security and the effective suppression of crime. On the other hand, there are the privacy interests of all Canadians: the right to be left alone, free from unwanted intrusion by the government or its agents.”
“Mr. Speaker, if anything that was said were true, this would not be happening, but it has been happening for six years and continues to happen. This tax season will be particularly tough for young Canadians, because 20% of them, one in five, say they cannot pay a tax bill and would have to go into debt to do it. Liberal policies are unfairly burdening young Canadians, the next generation, driving a wedge between parents and children, boomers and millennials, and more. One small measure that would help is our plan for a full tax cut on the gas, a full 25% for a full year. Why will the Liberals not do that?”
“Mr. Speaker, it is just two weeks away from the tax deadline, and we had better cross our t's and dot our i's, because we all know that the CRA gives no quarter to ordinary Canadians, but there is a good chance a fraudster might walk away with a couple million dollars. In fact it was reported this week that the CRA once again paid out millions of dollars to a fraudulent claim. This is not new. It has been happening for years. In fact in the last Parliament, the minister responsible said, “We have zero tolerance for fraud in all of its forms.” If that is really true, will the minister take responsibility and hold himself and the CRA accountable?”
“Mr. Speaker, I know that my colleague shares this side of the House's desire to equip police officers with tools for the 21st century. He also shares our concern, and it is clear that the other side does not, based on those members' actions, for the protection of civil liberties, including the privacy of Canadians. Of course, Bill C-22 raises severe concerns with respect to the invasion of the privacy of Canadians. The member recommended it go to committee. Could he explain for me some of the things that we would like to see changed at committee?”
“I would like to ask my colleague whether she shares any of those concerns from Canadians and how she proposes to deal with them.”
“Mr. Speaker, I think we all share the genuine desire to ensure that law enforcement has the appropriate tools to deal with crime and criminals in the digital age. That Canada is behind its peers, who are doing this, is really an indictment of the government. The Liberals have been in power 10 years and they have chosen not to address this issue until now. That said, just because we are in the digital age and it presents challenges, that does not mean we must abandon the liberties and freedoms that this House is meant to protect, and Bill C-22 , in my view, presents many concerns in that respect. I am particularly concerned about the government's ability to compel private enterprise to build systems, maintain information about Canadians and do so in secret.”
“Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his concern for those who can least afford government taxes. He will know, and I know he will agree, that things such as the industrial carbon tax and the clean fuel regulation are sometimes the most pernicious of taxes because they put the burden on people who can least afford to pay more. Those are the lower-income people who have no choice but to pay more to go to work to buy groceries, so they are harmed the most by some of these taxes. This is in part why our proposal says to give them some relief. Let us give the Canadians who need it the most some relief.”
“Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Vaughan—Woodbridge was in the manufacturing industry himself, and he knows a thing or two about keeping a budget and keeping costs. He also knows a thing or two about principle. I have come to know him, and he is a man of principle, unlike some of the others who were formerly in our caucus. On this side of the House, our principle is about providing relief to Canadians. That is what this opposition motion is about, and we estimate that the suite of measures would reduce the price of fuel taxes by about 25%, which would save families $1,200 a year. That is a principle that I hope all members of the House will support.”
“Mr. Speaker, I guess we simply have a disagreement on this. I think it is common sense that if we tax businesses in the production of their goods or services, they will pass that cost on to the consumer who buys their goods or services. If a farmer has to pay an additional cost to buy fertilizer or to buy a piece of equipment, that will find its way into the products we buy at the grocery store. The industrial carbon tax raises the cost of food and fuel, and that cost is paid by consumers. It is as simple as that.”
“Mr. Speaker, it is not magic; it is just mathematics. When taxes are removed, it lowers the price of things in this country. This is why our plans, all four of them, were estimated to lower the price of gasoline by about 25¢. It is not magic. The Liberals just need add up the numbers and remove the taxes to get a better outcome for Canadians. I do not disagree with some of the things they have done, but they need to do more. They need to do them all. I ask them to not take a half-measure when they can clearly go the whole way and give full relief.”
“The reason people do something, the justification they have or, in the case of these members, when they do not have justification, matters. That is why Canadians are so upset with these floor crossings, because there is no substance behind them.”
“In the case of the member for Markham—Unionville , he just made a vague reference to unity and decisive action. What decisive action? We have been here a year since the Prime Minister was elected. In the case of the member for Acadie—Annapolis , he simply said it was for a better path forward. I would invite him to explain what that path forward is, but I do not think he has the political courage to do so. In the case of the member for Edmonton Riverbend , he was simply and clearly smitten with the Prime Minister's speech in Davos. None of those statements reflect any real issues of substance, and that is the problem. That is what Canadians smell. Canadians are not dupes. They smell the rank hypocrisy of the members of our caucus who left, the former members of the Conservative Party. The reason people take an action matters.”
“Despite my best efforts, I have been unable to locate any real issue of substance that would justify the member for Acadie—Annapolis 's crossing or the crossing of any of the other three prior Conservative members. Leaving a caucus might be understandable if there were an issue of principle for which the floor crosser stood, but there is none. There is no issue of conscience, no fundamental break of faith, just raw opportunism. Even statements by each of the members who made that decision reveal nothing really of substance. In the case of the member for Sarnia—Lambton—Bkejwanong , she simply made a reference to people telling her in the grocery store that they liked the Prime Minister . I certainly like you, Mr. Speaker, and other members in the House, but I would not cross the floor for you.”
“The irony now is that, after this week's events, the Liberals will have all the power in the world to take all the most ambitious measures they want. After the events of this week, last week and prior weeks, the Liberals will have a majority in the House of Commons, so they could implement more ambitious measures with ease. I think the media has been very disingenuous over the last evening and the last week. It was not the elections last night that gave the Liberals a majority. It was a handful of members of Parliament, including four previous Conservative members of Parliament, who made the decision to leave their party and join another.”
“Let me put that into context. The plan we have proposed would save about 20¢ to 25¢ a litre. What the Prime Minister proposed today is just the federal excise tax, which is 10¢ per litre on regular gasoline and four cents per litre on diesel. That is less than half of what we have proposed and for about half of the time that we have proposed it for. I will comment just on the diesel as an example. Many companies, as we have seen reported in the media, are announcing fuel surcharges to deal with higher fuel prices. Taking four cents off a litre is not going to change corporate decision-making on that. Our proposal is 25¢ or about $1,200 a year. The Liberal proposal is 10¢ cents or four cents, just a few dollars, and not even until the end of the year.”
“We have estimated that we could pay for our proposal with about $5 billion of the approximately $9 billion that will be taken in through higher oil revenues in this country. We would be using existing resources and not adding to the debt or deficit. We have suggested removing four federal taxes, proposing to suspend the federal excise tax until the end of the year, suspend the GST on gas and diesel until the end of the year and eliminate both of the clean fuel regulations, the clean fuel standards tax and the industrial carbon tax. In my view, all of these are necessary. Each one by itself is simply insufficient to provide any real relief to families. I know the Prime Minister , just a few moments ago, announced not even a half-measure, maybe a one-eighth measure, to remove only the federal excise tax and only until September.”
“In fact, the government has a dedicated web page for those regulations, so those are anything but imaginary. It is because of that uncertainty and because of the cost for families that we are today proposing, as the Conservative Party, as the official opposition, to remove all of the federal taxes on fuel. We have estimated that that would save Canadians about $20 every time they fill up at the pump and about $1,200 from now until the end of the year. (1030) We would pay for that by using some of the profits that the government will be reaping in with its higher revenue from higher oil prices, because of course we know that, as oil prices go up, provincial and federal governments take in more tax revenue.”
“Every time I have asked a question on the clean fuel regulations or the industrial carbon tax, the government House leader , who just spoke, will get up to say that these are imaginary taxes. Well, today, let us take two that the Liberals have said are imaginary. The industrial carbon tax was and remains a flagship Liberal policy. In fact, if we go back to read the Liberals budget from the fall, it mentions the industrial carbon tax at least nine times and, in fact, has a promise to increase that industrial carbon tax in the future. Indeed, how imaginary is that? Next are the clean fuel regulations or the clean fuel standards tax. That is a real law. It is not imaginary. We can go on the justice laws website and look up the clean fuel regulations.”
“Depending on where people live in this country, taxes on fuel will range from 40¢ to around 60¢ per litre. That is combined federal and provincial taxes. Colleagues need to bear with me as I am going to go through them. It might take a while, but here we go. There is a provincial excise tax; local consumer carbon taxes if people are in certain parts of British Columbia; transit taxes, again, if people are in certain parts of British Columbia; provincial sales taxes; the federal excise tax; the federal sales tax; the clean fuel regulations tax; and the industrial carbon tax. If colleagues were keeping track, that was quite a list, but one of the ironies of all these taxes is that the Liberals have, for months, called them imaginary.”
“That is why places in my part of the country and further east, instead of utilizing Canadian energy, are importing energy from places around the world that none of us would want to vacation in. For example, there is Saudi Arabia, where, of course, women have no rights, but we are funding its regime to the tune of billions of dollars by importing its oil rather than consuming our own, from Canadians who have hard-working jobs and high pay and from where our industries have high environmental standards. On top of these policy choices, what is worse in this whole situation, is that we clobber Canadians with taxes. We keep resources in the ground. We buy higher at world prices than it would cost to consume our own, and to add insult to injury, we clobber Canadians with taxes on top of that.”
“The war in Iran has certainly caused a spike in oil prices. It is one cause of what we are seeing at the pumps, but the other cause is, of course, self-inflicted. It is 10 years of policies from the government, whether it is old or new. Regardless of what they call it, the Liberals have been consistent, at least, in wanting to keep our resources in the ground. They would rather see Canadians starve, freeze and lose their jobs for some figment of an environmental ideology. The result is that we have two-dollar diesel and $1.75 gasoline. Of course, we also do not have enough infrastructure. We do not have refineries. We do not have enough pipelines. We do not have a pipeline from east to west, so we cannot even get our resources to our own people.”
“Mr. Speaker, I got up this morning and called home, as I do each day I am here in Ottawa away from my family, as I am sure many do. I asked, “What's the price of gasoline this morning? What's the price of diesel?” In my part of Ontario, just north of the GTA, it is ranging anywhere from about 165.9 to 175.9 for regular to around two dollars for diesel fuel. That is in Uxbridge, Port Perry, Cannington, Beaverton in Brock township and, of course, Sutton and Keswick in Georgina, which are all in my riding. Here we are. The reality is that we have diesel that is about two dollars and $1.75 gasoline in a country that sits on the fourth-largest reserve of conventional and unconventional oil and gas. It should be a time when Canada is benefiting from instability in the world; instead, we are suffering because of it.”
“Mr. Speaker, when I recently asked the Minister of Housing about the growing and persistent housing unaffordability crisis in Canada, he responded to say that it was not his fault, not the government's fault and not the Liberals' fault, despite their being in power for 10 years. Do members know whose fault he said it was? He said it was Iran's fault, the fault of the war in Iran, that houses are expensive in Canada. My question to the parliamentary secretary is this: Is it the Government of Canada's position that the cause of the housing crisis in Canada is the war in Iran?”
“To date, they are at about 14,000, with the promise of 500,000, and we can predict into the future based on the CMHC analysis that says that for 2026, housing starts across Canada will be just under 250,000, less than half of the stated goal, and we will see declines in housing construction in 2027 and 2028. In other words, we are going backward, not forward, and we are not building at any great speed, contrary to what the Prime Minister may have Canadians believe. My question to the government tonight is this: Does the commitment to build 500,000 new homes per year remain the government's solemn promise?”
“I looked at the Build Canada Homes website today to add up anything since March 20, and it has added a few thousand more. The total, by my count, is about 14,000. To be clear, those are agreements. They are not shovels in the ground, let alone actual houses that young Canadians can buy and live in. We have seen similar announcements that appear to be smoke and mirrors. We will remember, last September, when the Prime Minister stood in front of a fake stage set of modular homes just outside the city for a housing announcement. We learned after the fact that it was entirely fake; the houses were disassembled and sent somewhere else in Canada at a cost of about $32,000. For the history buffs in the room, that is a literal Potemkin village. At the same time, the government has promised to reach 500,000 new homes per year.”
“Mr. Speaker, I am rising to follow up on a question on housing that I asked the government just a few short weeks ago. It has become trite in this country to say the obvious, which is that the average salary no longer buys the average home. In fact, in my part of Ontario, the price-to-income ratio is about 10 times. That means it takes 10 times the average salary to purchase the average home in my part of Ontario. In other words, it is nearly impossible for young people, the next generation, to save enough, work hard enough and plan enough to own a home. The most recent announcements by the government's latest housing bureaucracy, the Build Canada Homes bureaucracy, stated that the agency has signed agreements in principle for about 10,000 new units. The most recent statistics are up to March.”