Mr. Speaker, I am thankful for the opportunity to speak with respect to some reflections on the Speech from the Throne. I would like to focus on our priorities where there is the opportunity to work constructively with the governing party and, in fact, with all parliamentarians to make progress. These are the priorities the government has put forward in the Speech from the Throne and those I have heard about time and time again from folks in my community in Kitchener.
I would like to start with housing. In the Speech from the Throne, the governing party speaks about being committed to working with partners to get real results. I want to start with what that looks like in my community.
In the last year, we did a study on the number of unsheltered folks, which has now risen to over 1,000 people living rough and unsheltered, which is three times as many as in the last point-in-time count study.
When we look at those who are hoping to purchase a home, we find that back in 2005, the cost of purchasing a home in Kitchener was three times higher than the median annual income. In 2021, that rose to 8.6 times higher.
The possibility of purchasing a home, and I know this is the case for so many across the country, is increasingly becoming completely out of reach. For those on the wait-list for affordable dignified housing, that wait-list is now upward of almost eight years. Can members imagine waiting eight years to get access to housing?
I spoke with a woman this past summer who said she was lucky to get access to affordable housing, but there is mould in her unit, and she knows her landlord has no incentive to do anything about it. We need to be addressing not just the affordability but also the quality of dignified housing.
Homes should be for people to live in, as opposed to commodities for investors to trade. To do that, we will need to address the rules of the game. For example, we need to get back to investing in non-market, subsidized, public and co-op housing. Back in the early eighties, for example, 8% of new rental units constructed were co-op housing. I lived in a co-op myself over many years and had the experience of what quality and dignified housing co-ops can be. If we look at 2020, we see that fewer than 1% of rental units constructed were co-op housing.
We could look at taxation. For example, there are investors who are merely purchasing a property to speculate and take many years to eventually flip a home. We could put in place a graduated tax on those house flippers and use the revenue to reinvest in more affordable housing. We could be looking at what BMO has also called for, which is putting an end to the blind bidding process.
I look forward to working with the government to make progress, meaningful progress, on addressing the cost of housing.
In the throne speech, there was also talk of addressing the cost of living, which made reference to the Canada child benefit and to addressing child care. While I celebrate those initiatives, we also need to recognize a group of Canadians who are disproportionately living in poverty. They are Canadians living with disabilities.
In fact, the word “disability” was not in the throne speech once at all. We know the governing party had previously introduced legislation and introduced the Canada disability benefit. This benefit would uplift up to 1.5 million Canadians who are currently living in poverty. We know Canadians across the country support it, as 89% of Canadians already support the Canada disability benefit.
Back in Kitchener, for folks with disabilities who have access to the Ontario disability support program, the shelter allowance they are receiving is $497 a month. How many apartments could someone afford in Kitchener on $497 a month? The answer is none whatsoever. This is why we need to be focused on a moral imperative to lift up Canadians living with disabilities and ensure they have access to a dignified life across the country.
With respect to mental health in the throne speech, there is talk of focusing on mental health in the same way we focus on physical well-being because they are inseparable.
I could not agree more. We are in the midst of a shadow pandemic with respect to mental health and that is why we need to see increased commitments to mental health funding while recognizing the overdose crisis we are also in the midst of as a result of a poisoned drug supply.
In Kitchener, we had 99 preventable deaths across the Waterloo region last year alone, which is the second-highest number we have had. There are groups, including the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, who are making clear calls for decriminalizing simple possession while also working towards a safer supply. These are the policies that were not mentioned in the throne speech that I would encourage the governing party to consider, recognizing the shared interest in making progress on mental health and addictions, and saving lives across the country.
This brings me to the final point. To echo comments heard earlier from the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands with respect to addressing the climate crisis, we have to simply follow the science. We are past the time for talking about whether one plan is better than another party's plan. The fact is that does not matter. All that matters is whether we choose to hold on to the possibility of keeping within the maximum of a 1.5°C increase in global temperatures.
This is true for people across my community, young and old, who are together saying that enough is enough. We have a moral imperative to ensure we provide a safe climate future for our kids, our nieces, our nephews and our grandkids.
In the words of Greta Thunberg, “Either we do that or we don’t.... Either we prevent 1.5 degree of warming or we don’t.... Either we choose to go on as a civilisation or we don’t.”
We have that opportunity today. We could be saying that maybe this is not the right time to be investing $18 billion in subsidies to fossil fuels or purchasing and expanding a pipeline to further export more emissions around the world. Instead, we could be using those same funds, such as the funds that were announced just last month for an emissions reduction fund that actually increased oil production. We could also use this new tax credit for carbon capture and storage.
Each of these is just another subsidy to fossil fuel interests that we could be repurposing to make the choice to invest in a just transition for workers on the front lines. We could be using these, in respect to comments earlier, to build on the Canada green homes grant. The $5,000 a month is a great start. Let us retrofit every building in the country and create millions of jobs as we do it.
Let us take the kind of action we all know is required if we are going to be honest about the science and follow through. My aspiration is to continue to work with all parliamentarians in this place and recognize that we have that shared interest in listening to the folks in our communities who are calling out to rise past the partisanship and whatever one party has called for versus another, and simply be honest about what scientists, young people and indigenous leaders have been calling out for. Whether that relates to the cost of housing, the mental health crisis, lifting folks out of poverty or addressing the climate crisis, we have to not just do some good, but go at the pace scientists tell us is required.
