The Blueprint: Canada's Conservative Podcast - A decade of housing failure continues.

00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome once again to The Blueprint. This is Canada's Conservative Podcast. I'm your host,

00:00:04.740 Jamie Schmael, Member of Parliament for Halliburton-Caworthalakes, with new content for

00:00:08.260 you every single Tuesday, 1.30pm Eastern Time. Don't forget to like, comment, subscribe and

00:00:13.060 share this program. On today's show, we are talking about the Liberal Housing Plan that

00:00:17.600 doesn't actually focus on home ownership. And unfortunately, Canada has the highest food

00:00:23.240 inflation in the G7. To talk about this and so much more, we bring on Carol Amstey, the Member

00:00:28.200 of Parliament for Long Range Mountains. Thanks for coming on the show once again.

00:00:32.260 Thanks for having me back. It's my pleasure to be here.

00:00:34.880 You're becoming a regular. I can't believe you keep saying yes, so greatly appreciate it.

00:00:39.720 My pleasure. Happy to be here today.

00:00:41.700 All right, so we're going to talk about housing, and it's a very important topic, I think,

00:00:45.900 no matter where you live in this country, because still, it's pretty unaffordable. And in some

00:00:51.200 markets, like Toronto especially, and a little bit in Vancouver as well, the condo market is

00:00:56.400 absolutely just a dumpster fire right now. I think there's one crane left in Toronto I read

00:01:02.840 somewhere saying that the condo market is just absolutely stalled. Nobody's building.

00:01:09.400 Plans that were in the works, they're gone now. It's bad. And yet we have prices that people can't

00:01:16.400 afford. Builders can't afford to build them. Buyers can't afford to buy. People that bought

00:01:21.600 early on, are sometimes, in the worst cases, underwater. They owe more than it's worth. Like,

00:01:29.240 wow. Yeah, it's definitely a crisis. And the government's response is completely misguided

00:01:35.060 on this issue, in my opinion. You know, affordable housing, of course, is an important piece of it.

00:01:40.360 But even by the government's own numbers, CMHC has reported that 75% of what's required in this

00:01:47.480 country in order to get to a housing supply that is on balance needs to be directed towards

00:01:53.800 homeownership. So they're completely missing the mark on this. I'll tell you, Newfoundland and

00:01:59.440 Labrador, where I'm from, I mean, homeownership has always been the pride of our province. And

00:02:05.200 we've, you know, certainly had affordable pricing. We're kind of like the canary in the coal mine,

00:02:10.160 because if housing gets on affordable in smaller places, in places like Newfoundland and Labrador,

00:02:14.980 the entire country is in a crisis because we've had the highest rates of home ownership over time

00:02:20.900 than any other parts of Canada. So this is a serious issue. And in addition, when it comes to

00:02:27.080 new construction, I mean, this is also contributing to the economy, right? Because construction

00:02:32.860 workers, tradespeople, building supply owners, small business. So, I mean, the housing industry

00:02:39.780 is closely linked to the viability and success of communities as well in our economy. And so

00:02:46.640 it's a huge issue that the government is just not addressing.

00:02:50.880 All right. So we have some graphics here. We have some millennials that are

00:02:53.700 being hit the most, the hardest, because they're not even sure if they are able to afford a home

00:02:59.320 in their lifetimes, which is actually pretty sad. Then you have the government's building,

00:03:03.760 what is it, building homes plan, whatever it's called, building Canada plan, but they're not

00:03:07.720 They say they're going to build at speeds we've never seen before.

00:03:11.320 Well, that's obviously not true.

00:03:13.340 Maybe the only thing they built was that fake backdrop where they made the announcement

00:03:16.820 and took it back down the next day.

00:03:19.800 But it's the main focus for those, I'm sure many people haven't seen it or heard about it.

00:03:25.140 So the main focus is more government housing than actually homeownership.

00:03:31.740 Yeah, and also with that is also bureaucracy that they've built into that.

00:03:36.400 So they're saying they're going to combine a bunch of other government departments, create a whole new department, expand it.

00:03:44.700 So there's the cost of the taxpayer of that as well, right, because they have to expand out that additional bureaucracy in the process.

00:03:51.820 And it doesn't tackle, you know, hardworking Canadians who right now are feeling like their head is beneath water.

00:04:00.900 RBC produced a report about millennials, and 64% of them are worried about their future.

00:04:07.980 They believe they need a million dollars in order to be financially secure, and they can only save 10% of that.

00:04:14.700 They've lost their hope, is ultimately what that indicates.

00:04:20.640 And the government's just really not addressing their concerns right now.

00:04:25.180 I think you're onto something, and I ask you this, because in your former life, before you got into politics,

00:04:29.900 You were a real estate broker and you had your own brokerage, I believe.

00:04:33.520 Yeah, that's right.

00:04:34.060 So this is, I'm talking your language here.

00:04:35.960 Absolutely.

00:04:36.140 You know all about this.

00:04:37.800 Everyone strives for home ownership, as you said.

00:04:39.800 Yeah.

00:04:40.260 In Newfoundland and Labrador, that was a benchmark everyone tried to achieve.

00:04:45.680 Yeah.

00:04:46.040 And you had the highest success rate in doing so.

00:04:48.260 But now it's gotten to the point where like everywhere, it seems like every level of government,

00:04:55.160 everywhere has kind of failed, right?

00:04:57.960 The developers in Toronto made these dog crate condos that nobody actually wanted, but were forced into it.

00:05:03.680 And now there's more choice, but there's too much product.

00:05:06.460 There's the unaffordability piece.

00:05:08.680 Like, it's all coming together.

00:05:10.580 But at the same time, there are some people that are able to buy, but they don't want to take that risk because they're not sure about the economy.

00:05:16.380 It's a weird dynamic.

00:05:17.940 Yeah, exactly.

00:05:19.080 So, I mean, and it's important to understand that markets operate on supply and demand.

00:05:23.480 So this is what's happened, is that the supply is constrained.

00:05:27.000 It's way too expensive to build.

00:05:29.560 And because it's expensive to build, that's also putting price pressure on the market.

00:05:35.240 So the prices are increasing past a point that people can afford it.

00:05:40.200 I think the other dynamic about this as well is that seniors are staying in their homes longer.

00:05:47.180 And I mean, I think that's not necessarily a bad thing.

00:05:51.640 But there's a lot of pressures on the market in this moment in time.

00:05:54.620 But there's been a complete mess made of it.

00:05:56.540 But also, in addition to that, it was interesting, I spoke with the National Builders Association.

00:06:03.600 And one of the things that they talked about is just the inability to get permits, archaic systems on the provincial level, certainly an issue where I come from.

00:06:14.900 And time is money in a contractor's world, right?

00:06:18.060 So there's just a lot of bureaucracy and buildup and bottlenecks at every stage of the process as well, which is also making it more and more expensive.

00:06:29.040 You actually raised a good point here.

00:06:31.780 The seniors market, you're right.

00:06:34.480 A lot of them are staying in their houses longer.

00:06:37.160 And in some cases, there's, you know, two or some cases, one in a house with three bedrooms, four bedrooms.

00:06:45.160 And sure, I'm sure they love their houses, but usually you'd always see that movement, right?

00:06:49.700 You would always see that movement.

00:06:52.180 Well, we got to downsize because the kids are gone now.

00:06:55.040 Plus, I don't want to maintain the lawn or whatever.

00:06:57.160 And you'd always be moving and there'd always be that clean over of supply.

00:07:02.580 And right now, you're not seeing that.

00:07:05.160 So there's a bit of a jam there.

00:07:07.340 Yep.

00:07:08.440 And the new homes are out of reach for those newbies that would maybe buy the house that the seniors are moving

00:07:14.660 or a family. And so that is compounding that as well. But the government's idea is more government

00:07:22.820 housing and bureaucracy, not actually focusing on ensuring that the homes are affordable for

00:07:28.860 those wanting to buy. Yeah. And I think it comes down to a different vision of Canada. Like I think

00:07:34.640 conservatives want to see young people own homes. And I think the important part of this is, is that

00:07:41.600 is a way for them to build their net worth, to start their life. They're investing in an asset

00:07:48.060 that over time is going to be what, you know, their retirement. And we know that homeownership

00:07:54.720 is something that's very important to family stability, bringing them through different

00:08:00.380 stages of life. And so conservatives are really focused on making that happen for Canadians,

00:08:05.720 which was why we proposed, you know, let's remove the taxes off all new construction.

00:08:13.060 The Liberals watered that down and came out with, well, just first-time homebuyers,

00:08:17.660 which we know most of them can't afford new construction anyway.

00:08:21.140 And most of the time, we'd be the seniors, for the most part, buying a bungalow, right?

00:08:24.060 Going into the smaller one, the new bungalow, right?

00:08:26.100 Yeah, exactly.

00:08:27.120 And then the, you know, tax credits for, on capital gains tax,

00:08:33.220 if you reinvest back in the market

00:08:35.160 that you don't have to pay that capital gains tax

00:08:37.760 on residential construction.

00:08:39.180 So we've been pretty narrowed in

00:08:41.240 on the home ownership piece of it

00:08:43.720 and wanting to help Canadians get to a better place.

00:08:46.500 And just look, we're the most focused

00:08:49.040 on bringing costs down for Canadians.

00:08:51.500 And if Canadians have more disposable income,

00:08:54.380 they're not spending all their money

00:08:55.860 just at the grocery store

00:08:57.780 and high costs on everything else.

00:09:00.780 Well, they have money to save.

00:09:02.200 They can save for the down payment. And then ultimately, they can be empowered to to be homeowners.

00:09:08.740 Yeah. OK, we have we have a few clips here we want to get to.

00:09:12.420 Cut one. Let's play cut one. This is the housing minister.

00:09:15.520 Vancouver was the canary in the coal mine for the housing crisis that has affected the whole country now.

00:09:22.160 It's a crisis that continues to deepen.

00:09:24.640 And sadly, it's one that is a result of decades, probably three decades of underinvestment in affordable housing.

00:09:32.200 and solutions for homelessness.

00:09:34.100 Let's remind people, our housing minister used to be the mayor of Vancouver.

00:09:38.600 And Vancouver, at the time, after his reign, had some, actually the highest prices anywhere in Canada.

00:09:46.140 Yeah.

00:09:46.620 And many U.S. cities as well.

00:09:48.480 Yeah.

00:09:49.040 And so, I mean, I think people understand, too, that municipalities, provincial governments, federal governments,

00:09:54.800 I mean, they all play a role in housing, right?

00:09:56.680 So he, you know, laid out his level of performance with the results that happened out of Vancouver, and now he's in charge of our housing at the federal level.

00:10:09.060 And again, like the creation of another bureaucracy, when we know that the government's model on this has failed Canadians, otherwise we wouldn't be in the situation.

00:10:18.820 It always, I always have to laugh when they talk about, you know, the previous as if that wasn't their policies initially that got us to this point.

00:10:28.220 Yeah, that's right. I know. It's like that Globe and Mail article. How did we get here? How did we get here? Well, I don't know. We've been trying to tell you the last 10 years have been a little horrible for a lot of people.

00:10:37.600 Yeah, no, absolutely. That always amazes me. And yeah, I mean, they've created the situation that we're in and they're using the same approach.

00:10:46.820 approach. Get more bureaucracy. To try to solve the crisis. And I, it just, it's not going to

00:10:53.360 work. It didn't work up till now. It's certainly not going to work. You mean more people in Ottawa

00:10:56.940 pushing papers and going to solve the housing crisis? Like, what are you talking about?

00:11:01.140 The government, the liberals seem to forget that the spark of innovation doesn't happen in the

00:11:06.980 Ottawa bubble. I know. It's amazing. Right? Innovation happens in the real world where

00:11:12.540 people are incentivized to develop the new great thing and you know there's lots of great public

00:11:18.500 servants but uh this is not where new technologies are developed this is not where new paths are

00:11:24.300 created no right you just have to look at the music industry or the beer industry right if the

00:11:28.700 government in charge of both we'd probably have one choice only and they'd probably still be back

00:11:34.000 to whatever they're listening to in 1867 all right we're moving on to food inflation all right we

00:11:39.400 have a graphic here i know we have a clip play cut to this is from charlottetown heather every

00:11:44.660 time those doors open behind me people come out carrying staples but some say they're delaying

00:11:50.520 payments from electric bills to credit cards to keep their families fed and the data suggests

00:11:56.120 it's an issue coast to coast the doors swish open at this charlottetown store carts rattle out and

00:12:05.500 islanders load groceries into their cars. But some say putting food on the table comes with

00:12:11.640 trade-offs. It's getting harder all the time. I usually try to aim for as many sales as I can.

00:12:16.400 The more it's getting is affecting our bills. My car insurance, the fuel, my phone bill, my

00:12:22.140 rent, the groceries, and all that stuff. New Nanos research for CTV News found one in five

00:12:28.360 Canadians have skipped paying bills to buy groceries in the past year. And those under 55

00:12:34.200 were four times more likely to do so okay this is pretty scary then throw up the graphic that

00:12:39.420 we have here highest food inflation in the g7 yeah and this is very important for people to

00:12:46.820 understand this is a made in canada problem yeah exactly because you know you you you see the

00:12:52.260 prime minister come out and say that this is something that's happening right across the

00:12:56.880 world but clearly we can i mean look at ours and compared to uh the united states that we uh share

00:13:03.480 kind of with like it's it is a made in canada problem i hear about this the most yeah in my

00:13:09.760 riding yeah um and in atlantic canada i think this is uh well it's a little higher just because of

00:13:16.160 our transportation costs i mean i'm not surprised it came from charlottetown another island we

00:13:20.860 obviously live on an island and you know when you tax every section of uh the supply chain eventually

00:13:28.780 that just ends up on the ends of people's grocery bills, right?

00:13:32.200 Yeah.

00:13:32.860 And I think liberals seem to forget that, right?

00:13:35.340 They just add in all these taxes.

00:13:37.240 Don't worry, there'll be no effect.

00:13:38.920 But you're right.

00:13:40.360 The companies have to pay the tax bill.

00:13:42.360 Yeah.

00:13:42.640 They're not just, they can't just create money out of nothing.

00:13:45.300 Yeah.

00:13:45.680 So they tack it on, the consumers pay, and it transfers back to the government.

00:13:51.560 So who's really ahead here?

00:13:54.020 And really, when you take away an individual's disposable income,

00:13:57.880 you slow down the economy because all the fun stuff goes, right?

00:14:00.940 Look at the report not too long ago that talked about the thousands of restaurants

00:14:05.360 that are at risk of closing this year because people can't afford to go out anymore.

00:14:10.800 Like that's staggering.

00:14:12.540 That to me is a major marker.

00:14:15.100 Yeah, absolutely.

00:14:16.540 And one of the things that they always come at us about is when we talk about food packaging tax.

00:14:22.920 I mean, I think that that is really impacting the restaurant owners as well

00:14:26.460 because they're paying extra for these products that are like when they took the plastics out.

00:14:32.980 And that's adding to their costs.

00:14:34.820 Like it's all compounding.

00:14:36.300 So I'm not surprised that the restaurant sector is feeling this.

00:14:39.260 Plus, when people just don't have any extra disposable income,

00:14:42.800 they're trying to find resourceful ways to not go out to restaurants and to make their food last longer.

00:14:49.500 And so overall, people are just cutting back.

00:14:52.660 And I spoke about this, I gave a speech about it, because also we have a unique set of circumstances as well, and maybe this happens where you live, but we probably have one grocery store in an entire community, lucky if they have one, and they're limited on what can get there.

00:15:16.440 They have extreme transportation costs to get the food.

00:15:20.520 All of our perishables come in, actually, in Port-au-Basque.

00:15:24.340 And oftentimes the ferry gets delayed because it's sitting on one side or the other.

00:15:28.860 And so this all adds costs.

00:15:31.700 We have fresh produce that ends up being spoiled.

00:15:35.220 And so, you know, there's all kinds of dynamics to this that impacts, especially the people where I live.

00:15:41.760 And the costs are increasingly going up.

00:15:46.000 $1,000 more a year people are supposed to spend next year on groceries.

00:15:51.120 And it doesn't seem like it's going away.

00:15:53.980 So let's get rid of the industrial carbon tax.

00:15:55.860 Absolutely.

00:15:56.380 Let's take away this plastics ban that we seem to have self-imposed that is inflicting us from the inside.

00:16:05.980 Let's ensure more competition in the processing industry to allow costs to be brought down that way.

00:16:11.140 So farmers aren't held to only one or two processors.

00:16:15.560 There's a whole bunch of other things that we've laid out that we should be doing and hope the government takes that up or give us a chance to govern.

00:16:22.460 We'll show you how we can bring this down.

00:16:24.780 We're pretty much out of time.

00:16:26.160 I think we went over a time a bit.

00:16:27.660 That's OK, because I love talking to you.

00:16:29.560 As you know, the guests always get the last word.

00:16:31.780 But I believe you want to talk about a friend and colleague of ours from Newfoundland to Labrador that had a private members bill that unfortunately the liberals did not see the vision.

00:16:39.640 Yeah, I was really happy that this came forward.

00:16:43.280 We have a food fishery in Newfoundland and Labrador.

00:16:45.880 So people in our province can go out and jig cod and fill their freezers full.

00:16:50.700 And we have a punishing regulation that only allows us to go out on the weekends.

00:16:55.760 And all of the other Atlantic provinces can fish seven days a week.

00:17:00.200 And what happens is because of weather, people can't get out on the days that they're able to go out and get their fish.

00:17:05.780 And so this is something we hear about a lot.

00:17:08.100 I heard about it a lot on the campaign trail.

00:17:10.840 So thanks to Jonathan and Clifford, they brought forward a private member's bill.

00:17:14.980 So there was fairness in the food fishery.

00:17:16.860 And unfortunately, when it came before the House yesterday, the Liberal MPs voted against it.

00:17:23.540 And we were very disappointed about that.

00:17:26.100 We had hoped that we could work together to get this for the people of the province.

00:17:29.340 But in any event, Conservatives are going to keep fighting on it because we know it's super important.

00:17:34.520 So there are people in Newfoundland and Labrador that can't afford to pay their grocery bill.

00:17:40.580 Yeah.

00:17:41.380 So some want to go out fishing and they can't because of limitations brought on by government.

00:17:45.880 Yeah.

00:17:46.260 In other parts of the country, the government is taking away your hunting rifle.

00:17:49.480 So you can't go moose hunting or deer hunting or whatever to fill your freezers.

00:17:57.020 So you can't afford groceries and you can't go provide for yourself.

00:18:00.520 Hey, don't worry.

00:18:01.220 The government will look after you.

00:18:02.520 Where have you heard that before?

00:18:03.400 Yeah. All right, Carol Anstey, thank you very much for your time. Member of Parliament for

00:18:07.440 Long Range Mountains in the beautiful province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Thank you for your

00:18:11.920 time. Thank you for yours. Once again, don't forget to like, comment, subscribe and share

00:18:16.480 this program. Tell your friends they can download it on platforms like CastBox, iTunes, Google Play

00:18:20.940 and Spotify. New content for you every single Tuesday, 1.30 p.m. Eastern time. Until next

00:18:25.840 week, remember low taxes, less governments, more freedom. That's the blueprint.

00:18:33.400 You

The Blueprint: Canada's Conservative Podcast - March 03, 2026

A decade of housing failure continues.

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