The Blueprint: Canada's Conservative Podcast - November 12, 2024


Liberal Government isn’t listening or working to solve the housing crisis.


Episode Stats

Length

14 minutes

Words per Minute

198.66736

Word Count

2,912

Sentence Count

190

Misogynist Sentences

1


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome once again to The Blueprints. This is Canada's Conservative Podcast. I'm your
00:00:11.680 host, Jamie Schmael, Member of Parliament for Halliburton Corps at the Lakes Brock,
00:00:14.840 with new content for you every single Tuesday, 1.30 p.m. Eastern Time. Don't forget to like,
00:00:19.580 comment, share and subscribe to this program. Tell your friends they can download it on
00:00:23.660 platforms like CastBox, iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, you name it, it is out there. On today's
00:00:28.780 show, we are talking about housing and how to make it more affordable for Canadians. To do that,
00:00:33.540 we are bringing on the housing critic, the housing guru, Scott Aitchison, the Member of Parliament for
00:00:39.260 Parry Sound Muskoka, my next door neighbor geographically, and also a former mayor of
00:00:45.140 Huntsville, Ontario. Thanks for coming on the show. Always a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me,
00:00:48.720 Jamie. All right, with your experience, you know about housing. A little bit. So tell us about our
00:00:53.100 plan. I think it's a brilliant plan. And the broad brushstrokes are fairly simple.
00:00:58.140 What Pierre's promised to do is that when we form a government, when he's the Prime Minister,
00:01:02.160 not soon enough, but soon enough, when he is the Prime Minister, we will remove the federal sales tax
00:01:08.280 on the purchase of a new home under a million dollars. So this has the potential. So if somebody's
00:01:14.180 buying a house that's a million dollars, which is not unheard of in a lot of markets in our country,
00:01:19.840 that has the potential of saving them $50,000 on the purchase price. That works out to about $2,200
00:01:27.120 a year in mortgage payments. And so it's a massive drop in the price and the cost of government in
00:01:34.720 this process. So it's actually a very simple concept. It's instead of giving money to cities
00:01:39.240 and, you know, various different groups, this is like a cut, a cut so that Canadians pay less when
00:01:45.500 they buy their house. Yeah, I didn't think I needed to tee it up. And I really don't because
00:01:49.180 you addressed some of it. But I think no matter where you are in this country, the cost of housing
00:01:52.960 is out of control. Out of control. People of all ages, especially the young people, right? They went
00:01:57.860 from, you know, just graduating high school or approaching that, going to college, university.
00:02:02.240 They went to lockdowns to inflation, right? Like the whole world was in front of them. And all of a
00:02:06.760 sudden, you come out of this whole situation looking and trying to figure out how I'm ever
00:02:12.860 going to get out of my parents' basement. Absolutely. And of course, what a lot of the
00:02:17.320 Canadians don't realize, I don't think, is that in the cost to build a home, you know, there's all
00:02:22.320 kinds of costs related to build a home. But the majority of that cost, the biggest chunk of that
00:02:27.680 cost, not the majority, but the biggest chunk of that cost is government fees and charges.
00:02:31.860 Yep. About 33% is the average across this country. 33%.
00:02:36.300 So how do you build affordable housing, in most cases, to get the permits and the surveys,
00:02:41.880 et cetera, et cetera? How do you build affordable housing if you're behind the eight ball before
00:02:46.980 you get a shovel in the ground? Yeah. This is the problem. This is the
00:02:50.000 problem right now, is that all levels of government are involved, too. You know, I hear from people
00:02:54.300 all the time, oh, housing's not a federal issue. All levels of government are involved in
00:02:59.100 this gig. The gig is up on government. So federal sales taxes, provincial sales taxes,
00:03:05.400 all on the cost of every stick of lumber, everything that goes into that house. That's
00:03:11.220 a huge amount of money. In Ontario, it's 13%. 13% on everything, right? And so there's that. And
00:03:18.660 then the purchase of the home, the province charges land transfer taxes. Of course. And then,
00:03:24.480 in the city of Toronto, they're permitted to charge precisely double the land transfer
00:03:28.420 section. You pay it twice in the city of Toronto. And then at the local level, there's all the fees
00:03:33.920 and charges. So you can imagine, you know, if the builder wants to build a subdivision, well,
00:03:39.480 they've got to go through all the, you know, the municipal approvals process, right? So that
00:03:43.800 means you have to pay the fees for a subdivision plan approval. There's all kinds of studies and
00:03:49.480 reports that, that municipalities demand for everything from, you know, what's going to
00:03:55.580 happen to, you know, the, the butterflies in that area to how much more, why did we have to make the
00:04:01.860 road where the subdivision is going to be? And so they have to do all these studies and reports. It
00:04:06.700 can take years. Time is money. That costs a lot of money to do that. Then of course, when they get
00:04:13.140 the approvals finally to build that subdivision, they have to build all the infrastructure in it,
00:04:17.920 right? All the roads, all the power lines, all the water and sewer lines. They build all those
00:04:23.120 things as part of the cost of building the subdivision. And then each single lot, they're
00:04:29.580 charged a development charge on top of all of the things they've already built. So they built all
00:04:34.000 the infrastructure and then they get charged a development charge for any potential more growth
00:04:40.260 related things that have to happen because of this new subdivision. And they have to pay. Here's the
00:04:45.620 thing. They have to pay those development charges, which in some places are over a hundred thousand
00:04:50.500 dollars a lot. Just for the lot, just for the privilege of building a house. It's a hundred
00:04:55.840 thousand dollars, right? So they have to pay that up front. And often cases, because it takes a long
00:05:00.120 time to build a subdivision, they've got to pay that up front and they got to borrow the money to make it
00:05:04.300 work. So they're borrowing the money and all these costs, all these costs, they go right to the bottom
00:05:09.380 line. It makes that all put on the final price. Yeah. So if you have, if you're paying a million
00:05:13.440 dollars for a house in a subdivision and somewhere in the 905, for example, in any one of our
00:05:19.480 communities, you know, about $300,000 of that cost of that home goes all to government, all to
00:05:26.780 government. And think about the amount of money that young people have to borrow to pay off that
00:05:31.700 $300,000 in government charges and fees. It's, it's no wonder that young people have just started
00:05:38.460 to give up the hope of ever owning a home. And are people getting value for the money? I guess
00:05:42.820 that's up to the individual to decide. But at the same time, the largest conversation I hear many
00:05:49.200 people talk about at the doors is getting the prices, the pricing of, the price of a house under
00:05:55.180 control, but also making it affordable for new people. But as we just discussed, with every little
00:06:00.960 bit layered on top of the price of housing, it's very difficult to actually make that happen.
00:06:07.360 Especially if you have a developer trying to make, say, tiny homes, for example, right? If,
00:06:12.260 even if you are hammered with these fees beforehand, it's, it's still difficult to get that price point
00:06:19.020 correct. Absolutely it is. Absolutely it is. And here, and here's the really crazy thing, right? I mean,
00:06:23.840 what you have is a situation in this country where all levels of government are making it like
00:06:28.260 bandits on housing. They are making a lot of money on housing. And, and so our plan, you know,
00:06:34.280 obviously reduces the amount of money the federal government will make on housing. And of course,
00:06:38.160 you hear the liberals complaining, oh, you know, how are you going to pay for that? How are you
00:06:40.740 going to pay for that? Well, we'll pay for it by canceling these stupid liberal programs. They're
00:06:46.120 stupid. That are just making prices more expensive. Just make it more expensive. You're making the
00:06:50.120 housing more expensive. And then what they're doing with this, like the housing accelerator fund is a good
00:06:54.280 example. It's a $4 billion fund, borrowed money too, by the way, since they're so indefinite,
00:06:59.500 it's borrowed money. They take that $4 billion, and then they give it to municipalities based on
00:07:05.480 the promise that they'll be better on housing. So case in point, there's lots of examples, but I'll
00:07:10.080 use Toronto as the first example. City of Toronto put in their application for their housing accelerator
00:07:15.280 fund, and they got the biggest chunk of money of anybody. Obviously it's the biggest city,
00:07:19.500 $471 million for the city of Toronto. And before the ink was dry on that agreement,
00:07:25.600 they raised their development charges by 42%. Wasn't that on top of another increase that
00:07:30.820 happened just prior to? Yep, absolutely. Yeah. So now the development charge in the city of Toronto
00:07:37.060 is $117,000. That's incredible. So they got $471 million, and they made it more expensive. And
00:07:44.520 housing starts are down. The more expensive you make it, the slower the starts are going to be.
00:07:49.720 Absolutely. Because your market shrinks. Your available marketplace, your available buyers
00:07:54.240 starts to shrink. The solution to the housing crisis in this country, Jamie, is the most classically
00:07:59.580 small C conservative solution you can imagine. It's less government. That's right. Less government.
00:08:04.480 One of the mottos of this show. All right, let's queue up cut one. We have basically a quick clip
00:08:09.740 outlining the announcement that our leader did, and with your help as well as the housing critic.
00:08:16.320 But it seems to get, or has gotten so far, widespread compliments from across the aisle. So let's play cut one.
00:08:23.560 I looked to the opinion of Mike Moffat, the housing policy expert on this, and he said that it was
00:08:30.900 not quite, but almost perfect. He said that there was no other better policy put forward to date
00:08:36.020 in terms of addressing accessibility to housing for middle-class Canadians. So I look to that,
00:08:41.380 and I see, you know, a pretty, you know, validating stakeholder there endorsing the conservative
00:08:46.800 policy. I also look at where Canadians are at in terms of, you know, the age demographic that is
00:08:53.020 most concerned about housing, and that's millennials, 30 to 45, and millennials are, yes, in their 40s now.
00:08:59.100 And as they look to buy a house, which looks impossible for all of us, we look towards any policy that'll
00:09:04.900 make that a little bit easier. So I can see why Canadians trust conservatives the most on housing
00:09:10.580 above any other party, because conservatives are the only party that's talking to young Canadians
00:09:15.680 on the issues that they care about. Now, we are able, as a party, as a government-in-waiting, if you
00:09:22.200 will, get the provinces to get on board with this. This could be even better for those looking to get
00:09:28.900 into the housing market. This could really accelerate and probably alleviate some of the numbers that
00:09:34.260 we are seeing in terms of people looking for housing, and the prices as well.
00:09:37.820 It could be huge. And as you know, Jamie, Pierre has actually written to all the premiers, encouraging
00:09:43.580 them to follow suit, to do the exact same thing. So the federal sales tax is 5%. In Ontario, the
00:09:50.540 provincial sales tax is 8%. Now imagine if you drop the price of that home another 8%. This is huge.
00:09:57.820 This could be huge. It really, really dramatically impact the price of a home in this country. And so
00:10:04.260 Pierre has, I think, done an amazing job of leading on this issue. He's calling on premiers to follow
00:10:12.100 suit because, you know, they make even more money on housing than the federal government does. And I,
00:10:17.060 honestly, I mean, Mike Moffitt is, as Cole suggested, he is an expert on this file, and he thinks the move is
00:10:23.420 brilliant because he points out all the time that governments make too much money on housing. He likes
00:10:28.500 to hammer away at local governments. And he's not necessarily a friend to conservatives either. So
00:10:33.780 for him to come out and say that. No, he's, I wouldn't say, I wouldn't say he's terribly partisan at
00:10:38.480 all, actually, but he's definitely not, you know, he's not a card character, let's put it that way. But he
00:10:43.920 does understand that governments make too much money on housing. And he likes to continue to point out,
00:10:48.640 too, that at the same time, the federal, you know, this announcement that Pierre has made that a federal
00:10:52.860 government under him would remove the federal sales tax. You know, cities still make too much
00:10:59.140 money on housing, and they need to do the same kind of thing. In fact, I just did a video. I call
00:11:05.440 out cities all over the place for the huge charges and the delays and the long, painful process people
00:11:11.200 have to go through to get a home built. And I just did a video on Muskoka, you know, my backyard. I used
00:11:17.540 to be a city council, a town, not a town, not a city council, town council and a mayor in Huntsville,
00:11:21.760 as you said. And the district of Muskoka just approved a plan to increase their development
00:11:27.840 charges by 30%. I just did a video on this. I said, this is wrong. So at the federal level,
00:11:34.040 when Pierre is prime minister, we're going to do our part, but cities and regions and towns,
00:11:38.200 they're going to do their part, too. We've got to make it cheaper to build.
00:11:40.940 I know the goal is to let the builders build, right? Because the builders will provide the housing
00:11:45.940 that the market needs, right? Usually not one more unit than the market needs, right? Or else
00:11:51.220 you'd see a change in the price. It affects the price. But at the end of the day, do we have a
00:11:55.780 specific goal on how many homes we're hoping to spark with this announcement? So are they
00:12:00.200 accelerate with construction? Or is it basically as many as we can get on that the market can afford
00:12:06.080 to absorb? It's a great question. And our conservative estimates are that this move alone,
00:12:11.080 just the federal sales tax being removed from the cost of homes, will generate the construction
00:12:15.760 of at least 30,000 more homes a year. So now imagine, you know, in Ontario, if the province,
00:12:21.380 you know, reduced, you know, their fees as well, their taxes, you know, you could really start
00:12:25.760 ramping this up. I mean, the CMHC has said we need to build millions of homes, millions of homes,
00:12:30.540 right? And so now you now start combining this with some of the other things that we've committed
00:12:34.820 to do, like axing the carbon tax, you know, carbon taxes on all the materials that go into a house
00:12:39.960 as well, right? So you reduce that now, reduce carbon, eliminate the carbon tax, eliminate the
00:12:45.780 sales tax on homes at the federal level. Now you're really ramping up, you know, getting homes built,
00:12:52.620 getting them built cheaper. This is going to have a massive impact. I mean, getting government out of
00:12:58.680 the way, reducing the cost of government in this process, in all these different ways, honestly,
00:13:03.840 we'll be able to get a lot more homes built and Canadians will be able to afford them again.
00:13:07.460 We're almost out of time, but I remiss, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that yesterday was
00:13:12.300 Remembrance Day and we were in our constituencies, we were attending Remembrance Day services
00:13:16.600 to commemorate those who have fought for our freedom, paid the ultimate sacrifice, but also
00:13:21.540 for those that continue to serve today or have served in conflict or in peacetime home or at home
00:13:28.120 or abroad. Thank you everyone for your service who has done that. And as you know, the guests get the
00:13:34.940 last word, so the floor is yours. You can talk about whatever you want.
00:13:38.940 Well, I love talking about housing. I don't know if it shows or not.
00:13:41.060 Yes, you're passionate. That's why you're the critic. It's a good thing.
00:13:43.500 I've got to tell you, I'm really excited about this announcement that Pierre's made. It's
00:13:48.700 precisely the kind of thing that we need to do. It shows real leadership. You know, we can't
00:13:54.220 get this current Liberal government out there fast enough. We need to make Pierre Pauly of the Prime
00:13:58.840 Minister. We need to get these things done and get them done fast and we can get this country moving
00:14:02.660 again. Scott Acheson, member of Parliament for Paris Saint-Moscoc, also the critic for housing.
00:14:07.040 Appreciate your time. What a great note to end on. We appreciate yours as well. As Scott said,
00:14:12.320 we want Pierre to be the next Prime Minister of Canada. I'm sure you do too, but we need your help.
00:14:16.820 You need to like, comment, subscribe and share this program. Tell your friends they can download
00:14:21.540 it on platforms like CastBox, iTunes, Google Play and Spotify because we need the ears to hear this
00:14:26.840 message. You're probably not getting it in the mainstream media. Great way to do so. Don't forget,
00:14:30.980 we have new content for you every single Tuesday, 1.30 p.m. Eastern Time. Until next week,
00:14:35.560 remember, low taxes, less government, more freedom. That's the blue.