"Mr. Speaker, Canada's housing crisis has been escalated by those using the housing market to make huge profits. The largest 25 financial landlords hold nearly 20% of the country's private rentals. For every one affordable housing unit built, 15 are taken up by investors making money on the backs of Canadians.
It is time to stop treating housing as a stock market. Will the government stop corporate landlords from buying up affordable housing and help non-profits purchase them for Canadians?"
Ahmed Hussen (NDP) Minister of Housing and Diversity and Inclusion
"Mr. Speaker, I agree with the hon. member that we need to build more rental housing in Canada. That is why, as part of the national housing strategy, we have the rental construction financing initiative, a program that has increased so many times over the last number of budgets because we recognize that as a government we have a responsibility to build the next generation of affordable rental units across the country. In addition to that, while we were building more rentals, we introduced the Canada housing benefit, which we are topping up in budget 2022.
We agree that we need to tackle speculation and agree that we need to build more rental housing, and that is exactly what we are doing."
