Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has called on the government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to recall Parliament, suggesting there is a looming mortgage crisis in Canada that needs to be addressed.
“It is time to recall the House,” Mr. Poilievre said, speaking to reporters on Aug. 23. “The vacation is over.”
Mr. Poilievre said Canadians are suffering through “housing hell,” according to Blacklock’s Reporter in an article on Aug. 24. Parliament adjourned for its summer recess on June 21 and is not scheduled to resume until Monday, Sept. 18.
“What happens in Canada in the next two years as people’s mortgages roll over and their monthly bills go up by $2,000 or $3,000 a month?” Poilievre told reporters. “What happens when they can’t pay? Where do they go?”
“Our homeless shelters are already overflowing, our refugees already live on the streets and under bridges,” said Poilievre. “What do you think is going to happen when 10,000 or 100,000 families lose their homes? Where will they go?”
The Conservative leader said the world will be “talking about a humanitarian crisis not in a developing country on the other side of the Atlantic but right here in Canada.”
“This is where this is heading,” he said. “We have never seen it like this before.”
Mortgages in Trouble
New data released by the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada (FCAC) on Aug. 21 suggests, “Two-thirds of mortgage holders report having trouble meeting their financial commitments,” according to a survey.
The Bank of Canada has so far hiked interest rates 10 times since March 2022.
The “FCAC Report: The financial well-being of Canadian homeowners with mortgages” found that more than one third (35.5 percent) of Canadians hold a mortgage and that only one in three mortgage holders say they can pay their financial commitments without difficulty.
According to the report, the percentage of Canadian mortgage holders who say they can keep up with their financial commitments without issue has been decreased from 56.9 percent in August 2020 to 34.7 percent in December 2022, a decline of 22.2 percentage points.
“An increasing percentage of Canadians need to draw on their savings due to the current economic context, and the proportion of mortgage holders who need to use their savings is now the same as that of renters,” said the report.
“For young people and the working class, the housing market after eight years of Justin Trudeau is a prison,” said Mr. Poilievre. “It’s a prison of walls for 350-square-foot apartments that cost $2,000 a month or parents’ basements where young adults 35-year-olds live, never having a chance to start a family.”
“Now a 35-year-old living in mom’s basement after eight years of Trudeau is the least of our concerns,” added Mr. Poilievre. “Now the worry is whether that 35-year-old and his mother are going to wind up in a tent on the street.”
