Mr. Speaker, today I am going to share my speaking time with my hon. colleague from Davenport.
I have to admit it, I love opposition days. We get to debate issues and policies from the opposition's point of view.
It is too bad that the member for Parry Sound—Muskoka did not win the Conservative Party leadership race, because even though I do not agree with his ideas, they are a lot more sensible than the ideas of the member for Carleton. We would be better off if his party supported this member's brand of conservatism.
I believe in some parts of his motion, but I see weaknesses too. First off, provision (a) mentions “imposing clawbacks on municipalities who delay new home construction”. What would constitute a reasonable delay? Would it be based on decisions about public safety, related to drainage, for example?
That is important because it is easy to say that there are unreasonable delays by municipalities. What standard do we set for that? How do we look at smaller municipalities and what their capacities are to deliver reasonable timelines for developers versus larger cities?
I have before me an example from Huntsville of drainage work that delayed Sabrina Park attainable home construction. This is in the member opposite's riding, and he is the housing critic for the Conservative Party. The project was delayed for a year because of drainage that had to be reditched and repurposed because of concerns from the municipality.
Is the member for Parry Sound—Muskoka suggesting that the Government of Canada should claw back some of the money that we would be sending fro infrastructure after those types of delays, or not? That is a question that needs to be asked and to be figured out. It is easy to talk about this in principle, but what does the member actually mean by a reasonable delay.