Justin Trudeau said his government “should have” and “could have” moved faster in addressing Canada’s housing crisis, an issue that’s in the spotlight as MPs return to Ottawa for the fall sitting, but maintains his government has achieved more on the file after “10 years of a Conservative government that did nothing.”
In a nearly 40-minute conversation with CBC , Trudeau talked about housing, immigration and grocery prices as he faces his worst polling numbers to date .
“Everyone understands housing takes a long lead time to actually make a difference,” he told Front Burner host Jayme Poisson in Ottawa. “The question I’d ask is, how much worse would it have been if we hadn’t put forward a national housing strategy in 2017 with $70 billion worth of investment that allowed for 2 million people and families to get into new homes?”
Here are some highlights from the interview.
On the Liberals losing support from Gen Z and Millennials
Justin Trudeau: We worked with them eight years ago to reverse a government that didn’t do anything on climate change, that didn’t believe in inclusive economic growth, kept with trickle-down and giving tax breaks to the wealthiest, and we managed to turn that around significantly. We were in a really good position when the pandemic hit. And then the past few years have been really, really hard, particularly on young people where there is now a sense, not just of the challenges of paying for groceries or paying for rent or anything, but the idea of home ownership. The idea of a really strong, exciting future seems further and further away now than it did just a few years ago. And that loss of hope and optimism is devastating for people’s morale. Of course, they’re going to, they’re going to grumble at government and they’re going to say that the world is going in the wrong direction. And we have to step up and make sure we’re solving that.
On why he didn’t waive the GST for purpose-built rentals sooner
Trudeau: We looked at it as a tool we could use and we proposed it in the 2015 election . And then over the next two years, we actually replaced that with a different program, the rental construction financing initiative, that created 40,000 homes because that was responding better to the needs at that time.
Now, we are doing both. Apartment buildings were still being built seven, eight years ago. Right now, the math just doesn’t make sense with interest rates where they are. Even if there’s a huge demand, developers were saying building apartments just doesn’t make sense. This is actually changing things in a way that is needed right now and over the coming seven years. So we’re confident that it’s the kind of solution that’s going to result not just in more rental housing, but more rental housing with three-bedroom and even four-bedroom apartments for families that we know there’s a real shortage of.
On TD Bank warning that immigration could increase the housing shortfall by half a million units in two years
Trudeau: That is part of what we’ve been doing as a plan, to make sure that we’re responding to shortages in the construction industry, that were bringing in the right kinds of skilled trades, as well. That is also something that has been shifting over the coming years. These are not things that can turn on a dime, unfortunately. Government moves extremely slowly in responding to things, but it is moving. You don’t want a government lurching around everywhere and flipping back and forth. You want a plan that’s going to steadily make things better in tangible ways over the coming years and over the coming decade. And that’s where the understanding of bringing in all the different factors, from global shortages to supply chains to inflation and interest rates to purchasing power, these are the kinds of things that come into building a plan like that, including around immigration .
On immigration targets
Trudeau: We’re seeing right across the country the impacts of the labour shortage that we have , whether it’s in our health-care system, whether it’s small businesses that can’t stay open seven days a week that want to, we need more people. We also need to make sure we’re building more housing, not just for them, but for everyone. And they are part of the solution, as well. Yes, we need to make sure we’re working with the provinces and municipalities and private and public sector partners to respond to that, but there’s lots we can do.
We’ll adjust those targets as necessary. But we’re going to continue to know that immigration is a way to grow the economy and create more housing and create better health care services in a way that really matters for people.
On housing for international students
Trudeau: It’s a question of a confluence of factors coming together and multiple partners and needing to respond in different ways. Universities like welcoming in international students because they pay higher tuition fees than Canadian students . That means they have ramped up as many provinces have underinvested in education. They have ramped up the drawing in of international students and that has had an impact on student housing in a way that we’re directly going at with this new announcement on GST removal for apartment buildings. It will apply to student residences, for example. And we’re working directly with provinces and with institutions to make sure if they’re bringing in more international students they’re creating purpose-built housing, so it doesn’t further exacerbate the shortages. But we know Canada has tremendous potential to have a positive impact on the world, and on our own economy, by bringing in more international students .
The federal government is part of the solution. But, as we know, it’s provinces that make determinations around student levels. It’s the institutions themselves that do it, and making sure we’re getting everyone at the table to work constructively to solve that is part of the complexity of Canada. It would be lovely to say, ‘OK, I’m going to snap my fingers as Prime Minister, because I’m the boss of everything, and it’s going to be fixed.’ That’s not the way it works. So the steady hard work, the understanding and accepting all these different factors, and actually bringing these partners along in a constructive way, is the way we choose to do it. Now, others out there, including the leader of the opposition, say, ‘No, no, I’m just going to pick fights and force people to do it.’ That doesn’t necessarily solve these problems but it may be very satisfying to say.
Source: National Post
