Federal government dragging feet on housing solutions, NDP leader says

Canada is mired in an unprecedented housing crisis, federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said Tuesday in calling for an emergency debate in the House of Commons.

Speaker Greg Fergus apparently disagreed, dismissing Singh’s call by saying the issue didn’t fit the scope of an emergency debate.

“We are still pushing for that,” Singh said in a telephone interview just before the debate was scuttled.

“Housing is a problem across the country,” Singh said, describing an issue that goes beyond encampments and homelessness.

“There is just such a fear and worry around housing and around losing your home or not being able to find a home that I really want to push for us to look at more solutions because we really have to make this a priority and we have to fight for some really concrete actions.”

As Parliamentarians prepared for their second day back in the House on Tuesday, Singh said in a telephone interview that he wants to talk to fellow MPs about the Liberal government’s approach to the housing problem.

Could, have, should have

“The urgency of what we’re up against is not being met by the Liberal government of (Prime Minister) Justin Trudeau,” he said.

“That urgency would account for a lot of things. It would mean moving faster on approving projects, it would be an urgency of getting people the resources needed, it would be meeting with provinces and municipalities with the sense that there is an emergency, we have to move quickly, we have to get things built.”

Singh said he highlights the lack of government urgency because both the prime minister and Housing Minister Sean Fraser, the MP for Central Nova, have said the Liberal government could have and should have done more on the housing file in the past.

“That is a big problem,” Singh said. “That’s an approach that is very specific, it’s a lack of priority, an out-of-touch government, an out-of-touch prime minister that have chosen to neglect this and admit that they neglected this.”

Against that backdrop of criticism, Fraser joined four other cabinet ministers, including Chrystia Freeland, deputy prime minister and finance minister, and Anita Anand, treasury board president, for a late Monday afternoon news conference at which he announced a new housing policy.

“Canada needs more student housing and we’re going to help build it,” Fraser said. “When I talk to students, they tell me about the challenges they experience when they have to commute an hour to get to class. They tell me about the overcrowding experience, particularly in some of our larger urban centres.”

Fraser said he also hears from local residents of college and university towns about how challenging it is to find a place to live when the students arrive in the fall. 

“We want to help fix this,” Fraser said. “Today, we’re pleased to share that we are extending access to student residences to the apartment construction loan program. This is a program that provides low-cost financing through the federal government to help build the kinds of homes that we need at prices that people can actually afford.”

On, off campus

Fraser said colleges and universities will be eligible to use the apartment-construction loan program to build housing on or off campus and non-profit builders and private developers will also be able to build student residences on or near campuses.

“This is going to have a positive impact because universities and colleges oftentimes own wide swaths of land and this is going to make it easier for them to build more quickly,” he said.

“This is an important policy change. It’s not just going to create more affordable places for students to live near where they are going to school, it’s also going to relieve pressure on the housing market by freeing up housing supply that already exists in communities that are seeing students needing to compete in the market more broadly. This has the potential to reduce the cost of housing for everyone in college and university towns across the country.”

Fraser said the government is going to move as quickly as it can with the policy change.

“I expect we’ll have agreements later this year with different institutes,” the minister said. “The time at which they build and there are new buildings open will depend on factors that will vary from institution to institution but we’re looking at months, not years to get this program up and running.”

Singh agreed student housing has to be part of the solution.

“There needs to be dedicated student housing because students are living in the same cities where they are competing with people who have good jobs to try to find a place,” Singh said.

“I heard a lot of tough stories about students who are not able to find a place, who end up commuting really far to school or end up in really cramped or bad conditions.” 

‘All of the above’

The NDP leader said his party is pushing for an “all of the above” housing approach.

“The Liberals and the Conservatives are suggesting private development will solve this alone,” Singh said. “We have to look at every facet of the problem. We need to see federal supports to build homes that are affordable.”

Singh said the Liberals are talking about using federal land to build homes.

“We agree, but a number of the projects that they have announced, there is a very small percentage that are actually dedicated to affordable housing. The rest are market or above-market housing.”

Singh said he’s talked to people who say it doesn’t matter how many luxury condo towers are built because they can’t afford to live in them. 

“Let’s focus on not-for-profit housing, co-operative housing and let’s look at all the components of what makes homes affordable.”

Singh said consecutive Conservative and Liberal governments sold off 800,000 “deeply affordable” homes – apartments and townhouses well under market rate – to rich developers who converted them into luxury apartments, luxury rentals or tore them down and built unaffordable units.

Singh said it’s imperative to keep what is affordable as affordable.

“One of the strategies to do that is an acquisition fund, like the British Columbia NDP has put in place, basically a fund to stop renovictions or demovictions,” Singh said. “The acquisition fund allows the opportunity for a building that is affordable to be bought by the municipality or a not-for-profit organization or by a community co-operative.”