Q&A: MP Sean Fraser hopes to alleviate housing strain in Nova Scotia as new housing minister

Following a Cabinet Shuffle in Ottawa, Sean Fraser, the Member of Parliament for Central Nova, went from being the Immigration Minister to the Minister of Housing and Infrastructure, taking over from Ahmed Hussen.

SaltWire had the opportunity to talk to him about his goals in his new position and what he hopes to do to support Nova Scotia’s housing crisis.

Q: My first question for you is, what are your goals as the new housing and infrastructure minister?

Fraser: First of all, thank you for the opportunity. I’m going to be receiving in fairly short order a formal mandate letter that will spell out with great detail the expectations they have for me in this role, but I think it’s going to involve building more housing and investing in projects that are going to spur economic growth that put people to work in good paying jobs in this country. The collapsing of housing and infrastructure (into one position) will allow us to plan more effectively in our investments. But if I could boil it down, we’re going to be working for people in need and those seeking to get into the housing market and to get projects that will spur economic growth to create good jobs for people in our community.

Q: Going off this point, as I’m sure you’re familiar, Nova Scotia is going through a housing crisis. Do you have any goals in mind for how to tackle that problem?

Fraser: Yeah, and let’s take a step back and realize that we’re not just starting to address what Nova Scotia or communities across Canada are facing today. We’ve invested more than $1.1 billion just in Nova Scotia, which has helped more than 90,000 families in this province. So, we’re not starting from scratch. We’re not starting today. This has been in the works for the past eight years. We know that people are struggling. We see it every day, whether it’s low-income families who are unable to find a place they can afford, or whether it’s young people who are trying to get into the market for the first time, or whether it’s renters who just can’t afford the cost of rent.

We are using the National Housing Strategy to build out more houses, which should put downward pressure on the pricing as people have been facing. We’re going to continue to use a new program called the Housing Accelerator Fund, which is going to help communities at a municipal level overcome the unique barriers that they’re facing, whether it’s building more housing stock, renovating their permitting system so they can approve projects that are private developments. There are plenty of tools that we have, but we’re going to continue to invest in those programs and build more houses.

We will continue to offer support with the Canada Housing Benefit, which directly supports low-income renters, and we will work with communities to identify the right solutions that work in those communities. You can begin in boardrooms in Ottawa, but to be as effective, decisions need to be taken in partnership with the people and engage with communities at a local level. We will be able to tailor our homes to meet the needs of specific communities. And it’s something I’m very much looking forward to.

Biography

Name: Sean Fraser

Date of Birth: June 1, 1984

Hometown: Merigomish, N.S.

Riding: Central Nova

Party: Liberal

Position: Minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities; formerly Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship

Q: Do you have any goals related to affordable housing, or are you planning on continuing what has already been put in place?

Fraser: A number of things have been in place that will continue to have an important role to play. There are a number of new things that we are either starting to do or looking at doing that will have a positive impact.

So, for example, some of the things that are already in place would include programs like Canada Housing Benefit, which provides direct support to low-income renters.

It would include the national housing strategy, which is leading to more and more units being built and helped by the way through an initiative called the rapid housing initiative that helped build the Coady’s Place project on East River Road in New Glasgow. It has 36 units where families are now living safely today because of the investment of the federal government with the Nova Scotia government.

It’s going to be very exciting. The housing accelerator fund is just getting off the ground. This is a new tool that has $4 billion in it nationally. It’s designed to help communities overcome their unique barriers by allowing more housing to be built. So, in some communities, that’s going to be affordable housing that’s offered below market rents for people who can’t afford to rent out in the market. Changes to the permitting process will allow a municipality to adopt digital technology that will speed up the process of permitting a developer to move forward with the project. Units will be made available for people who can afford them but cannot access housing because there are not enough units.

We’re going to look at different solutions, but what’s really exciting to me is the decision to combine housing with infrastructure. So, our findings will allow us to get the most out of everything. We’re going to be building a bus system or active transportation link. We want to make sure it connects communities where people live to the areas where they work or where they shop for groceries. If we’re building water pipes, we want to make sure that they’re serving communities that have either a significant number of homes today or will open new parts of the province for housing developments. These approaches can be taken when we coordinate our infrastructure policy with our housing policies, allowing us to do the most good in the most cost-effective way for taxpayers.

Q: Your riding includes Pictou County, and I know you touched upon this with Coady’s place in New Glasgow. Do you have any plans or goals to tackle some of the unique issues Pictou County encounters?

Fraser: Before I found out which job I would be given, I had two local visits, one down toward Fossil Farms, which had no home construction. I met a group of newcomers, mostly Ukrainians, who fled the war and were being trained to build houses for Nova Scotian families. They are, in fact, living in the kinds of homes that they are now building for other people. Embracing those kinds of training opportunities for people who may have come here many generations ago or arrived more recently is going to help the private sector build more housing.

East Town Homes is a new facility in the town of Trenton. Trenton Worksite is building a factory that will construct modular housing units that will allow hundreds of people to have good paying jobs at home. When you’re helping solve a social problem for people across the country, home construction can be automated in many ways and creates good jobs for people in our community while building more homes.

I’m scheduled tomorrow, and this was all planned before I knew I was going to have this job, to meet with a local organization that we’ve dealt with over the past number of years. That’s trying to get affordable housing projects off the ground, sharing information with the groups willing to do the work, shifting the rules and making the investments that will stimulate more home construction. I believe that we can reach a point in our community about homelessness and housing insecurity. And we’re giving opportunities for the people who want to move to our communities. It’s a huge opportunity for us to make a meaningful difference at home by investing in the kinds of work and making sure that they have a home to live in at the end of the day.

Q: That’s all the questions I have, but if I could throw it back to you. Is there anything that I didn’t touch upon, didn’t ask, that you think is important to the housing conversation?

Fraser: Look, we could spend an entire year talking about this, but let me end with a giant thank you to everybody at home and in Central Nova. The reality is that I have a unique opportunity to make a difference in communities across Canada. But in addition to being Canada’s Minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities, I haven’t forgotten that I’m Central Nova. We’re going to continue to do our work to support the community that I call home. We’re going to do what we can to help grow the economy of Pictou County and make our communities dynamic places to live that provide sufficient housing for everybody to make a home.