Politicians won’t be caught dead agreeing, even when there’s common ground

CHELSEA, QUE.—This will come as a shock to many, but, looked at from a certain angle, our major federal parties—even premiers and municipal leaders—actually do agree on some of the fundamental issues facing Canadians. Consider the housing affordability crisis. A cast of characters as diverse at Pierre Poilievre, Justin Trudeau, Doug Ford, and leading Ottawa mayoral candidate Catherine McKenney—a progressive and long-time champion of the homeless—agree that new housing must be built around transit hubs as new rapid transit systems, or extensions, are built in our larger cities. Details and strategies differ, but let’s stay positive for one minute. For his part, Poilievre wants cities to pre-approve high-rise development around all federally-funded transit hubs or lose federal transportation funding. The stick. In the Liberals’ last budget, the government announced plans to make infrastructure and transit funding contingent on action by provinces, territories, and municipalities to increase housing supply—including requiring developers to build affordable housing. Another stick. Ontario Premier Doug Ford released a plan in 2020 to force cities to increase density around transit hubs and is enthusiastically promoting high-rise clusters along the Yonge Street line in Toronto. In Ottawa, McKenney—progressive with a background in housing affordability—is calling for “transit-oriented development,” and, sounding vaguely like Poilievre, cutting “red tape to get affordable homes built faster and cheaper.” Not surprisingly, McKenney, Poilievre, and Ford each envision different kinds of development, with McKenney proposing to give city-owned land near transit hubs to non-profits to build affordable housing. The Trudeau housing plan also emphasizes affordability and housing targeted at Indigenous, low-income single mothers, and others on the constant brink of homelessness. Ford favours new highways to exurban areas, ripe for suburbanization. These distinctions are important. If cities throw up shiny new towers near light rail, with no rent controls, or requirements that developers include affordable units, the wealthy will simply have more choice. These condo units will still be beyond the means of many of the middle and lower-income earners who are struggling today. If cities continue to sprawl, the climate consequences (and commuter traffic) will be dire. Ottawa mayoral candidate Catherine McKenney, a progressive, has common ground with Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre when it comes to cutting 'red tape' that prohibits the quick development of affordable housing. Photograph courtesy of Catherine McKenney But there is, at least, broad agreement that cities need to start building housing quickly, and that means eliminating unnecessary and expensive “red tape,” or “gatekeepers,” or the jurisdictional game-playing that leads to delays. Poilievre, McKenney and Trudeau also agree that abandoned office towers—of particular concern in Covid-era Ottawa—should be converted into housing, preferably affordable. Trudeau recently announced a doubling of existing funds to convert private and public office towers, to the tune of $600-million. Poilievre commits to selling off 15 per cent of the 37,000 federal buildings across the country for conversion into affordable housing. And the idea has long had support among Ottawa’s municipal politicians, facing a diminishing tax base and a depopulated downtown core, as public servants increasingly choose to work from home. To temper the giddy excitement at this rare convergence of views, it must be said that none of these proposals are simple, straightforward or cheap—despite Poilievre’s confident declarations. If they were, the situation would not be as dire as it is today. Indeed, cascading Liberal housing plans, beginning in 2017, have earmarked billions towards the affordability problem, in the form of money for municipalities that want to “densify” their housing stock; first-time home buyers’ incentives; temporary bans on foreign ownership of empty, or under-occupied residential units; a proposed anti-flipping tax on properties that change hands before one year (with exceptions for legitimate life events). There’s the federal Rapid Housing Initiative which just got a $2-billion top-up from the prime minister a month ago, the Affordable Housing Innovation Fund, and a complex rent-to-own plan to allow renters to eventually buy. In other words, high-minded programs, often entangled in layers of exemptions, procedures, applications, and safeguards. So, while some worthy projects have been built, or started, the crisis remains. Some old office towers are not fit for redevelopment, for instance; they need to be scrapped. Others do not lend themselves to residential use (lack of windows, balconies, green space, parking, etc.). Developers, as a rule, do not volunteer to build affordable units—they want to maximize profits. And, by virtue of lax conflict-of-interest rules at the municipal level, builders often contribute to mayoral and council election campaigns, leaving politicians unofficially beholden. Then there is resistance from those lucky, or wealthy, enough to live in traditional suburbs, or lower-density downtown neighbourhoods. They may be theoretically in favour of a larger housing supply, but not necessarily on their street. And they have the ear of powerful politicians—although less so, as the human and economic consequences of homelessness become more evident in city parks and street corners. Nor does more housing alone—in the form of soaring towers, for instance, which may not age any better than the vertical concrete slums built in Europe after the last war—constitute a “home” for everyone, particularly families. A healthy urban environment needs a mix of styles, sizes, and heights, with adequate green space and tree cover. The new Conservative leader had promised to demolish many of these obstacles before his decisive win last weekend: “A Poilievre government will make it clear to big city politicians that they will not get what they want (in the way of federal funding), until the people get what they need: homes built.” Poilievre has a way with the ringing declaration, but no one would accuse him of collaborating with his many political enemies to actually get things done. During his recent campaign, for instance, he repeatedly lamented the fate of the poor single mother, forced to water down the milk to feed her children. Last week, Trudeau introduced a trio of measures, costing $3-billion, intended to help that single mother, among others: a dental care credit of $650 over two years for children under 12 in low- or moderate-income homes; a six-month doubling of the GST credit, so that a single mother with one child and an income under $30,000 would receive $1,600 this year; and, a one-time $500 credit for low-income renters. Stripped of rhetoric, it will be a short-term help for some families, but hardly enough. Trudeau acknowledged as much: his government, he said, “is retaining fiscal firepower, and ensuring those who need support don’t get left behind.” So he is doing, in a half-hearted way, what Poilievre has been urging him to do: helping those Canadians struggling with inflation. Perhaps not surprisingly—this will shock no one who follows politics—Poilievre reacted to this news scornfully. Trudeau, he said, was fanning inflation, adding that “the cost of government is driving up the cost of living.” So goes the tired, unproductive, inward-looking discourse that makes it so hard to fix problems in this country, even universally acknowledged ones. Opposition: you are doing nothing to help struggling Canadians. Government: announces money to help struggling Canadians. Opposition: you are wasting money and making life harder for struggling Canadians. We can all agree on one thing, at least: it is a struggle. Susan Riley is a veteran political columnist who writes regularly for The Hill Times. The Hill Times