Ottawa, ON – After nine years of Justin Trudeau, Canadians are living in a housing hell with no end in sight. Despite spending billions of dollars and staging photo-ops across Canada and handing out bonuses to CMHC executives, the Trudeau Government has not managed to build a single home with this program.
This is because Trudeau’s hallmark housing policy is nothing more than a $4.4 billion photo-op fund. Since the Liberals signed their $471 million Housing Accelerator Fund agreement with the City of Toronto in December, housing starts are down in that city by 21%. In fact, just a few months after the City of Toronto signed an agreement with the Trudeau Government, the city gatekeepers made housing construction even more difficult by raising development charges by an additional 20.7%. When asked at Committee about funding currently not being conditional based on freezing development charges, Trudeau’s Housing Minister indicated no intent to add the condition.
Other cities are no better off. In Halifax, where Trudeau signed agreements totalling $79.3 million, the city has begun to plan for more homeless encampments instead of building enough homes for people to live in. In Calgary, a rental listing received over 900 applications in 24 hours, despite a $228 million agreement.
When pressed at Committee on how many homes have been built with the fund, Trudeau’s Housing Minister wasn’t able to respond with a number and said “the government isn’t the entity that is constructing the homes.” Which just so happens to be what the government is shovelling money out the door trying to do.
Meanwhile, Trudeau has allowed CMHC executives to collect millions of dollars in bonuses, despite their abysmal performance. This includes a retroactive raise of almost $80K for the outgoing CEO who has headed this failed operation. This is more money than most Canadians make in a year.
Trudeau and his Housing Minister are out of touch and out of time. Estimates show that one house would have to be built every minute in order to restore affordability. Only Common Sense Conservatives will stop pointless spending, and build homes, not bureaucracy.