A new 15-minute video produced by Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is the latest salvo in the political fight over housing policy, which has dominated the second half of this year in politics.
Poilievre made housing costs and affordability a key part of his message early in his leadership run, and housing has now become an issue that parties across the political spectrum agree is a crisis facing Canadians.
The Conservative leader’s video features statistics, charts and news articles that frame the housing issue as one of the Trudeau government’s own making.
“Like all countries, we’ve always had problems throughout Canada’s past, though almost anyone who got a job could save up and buy a home in their mid 20s. When did that all change? About eight years ago,” Poilievre says in the video.
Housing costs have been on the rise for years in Canada, with the national average home price sitting at roughly $650,000 in October 2023. Canadians are also facing increased pressure from rental costs, as well as mortgage costs as interests rate climb.
The government, for its part, agrees that the situation is dire.
“One of the things that I think it’s important to address off the top is that we are in a housing crisis and we need to build homes and we need to build them by the millions,” Housing Minister Sean Fraser said during an announcement in Richmond Hill, Ont., earlier this week.
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Eddie Sheppard, a vice-president at Abacus Data, says a recent poll conducted by his firm suggests housing is now the second-ranked priority for Canadians, behind the economy and the cost of living but just ahead of health care. And Conservatives hold an advantage on the issue, Sheppard said.
“Right now about one-third of Canadians think [the Conservatives] would be best able to handle the housing crisis, followed by the NDP and then the Liberal party,” he said.
“We’re really seeing the Conservatives take the lead here in the minds of Canadians in terms of who can best deal with the housing crisis.”
The Conservatives also hold a huge lead — 19 percentage points — in the top line polling numbers, a new Abacus Data poll suggests. That’s the largest Conservative lead, the polling agency says, since 2015.
Poilievre’s message has focused strongly on affordability, noting the rise in housing costs, inflation and other cost of living concerns. He recently dubbed the current situation as “living hell for the working class.”
Federal Housing Minister Sean Fraser makes a housing announcement in Kelowna, B.C., in October. (Brady Strachan/CBC )
Flurry of housing announcements
The government has responded in recent months with several measures on housing, including the elimination of the GST/HST on rental home construction and dedicated money to help boost construction. Housing Minister Fraser has engaged in a flurry of negotiations with municipalities to push for more aggressive local action in exchange for federal dollars through the Housing Accelerator Fund.
This last week also featured several housing announcements attended by prominent ministers, including Fraser, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
“We’re facing a shortage of housing right now. This is a big reason why prices are just way too high. So we need to build more homes faster,” Trudeau said at an announcement in Ajax, Ont., on Thursday.
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The government also recently released the Canada Mortgage Charter as part of an effort to help guide hundreds of thousands of Canadians who have mortgages that may soon need to be renewed at higher rates.
Trudeau this week criticized Poilievre’s plan as “empty slogans.”
“He thinks that bullying municipalities and cutting funding for affordable housing will somehow get more shovels in the ground. Well, I think we can all agree that’s not responsible leadership,” he said.
Sheppard said that despite the government’s efforts over the last few months, the message did not seem to be breaking through to Canadians.
“But I think the challenge is that a lot of Canadians are really overlooking those [announcements] and not necessarily even hearing or seeing them,” Sheppard said.
OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the NDP is caving to political pressure from Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre when it comes to their stance on the consumer carbon price.
Trudeau says he believes Jagmeet Singh and the NDP care about the environment, but it’s “increasingly obvious” that they have “no idea” what to do about climate change.
On Thursday, Singh said the NDP is working on a plan that wouldn’t put the burden of fighting climate change on the backs of workers, but wouldn’t say if that plan would include a consumer carbon price.
Singh’s noncommittal position comes as the NDP tries to frame itself as a credible alternative to the Conservatives in the next federal election.
Poilievre responded to that by releasing a video, pointing out that the NDP has voted time and again in favour of the Liberals’ carbon price.
British Columbia Premier David Eby also changed his tune on Thursday, promising that a re-elected NDP government would scrap the long-standing carbon tax and shift the burden to “big polluters,” if the federal government dropped its requirements.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
Simon Jolin-Barrette, minister responsible for consumer protection, has tabled a bill to force merchants to calculate tips based on the price before tax.
That means on a restaurant bill of $100, suggested tips would be calculated based on $100, not on $114.98 after provincial and federal sales taxes are added.
The bill would also increase the rebate offered to consumers when the price of an item at the cash register is higher than the shelf price, to $15 from $10.
And it would force grocery stores offering a discounted price for several items to clearly list the unit price as well.
Businesses would also have to indicate whether taxes will be added to the price of food products.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
Quebec legislature member Youri Chassin has announced he’s leaving the Coalition Avenir Québec government to sit as an Independent.
He announced the decision shortly after writing an open letter criticizing Premier François Legault’s government for abandoning its principles of smaller government.
In the letter published in Le Journal de Montréal and Le Journal de Québec, Chassin accused the party of falling back on what he called the old formula of throwing money at problems instead of looking to do things differently.
Chassin says public services are more fragile than ever, despite rising spending that pushed the province to a record $11-billion deficit projected in the last budget.
He is the second CAQ member to leave the party in a little more than one week, after economy and energy minister Pierre Fitzgibbon announced Sept. 4 he would leave because he lost motivation to do his job.
Chassin says he has no intention of joining another party and will instead sit as an Independent until the end of his term.
He has represented the Saint-Jérôme riding since the CAQ rose to power in 2018, but has not served in cabinet.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
