In the coming days, Canada will see heightened activity in the nation’s ongoing gender identity politics debate. The “1 Million March 4 Children” protest against how gender identity is taught in schools, is set to occur on Wednesday, with synchronized events in more than 50 cities countrywide. Two days later, separate Toronto rally will spotlight two figures prominent in the gender-critical movement: Chris Elston, colloquially known as “Billboard Chris” for his distinctive method of protesting against childhood medical transition, and Josh Alexander, a Renfrew, Ontario student who was expelled earlier this year after objecting in class to his school’s transgender washroom policy.
Politics
The politics of housing now defines both Trudeau and Poilievre
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The issue of housing affordability has become a political crucible — a debate through which Justin Trudeau and Pierre Poilievre are defining themselves and each other.
There are, despite appearances, a few crucial points on which the prime minister and the leader of the Official Opposition agree. They both agree, for instance, that the cost of housing is a pressing problem that demands action — a level of agreement that does not exist for climate change.
They both agree that at least part of the solution involves other levels of government. They both agree that federal funding can play a meaningful role in creating change.
And they both agree the other has nothing useful to offer.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Wednesday cautioned against blaming any individual group for the country’s housing crisis, saying the problem is something that has been ‘brewing and developing over the past number of decades.’ He made the comments on the last day of the Liberal cabinet retreat in Charlottetown.
What Canadians need are “real solutions, not just slogans and buzzwords,” Trudeau said Wednesday, apparently in reference to the Conservative leader. A few hours later, Poilievre said Canadians were getting only “more speeches, more photo ops, more puff pieces.”
Poilievre was, coincidentally, speaking at his own photo op in that moment — he had summoned reporters to the foyer of the House of Commons, where he stood before the glass doors that lead to the chamber. Still eschewing the glasses he wore until recently, but now back to wearing a collared shirt and tie, Poilievre lamented the “housing hell” he accuses the federal government of creating and called on the prime minister to recall the House so that MPs could “solve” the crisis with “common sense.”
The House is due to reconvene on September 18. If three extra weeks is enough time to solve the issue of housing affordability in Canada, it’s a wonder no one has done it yet. But Poilievre’s gambit has the benefit of conveying urgency — and it also makes for a tidy one-liner.
“Open up the House so Canadians can get a home,” Poilievre declared as he departed.
Poilievre’s conservative solutions
Poilievre suggested the House’s time would be used to focus on three things: balancing the budget to reduce inflation, eliminating the “bureaucracy” that makes it harder to build housing and selling federal property to make more land available for development.
To varying degrees, each of these is easier said than done.
Poilievre says he would have the federal government unload 6,000 buildings. The federal government already has a program to sell surplus properties for affordable housing — the Federal Lands Initiative — which was launched in 2019 with the stated goal of making available “4,000 suitable properties.” At least some buildings have been put up for sale, but a parliamentary committee report last year suggested the program could be improved.
Based on the projections tabled in the spring, balancing the federal budget in the current fiscal year would require cutting spending by $40 billion. The projected deficit for next year is only slightly smaller, at $35 billion. If the Conservatives have an itemized list of everything they would cut to return the budget to balance, that would at least be interesting to see, regardless of when the House reconvenes.
Given how many countries are dealing with elevated inflation, it’s also fair to ask how much balancing the federal budget would actually reduce inflation in Canada.
But beyond the details, there is a neat consistency to Poilievre’s prescriptions. The Conservative leader is proudly ideological in his conservatism and he is proposing a plan that epitomizes the textbook beliefs of a conservative: reduce the footprint of government, shrink the public sector, minimize regulation.
In Canadians’ concerns about housing and the cost of living, Poilievre obviously sees an opportunity to pursue his ideological aims — and if he is successful politically, this debate no doubt would act as a gateway to a much more conservative federal government than Canada has had over the last eight years.
Trudeau’s fondness for experts, data
Trudeau isn’t much of an ideologue. But he does have his own tendencies and preferences.
Emerging from two days of cabinet meetings in Charlottetown, Trudeau reported that he and his ministers had “heard from experts and directly from Canadians who are facing these problems.” He also said they had “studied historical trends and data from Statistics Canada’s long-form census which are helping us understand these issues more clearly.”
That reference to the long-form census — the one the previous Conservative government killed in 2010 and the Liberals restored on their first day in office in 2015 — surely was not incidental.
Two of the experts who spoke to cabinet came with a ten-point plan to boost the availability of rental properties. Trudeau wasn’t quite ready to commit to copy-and-pasting that plan into the government’s fall economic statement. But he is at least no longer trying to parse constitutional responsibility for housing.
Poilievre, whose affinity for political combat is almost as strong as his fondness for conservative principles, has vowed that he would withhold federal infrastructure funds from municipalities that don’t build as much housing as he thinks they should.
“I am paying for performance and results,” Poilievre told an audience in P.E.I. last week.
Trudeau, who came to office promising a more collaborative approach to governing and who is trying to encourage municipalities with a “housing accelerator” fund, said there’s an obvious need for more cooperation.
“I look forward to working alongside not just premiers and mayors but also the for-profit and not-for-profit sector,” he said.
With his own sleeves rolled up, Trudeau said “the way we get through this is to roll up our sleeves and [get] the work done collaboratively across all the different sectors and orders of governments that have different responsibilities.”
Trudeau also had some thoughts about what Canadians don’t need. “In this time, Canadians need a government that believes in them and invests in their future, not one that thinks damaging cuts are the solution to everything,” he said.
Empathy and action
While he wasn’t ready to offer a suite of new measures, Trudeau said he understood what Canadians are experiencing and feeling — and paid special attention to the plight of millennials. Empathy has never been Trudeau’s problem and even now it remains a strength. An Abacus poll conducted earlier this summer found that Trudeau had a 20-point advantage over Poilievre when Canadians were asked which leader was the most compassionate.
Trudeau also held a slim, one-point lead on the question of which leader “best understands you.” But Poilievre is obviously keen to make gains on those fronts, both with his emphasis on feeling the pain of the people he meets at rallies and with a national ad campaign that leans heavily on the image of a family man.
For Trudeau, the larger source of concern is that Poilievre came out slightly ahead when Canadians were asked which leader had the “clearest vision” (Poilievre led 36 per cent to 34 per cent) and “the best ideas” (36 per cent to 32 per cent). Poilievre also won on the question which leader was the “strongest” (37 per cent to 33 per cent).
There might be a dozen issues that shape the answers to those questions over the next two years. But right now, none seem to loom larger than housing and affordability. And if Trudeau wants to win re-election, his empathy obviously needs to be backed up by action.
When Trudeau talks about the need for “real solutions” over “buzzwords,” he’s both needling Poilievre and turning around an attack that has often been launched in his direction — and one he has to answer again.
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The core issue at hand is preserving their agency and autonomy over the ideological content of their children’s education
As parents’ voices grow louder, there’s a perception in the progressive left that all of these emerging movements are rooted and inspired by “far-right” extremism. Many in leftist circles suggest that parental rights advocacy is a dog-whistle: a veiled attempt to advance anti-transgender policies. A recently leaked video from an Ontario Federation of Labour meeting offers a glimpse into how some of the province’s most influential union members perceive these protests. As one member notably stated during the meeting: “The fascists are organizing in the streets … . This is far more than a far-right transphobic protest. They’re fundamentally racist, they’re fundamentally anti-union, they are fundamentally transphobic, and it’s just a matter of time before they come for us.”
It’s a grave mistake to deride the parental collective pushing back against the status-quo as fascist sympathizers motivated by transgender hate. A glance past such alarmist rhetoric reveals that — while a fringe group of hate has always existed — the concerns many parents are championing are much more moderate than a “far-right” moniker suggests.
For many parents, the core issue at hand is preserving their agency and autonomy over the ideological content of their children’s education. They want transparency about what is being taught, the option to excuse their child from content they believe doesn’t align with their values, and the discretion to determine age-appropriateness for activities, such as certain reading material or events like drag queen performances at schools. Perhaps least surprisingly, parents want to be involved in the key decisions of their own child undergoing a social transition in the classroom.
The matter of social transition behind parents’ backs in particular is so condemning of their role in upbringing that it has thrust the entire gamut of gender identity matters into the national spotlight, revealing just how out of balance transgender accommodation has become. The manner in which the left has responded — by doubling down in their rhetoric and deriding parents as militant zealots, has played powerfully into the rapid growth of this grassroots movement.
Many parents, even amid those who will stand in protest, have little desire to limit other families’ decisions regarding gender teachings and expression for their children. They realize that their objective of ensuring their own parental autonomy is intertwined with safeguarding those same freedoms for other families as well.
So where do we go from here? What might a balanced approach to parental rights look like within the nuanced landscape of gender identity politics? Fortunately, we need not start from scratch; history offers us a model for the coexistence of diverse ideologies within our educational institutions. Look no further than religion.
Amid religious diversity, we teach acceptance. Students are taught to make space for varied faith expression among their peers, whether through clothing or other customs, and with a strong desire to maintain neutral, religious symbols are not adorned by the institution. The lesson for students is to embrace and include, even where personal beliefs diverge; Meanwhile, the guiding principle for the institution is to avoid actions that display favouritism toward any specific religious doctrine.
Such a solution could address a significant portion of the concerns fuelling the rising parental unrest. Moderate parents would applaud such an education system, and this would still be inclusive of transgender students. But in order for this to be realized, the two factions moving ever further apart will first need to come to the table and talk. Given the recent rhetoric from progressive quarters, the prospect of this dialogue anytime soon appears distant.
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A month after Global Affairs Canada told CBC News it was looking into claims that the Polish government asked one of its diplomats in Canada to gather information on a former Alberta cabinet minister, the dismissed consul general at the centre of the affair says he still hasn’t heard from the department on the matter.
Andrzej Mańkowski told CBC News the only official he has heard from is a B.C. bureaucrat who asked him to return his diplomatic licence plates and identification.
“[Officials with Global Affairs] haven’t tried talking to me,” he said.
Mańkowski showed CBC News a copy of a letter dated Aug. 31 he received from B.C.’s Chief of Protocol for Intergovernmental Relations Lucy Lobmeier asking him to turn in his identity card and to return his diplomatic plates “within 30 days of this letter.” She also thanked him for his service.
Mańkowski alleges he was dismissed from his post in late July after he refused to carry out orders from the Polish government to gather information about Thomas Lukaszuk, a former deputy premier of Alberta who often provides commentary to CBC News about the province’s politics.
“It’s clear that Polish diplomacy during Communist times, the main responsibility was to collect information, to gather information on some Polish representatives abroad,” Mańkowski said, adding he felt as if the request was a throwback to that time.
“The analogy’s extremely evident.”
Last month, Global Affairs Canada said it was taking the allegations seriously.
Spying allegations ‘out of this world’: ambassador
In August, Lukaszuk said he believed he had been targeted by Poland’s department of foreign affairs over his activism against a controversial Polish pastor, Father Tadeusz Rydzyk, who has private radio and television stations in Poland.
Rydzyk, who has ties to the Polish government, has been criticized for delivering sermons featuring homophobic and anti-Semitic views and for preaching against the European Union.
Lukaszuk also shared what he said were encrypted messages Polish government officials sent to Mańkowski asking him over the course of a year to prepare notes on the former Alberta politician.
CBC News has not independently verified these messages were official government communications. Mańkowski did not dispute their veracity in his interview.
“Asking for my opinion about Lukaszuk was just a kind of trap, was just a political test of my loyalty,” he said.
Poland’s Ambassador to Canada Witold Dzielski called the allegation “totally absurd.”
“The idea of Polish diplomacy spying on a former provincial politician … it’s really out of this world,” Dzielski said.
He said he has never met Lukaszuk and did not know of his previous career in politics before Lukaszuk emailed him about an unrelated consular matter long before the reports about Mańkowski came out.
Dzielski said that if the notes cited by Lukaszuk are real, they were leaked illegally because they would constitute private diplomatic communications.
The affair has captured attention in Polish media, where the story first broke.
In July, Polish opposition politicians cited the messages released by Lukaszuk when they asked Piotr Wawrzyk, a secretary of state in the government’s foreign affairs department, whether Mańkowski was dismissed because he refused to spy on Lukaszuk.
In reply, Wawrzyk said the government could recall a diplomat who refused to carry out an assignment.
Wawrzyk, who was also a deputy foreign minister, has since been fired himself over an unrelated matter both local media outlets and Reuters have linked to a clandestine scheme awarding migrants visas in exchange for cash.
On Saturday, The Associated Press noted he had been hospitalized following an apparent sucide attempt.
“The minister, Wawrzyk, was laid off because of a totally different subject,” Dzielski said.
He pointed out that those documents were cited by opposition politicians in the context of a heated election campaign.
Dzielski� also said it’s normal for diplomats to be asked to gather information on notable members of diaspora communities.
‘A very marginal conversation’
“We are working very closely with them,” he said. “It is obvious and natural, and it is an element of diplomatic workshops, that we provide and we build ourselves opinions about the quality of cooperation with particular actors.”
He said Global Affairs has spoken to him about the allegations. “We had a very marginal conversation on this which reflects the level of seriousness of this topic,” he said.
A NATO member, Poland has worked closely with Canada to help out its neighbour Ukraine ever since Russia launched its full-scale invasion last year.
Asked for comment, Global Affairs said in a media statement it “continues to work closely with security and intelligence community partners to assess the situation and identify next steps as appropriate.”
The department said last month it had contacted Lukaszuk and that it took the responsibility of protecting Canadians from “transnational repression” very seriously.
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The Current20:05Putting politics aside to tackle the housing crisis
Political leaders of all stripes must find a way to work together to solve the housing and climate crises impacting Canadians, says former Conservative MP Lisa Raitt.
“Toronto is the best example. NDP mayor, provincial premier who’s Conservative, federal Liberal who’s the prime minister,” said Raitt, co-lead of the new non-governmental Task Force for Housing and Climate, which launched Tuesday.
“And if they don’t figure this out, one voter is going to punish them all.”
The new task force is concerned with accelerating the construction of new homes, while ensuring that’s done in a sustainable way. In a press release, the group of former city mayors, planners, developers, economists and affordable housing advocates said it intends to convene until April 2024 to develop policy recommendations. The work is supported by the Clean Economy Fund, a charitable foundation.
Raitt held several senior cabinet posts under former prime minister Stephen Harper. But as co-lead of the task force, Raitt said she won’t engage in the political partisanship that she thinks “poisons the well” around these issues.
“Part of the reason why we’re coming together as the task force is to have a real pragmatic and practical conversation about these issues instead of weaponizing it into a political arena, and finger pointing back and forth,” she told The Current’s Matt Galloway.
Justin Trudeau announced funding to build more housing in London, Ont., as he and Liberal MPs kicked off their caucus retreat. The agreement comes as the government faces growing pressure to help make housing more affordable.
Canada needs to build an extra 3.5 million new units by the end of the decade, over and above what’s already in the works, according to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. A report this week showed rental costs have increased 9.6 per cent from Aug. 2022 to 2023, to an average now of $2,117 a month.
This week, the federal government announced it would cut the federal goods and services tax (GST) from the construction of new rental apartments, in an effort to spur new development. The Liberal government also pledged $74 million to build thousands of homes in London, Ont., — the first in what it hopes will be a series of agreements to accelerate housing construction.
Speaking in London on Wednesday, Housing Minister Sean Fraser called on municipalities to “legalize housing,” urging them to remove “sluggish permit-approval processes” and zoning obstacles if they expect federal investment in housing construction.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre took aim at Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s housing plans Thursday, saying the Liberal government’s ‘inflationary deficits’ and ‘taxes and bureaucracy’ are holding back construction of new homes.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre criticized the government’s plans as not going far enough, while pointing out it echoes some of his party’s proposals. He’s proposed measures that tie federal funding to the number of housing starts. Funding would be withheld from cities that fail to increase the number of homes built by 15 per cent, while cities that pass that threshold would receive bonuses.
Poilievre’s proposals also include a “NIMBY” fine on municipalities that block construction because of opposition from local residents, and the sale of 15 per cent of federally owned buildings so the land can be used to build affordable homes.
Don Iveson, former mayor of Edmonton and co-lead of the task force, said he understands why partisan politics can creep into the debate — but Canadians expect more.
He said the task force intends “to help all orders of government” understand what’s needed to tackle these problems from an economic, technical and planning perspective.
“We’re not going to be able to solve the housing crisis [by] building housing the way we built it for the last several generations,” said said Iveson, who was mayor of Edmonton from 2013 to 2021.
Your kids need a place to live: Raitt
Iveson said the challenge of scaling up housing construction will require some new ways of thinking.
That might mean a greater emphasis on automation and building houses from components prefabricated off-site, which he described as “essentially a more factory approach” that could also reduce construction costs.
Raitt said the task force will examine where houses are built, and in what kind of density, to ensure scaling up can “get the most bang for the buck.”
That might mean Canadians might need to have difficult conversations, including whether to build multi-storey buildings instead of single-family homes.
Raitt said older Canadians who already own their own homes might not like the idea of taller buildings going up around them, but they should speak to their kids about it.
CBC’s Sohrab Sandhu reports on an unorthodox strategy where some people are deciding to buy homes with strangers.
“They don’t care if it’s going to be four, six storeys in a residential neighbourhood. They just want a place that they know that they can purchase,” she said.
“Talk about whether or not our kids are going to have a place to live, let alone rent, let alone own, let alone a house in the communities where they were brought up, because right now it’s not looking so good.”
Counting the cost of climate change
When it comes to climate change and sustainability, the task force’s goals come down to a “very simple equation,” Raitt said.
“Whatever we’re building now is going to be here in 2050. So if it’s going to be part of the calculation of our net-zero aspirations, whatever they’re going to be,” she said.
She said the task force will work to formulate ways to build housing that take emissions into account, but don’t include prohibitive costs that slow down the rate of construction.
“It’s going to be a little bit more costly to build with climate indications built in … but you’ve got to make sure that there’s policies surrounding that to make sure it still makes it affordable,” she said.
Officials say the fire, which is burning out of control as of Monday morning, is expected to grow.
Iveson said wildfires, floods, heat domes and extreme weather events are already disrupting the economy, as well as posing huge financial burdens for the Canadians caught up in them.
“Climate change is already costing us a fortune,” he told Galloway.
Building without those climate considerations “maybe seems affordable in the short term, but it’s false economy when it comes to the real costs ahead of us,” he said.
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