UNCOMMONS

Your participation matters now more than ever.

This is not a normal election.

We need serious leadership. To protect and build on our progress. And strong local representation.

Your participation matters now more than ever.

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Every day has felt like a week, and we’ve made the most of these last three months.

With an election on the horizon, we made the most of our last week.

For example, I laid out my thoughts on all things housing in a comprehensive speech at the Economic Club of Canada. You can read the full text of that speech below.

We launched Toronto Builds alongside Mayor Chow. It’s $2.55 billion in low-cost financing for 5,000 new rental units, with more than 20% set to be below market. It builds on our waterfront deal, support to address encampments, and funding for the TTC.

Speaking of transit, we announced federal support for two major priority transit projects across Canada, including BC Translink and the Brampton LRT extension.

On the housing front, we got the first few co-op projects over the finish line, released the new Housing Catalogue, and landed Canada Housing Infrastructure Fund deals with British Columbia and a number of municipalities, including Mississauga, Sault Ste. Marie, and Sudbury. We are funding housing enabling infrastructure and incentivizing development charge reductions and reforms at the same time.

We’re also supporting the North, as we approved major new housing enabling infrastructure projects in Yellowknife, Whitehorse, and Iqaluit.

Lastly, I finalized a number of announcements through the Green and Inclusive Communities Building fund. There are great projects across the country, but I was especially happy to approve $20 million for the expansion of Science North, which I have fond memories of visiting as a kid, with a tarantula crawling all over my hand. We need to defend and expand science learning for our kids.

As busy as I was, the new Prime Minister was even busier.

After meeting allies in Europe, Prime Minister Carney met with Premiers to unlock internal free trade, announced an initial housing measure, and committed to a series of measures to strengthen our Arctic sovereignty. He also enjoyed St. Patrick’s Day.

No question, there’s real momentum heading into the election. Increasingly, Canadians understand that we need serious leadership in this moment, and a government focused on building up our country and economy in a thoughtful way.

My team and I have worked hard to make the most of these last three months. We’ve gotten a lot done. I expect to see many new and even more ambition housing commitments in the weeks ahead. And I hope we have the opportunity to come back and make an even bigger difference.

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SPEECH TO THE ECONOMIC CLUB OF CANADA ON MARCH 18, 2025

First, a thank you to everyone for being here. But a special thanks in particular to my team. For putting this together, but also for doing as much as they’ve done these last three months.

When I took on this role, I expected it to be a short runway and said as much during the December swearing in. We’ve worked hard to make the most of it. And I now stand before you with a measure of experience. A cabinet minister for less than three months, but I’ve already served under two Prime Ministers.

Jokes aside, Paul my deputy is here, and he and the civil service have been a huge help. Coleen and the team at CMHC have worked overtime too and put up with my constant prodding. And my political staff, some new and some with me since 2015; none of this happens without them.

Apart from responding to President Trump’s threats and tariffs, I see delivering housing and infrastructure as the most important job we’ve got. It is time to build.

We need to ensure population growth and housing supply go hand in hand. We’ve got a huge amount of work ahead to double housing starts across this country.

But I want to start with a more basic story, and a question of opportunity.

Imagine two young people at university, let’s say that they meet in teacher’s college. They graduate, find different teaching gigs, get together. After a stint living together with friends, they move out on their own into a co-op.

5 years of living in that co-op and three kids later, they need more space.

With savings and some family support, they buy their first home. A modest three bedroom, semi-detached home that’s more than 60 years old. The price of that home is 4-5 times one teacher’s salary, while the other teacher stays home to raise the three kids for a few years.

Those three kids grow up wanting for little. A middle class life in Toronto, in Canada. They take transit to school, enjoy the summers with family road trips, camping, and sports, and they save up for a post-secondary education of their own, with a mix of help from their teacher parents as well as student loans.

The family is, in many ways, set up for success.

It’s one of many middle class stories in this country that many Canadians might recognize and identify with, and there is a basic equality of opportunity built into it.

But it might as well be a fairy tale today. Where it once took an average of five years to save up for a 20% down payment on a starter home, that number is up to 17 years across Canada and 27 years if you live in the GTA.

The housing crisis is a challenge to any sense of generational fairness.

It’s also a real challenge to our country’s productivity. Young and talented people won’t stay to work and contribute here if they can’t afford to live here.

Market housing is too expensive and non-market housing is too scarce.

Canada saw 230,000 housing starts in 2024. We need to double that.

The overall share of our social housing stock is less than 4%. We need to double that.

It sounds hard. And it is. But if we don’t collectively act with the requisite ambition, across orders of government and industries, the housing crisis will only get worse.

As a federal government, we’ve come a long way since 2015.

The National Housing Strategy was an important step to re-assert the federal role in housing. We saw additional action post-pandemic, including through the Housing Accelerator Fund. As of last year, my predecessor Sean Fraser helped oversee the most comprehensive plan yet.

And Marc Miller took action to reduce our immigration levels, including to significantly reduce temporary immigration that had become unsustainable. On the government’s estimates, the new levels plan will reduce the housing supply gap by about 670,000 units by the end of 2027.

Even with these cuts in place, we could see our population grow to 45 million by 2035. The reduced levels will help to stabilize demand, but we still need to build more homes to accommodate that growth.

More, we’ve seen housing affordability run away on us over the last two decades – home prices and rents running away from incomes – and it’s been even more acute since the pandemic.

We don’t just need more homes to match the growth to come, we also need to catch up to the growth we’ve already seen.

Again, housing starts need to double, with massive increases especially needed in Ontario, BC, Nova Scotia, Montreal, and Alberta outside of Edmonton, and more.

So I’m not here to tell you that it’s mission accomplished, but to reiterate that there’s much more for us to do: to help drive down the costs of home building, to re-invest in community housing, and to treat housing as a home first.

Driving down the cost of home building

Simply put, we need more of all kinds of housing, built faster, and governments need to get out of the way to help make that happen.

To cut red tape and end restrictive zoning.

To reduce the tax burden on home building.

And to drive innovation.

It’s an even more difficult and pressing challenge in the face of the cost pressures and uncertainty that follow from the unconscionable US tariffs.

But we can and should focus on what’s in our control.

i) Red Tape

Let’s start with red tape and restrictive zoning.

We can’t accept outdated rules that protect so-called neighbourhood character at the expense of new neighbours who are looking for an affordable place to call home.

A premier holds the pen to end exclusionary zoning (and I didn’t quite get that far), but we can use our federal spending power to make a difference all the same.

Through the Housing Accelerator Fund we’ve allocated $4.4 billion through deals with more than 200 municipalities to reward housing ambition.

To end restrictive zoning, making gentle density the default without the red tape.

To speed up and modernize approval processes, because time is money.

And to make public land available for more housing supply.

It’s modeled on the Ontario’s Housing Affordability Task Force basic recommendations to increase density, remove exclusionary rules that prevent housing growth, and make sure municipalities are treated as partners in this process by incentivizing success.

Pierre Poilievre once railed against municipal gatekeepers and restrictive zoning. He now wants to cut the single program that’s done the heavy lifting to cut the red tape he used to complain about. He even barred his own MPs from going to bat for change in their home communities.

Anyone who cares about cutting red tape should instead think about doubling down on efforts that reward success and ambition.

Just yesterday, I approved a 10% HAF top-up for the top 7 municipal growth leaders, with $70 million reallocated from cities that walked away from the table.

Last month, I was blamed at City Council here in Toronto for the expedited process on avenues, and I consider that blame a badge of honour.

To be fair to Poilievre, he does have an alternative incentive model. The trouble is that it makes no sense. I’m just going to read from his plan for a second: “cities must increase the number of homes built by 15% each year and then 15% on top of the previous target every single year (it compounds).” If cities miss those targets? “A percentage of their federal funding will be withheld, equivalent to the percentage they missed their target by.”

Why would one want to punish top performers by requiring compound growth every year? Why would one accept a 15% increase from the worst performers?

In my view, the HAF model is a good one at its core and we should look to build upon it in partnership with provinces.

We’re working, for example, to improve transparency in tracking with CMHC publishing summaries of municipal progress.

More than that, we now have the benefit of more than 200 deals to see which municipal changes have driven the most growth and what is working best. Encouraging the adoption of auto permitting makes a lot of sense, for example. Requiring pre-approval of CMHC’s housing design catalogue is another. I’d welcome your own examples and opportunities to improve outcomes through a HAF 2.0.

It isn’t all on one program, of course.

For example, our Canada Public Transit Fund isn’t only the largest investment Canada has ever made in public transit, and it doesn’t only provide stable, predictable, long-term funding for state of good repair, to strengthen and expand existing transit networks. It also requires larger municipalities to enable high-density housing within 800 metres of high-frequency transit lines and post-secondary institutions.

Every infrastructure program we put into place is requiring additional reforms and action.

ii) Taxes

Beyond red tape, taxes can also be a major barrier to new builds. And we need much greater action here too.

At the federal level, we lifted GST entirely on new rental construction and have seen positive results.

The GST new housing rebate was implemented in 1991, it hasn’t been updated or indexed, and it doesn’t account for today’s market in any way. You can expect to hear more on this shortly from our government

• NOTE: Prime Minister Carney subsequently announced that the GST would be eliminated on all homes up to $1 million for first-time home buyers. This ensures the benefit doesn’t flow to speculators, which is a good first step and better than Poilievre’s promise. But worth noting that the existing GST new housing rebate is only available for homes purchased as a principal residence, so there’s already a useful guardrail built in, and we should keep the conversation open on how we can best ensure this measure drives supply and applies to help in regions like the GTA and Metro Vancouver.

In last year’s housing plan, we introduced an accelerated capital cost allowance for builders. And a rollover on capital gains that are re-invested in getting housing built would likely have an even stronger policy effect. Everything is currently on the table.

Of course, in many communities, the biggest tax burden on new builds is development charges. Worse, they do not consistently reflect the true costs and needs of delivering infrastructure.

It’s not an easy problem to tackle at the federal level, as it’s not the same challenge across the country. Development charges are a particular problem in Ontario and BC, and even within these provinces it can be apples to oranges between municipalities. Sault Ste Marie doesn’t have development charges. Vancouver and Toronto obviously have sky high DCs.

The Canada Housing Infrastructure Fund aims to address this challenge.

The idea is two-fold: to help provinces and municipalities pay for housing enabling infrastructure and secure commitments to freeze or reduce development charges.

We’ve secured a number of provincial and territorial deals these last few months. In return for funding, the deals require zoning reforms, a three-year development charge freeze, and harmonized building codes and standards.

Where we’re unable to secure a P/T deal, we are moving to finance housing enabling infrastructure with applications directly from municipalities. We will judge applications not only based on the merit of the specific housing enabling infrastructure project as submitted, but also by the ambition of action on DCs.

Sudbury, for example, has implemented a three-year freeze alongside a three-year moratorium on all DCs on multi-unit residential builds.

Other municipalities are deferring the collection of development charges to occupancy and waiving interest and waiving DCs entirely on the first four units of a multi-unit residential build.

Here in Toronto, we’ve been working on a local version of BC Builds, and it wouldn’t be possible to land a deal like that without Toronto’s recent action to reduce DCs and property taxes for rental builders that make 20% of the new units more affordable.

• NOTE: we subsequently announced the $2.5 billion deal, making lower-interest and long-term financing available for Toronto priority projects to drive affordable rental housing.

Our overall goal is to establish a set of best practices, as we drive down development charges.

Recognizing the provincial lead here and the need to help municipal finances, we will continue to be a strong partner by directly providing capital funds for housing enabling infrastructure and by expanding what’s included in the scope of eligible work.

But let’s be honest. The infrastructure gap is massive here.

When I met the Quebec builders in Montreal to talk about the $1 billion over 10 years in available funding for a provincial deal, they spoke of a $45 billion water infrastructure gap alone. Some municipalities like Gatineau have a moratorium on new housing because of the lack of water infrastructure.

There’s a significant opportunity here to mandate the Canada Infrastructure Bank to finance housing enabling infrastructure, recognizing that the gap cannot reasonably be closed by deficit-financed contributions or development charges.

Because if we expect growth to pay entirely for growth, we will simply get less growth. And the reality is that everybody benefits from growth.

iii) Innovation

Innovation is critical to growing the housing supply as well, and Prime Minister Carney spoke directly about driving housing innovation in his leadership bid.

That focus is critical when you consider our current productivity challenge in getting homes built. Consider these facts for example:

• Productivity in the residential construction sector has dropped by 25% since 2016.

• The construction sector is fragmented with only 22 of 38,000 residential construction firms employing more than 200 workers.

• The cost to build residential housing increased by 60% since the pandemic, outpacing overall inflation of 15%.

• The sector is forecasted to require 300,000 workers by 2032 to replace the 22% of current labour force expected to retire.

We need to seize the opportunity in off-site construction. We know that factory built homes cut construction time, labour costs, and waste. And mass timber off-site construction in particular represents a unique opportunity for a made in Canada approach, especially in this moment.

The biggest barrier to achieving maximum cost savings from off-site construction like modular is the lack of a sufficiently large production run.

Again, all options are on the table.

I favour an advance bulk purchase of factory-built homes, to guarantee a book of business across different regions, in partnership with municipalities and non-profits that make available serviced public land. Through the Affordable Housing Innovation Fund, we’ve launched a recent call for proposals with $60 million in available capital to finance a few demonstration projects.

Procurement on federal land can drive business here too.

Investment tax credits to help factories scale make good sense.

And we need to work with provinces and territories to support skills training and ensure the labour force is ready for the industrialization of home building.

iv) Financing

In the Prime Minister’s recent leadership bid, he committed to “catalyze enormous private investment to build new affordable homes for younger Canadians by aggressively unlocking private risk capital for new home construction.”

We’ve seen great success with the always oversubscribed Apartment Construction Loan Program, and there’s a huge opportunity to use lower cost financing to help make the math pencil on new projects or existing projects that are otherwise stalled.

Re-investing in social and community housing

Of course, even the herculean effort of doubling housing starts is not enough on its own.

Because we know the market alone won’t deliver the affordability we need – it never has.

In the 1940s, Wartime Housing Limited was created, a crown agency that bought land and contracted the construction of houses, using pre-approved designs, priced for veterans and young families of moderate incomes.

We need that same wartime effort today.

There used to be a cross-party consensus on the need for a forceful government role, especially when it comes to community and social housing.

Consider that in the 1960s, a Progressive Conservative government in Ontario created a public authority that set the conditions for a tenfold increase in the production of social housing.

Watch: TVO’s The Agenda Interview

Fast forward and Mike Harris’ Common Sense Revolution helped kill that consensus. And as we try to bring it back federally, Poilievre’s so-called common sense cuts are around the corner.

When asked, he’s been clear. The government has no role to play in building affordable non-market homes. He describes public housing as Soviet-style housing, actively demeaning the kind of co-op and community housing that those two teachers and their kids depended on.

As long as I’m housing minister, I will continue to emphasize that we need to double the share of social and public housing in this country, a commitment echoed by Prime Minister Mark Carney when running for leadership.

Our current social housing stock is less than 4%. The OECD average level of non-market housing in high-income countries is 7 per cent. France mandates that urban municipalities ensure at least 25 per cent of their housing stock is dedicated to social housing by this year. In Vienna, widely considered to be one of the world’s most livable cities, more than 60 per cent of the population lives in government-subsidized housing.

We have a $1.5 billion acquisition fund that is just in its infancy. I’ve recently changed the authorities within the existing Affordable Housing Fund to enable acquisition as well. And today, I can tell you that the first three projects in our new $1.5 billion co-op housing development fund have been fully financed by CMHC.

The leadership at CMHC is committed to doubling non-market housing, the National Housing Council is committed, and our current government is committed.

We need to expand the pool of public and community lands to be made available for housing, an initiative launched less than a year ago. And we need to match those lands with long-term guaranteed low-interest loans and contributions, with CMHC helping non-market actors scale.

CMHC has a much more proactive role to play here, to move quickly, and to act more like a community housing development bank.

A Canadian version of the Low Income Housing Tax Credit is also worth considering.

73 per cent of Canadians see non-profit and co-op housing as viable solutions to the housing crisis. I’m one of those Canadians, Pierre Poilievre isn’t.

Elections are about choices.

Ending homelessness and addressing encampments

We also have a very different view in how to address encampments and homelessness.

I don’t think it’s helpful to other people. To treat the most vulnerable in our society as an opportunity for a partisan attack.

Anyone who has walked around the parks and main streets of Canadian cities knows we need to do more to address homelessness: both for compassionate and public safety reasons.

The simplest answer is the right one: to prevent homelessness, we need more homes.

We’ve increased homelessness supports – our Reaching Home strategy – by 400% since the pandemic. We’ve delivered $4 billion to get shelters, transitional and supportive housing built through the Rapid Housing Initiative, with another $1 billion being allocated by CMHC.

Watch: Ending Homelessness & Addressing Encampments

As a result of this work, more than 88,000 people have been placed in more stable housing and more than 150,000 have been helped with core prevention services.

We recently topped up funding with $250 million over two years, to be matched by provinces or municipalities where provinces don’t partner with us.

Here in Ontario, we reached deals with 12 municipalities that agreed to cost-match our contributions. Since taking on this role, I’ve been working to reprofile soon to be lapsed funds elsewhere to support communities in Saskatchewan and Ontario to address this immediate need.

Ontario is the only province where responsibility for social housing has been downloaded to municipalities. As a result, we are in a crisis.

I wish it was one we heard more about in this past provincial election, but regardless of how we got here, we need all parties and all levels of government to be part of the solution.

Public spaces – our parks and main streets – should be welcoming to all members of our community, and we can deliver the communities we all deserve while ensuring that we’re treating people – in many cases the most vulnerable in our society – with respect and dignity.

Housing First.

Treating housing as a home first

That idea has a particular meaning in addressing homelessness. When I spoke at the Youth Homelessness Prevention Conference, it’s a term of art.

But it has resonance for me beyond that.

We need to attract massive investment in new building. Of course we do.

But in a competition for existing homes, investment dollars shouldn’t displace affordability.

For example, different jurisdictions here in Canada don’t allow investors to profit from short-term rentals. Other countries, like New Zealand, set higher down payments and more stringent stress tests for investors in the existing resale space.

In the end, we should look at all available rules to prioritize people who are buying houses as a place to call home.

Conclusion

It’s short-term thinking that has contributed to inaction and neglect from all levels of government, creating and eventually deepening the crisis that we’re in.

We’re done with half measures. And we’re treating this issue with the seriousness that is warranted in a crisis.

You’ve heard Prime Minister Mark Carney say that it’s time to build. And it is.

So the choice we have is clear: between Pierre Poilievre, who built next to no homes when he was housing minister, plans to reverse the progress we’ve made on red tape reduction, and doesn’t see a role for the federal government in community housing.

Or serious economic leadership that is ready to build more than we have in decades.

Because our country’s prosperity depends on it. And our individual sense of opportunity depends on it too.

Those two teachers living in that co-op were my parents. And I want that same sense of opportunity for my young kids.

Back to work to defend Canadians against the threat of tariffs and to build up our country.

We were at Rideau Hall this afternoon, where Mark Carney was sworn in as Canada’s 24th Prime Minister.

I’m back as the Minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities and back to work. I have a list of things I’m working to get across the finish line before an election, and setting down ideas for what comes next.

Thanks for reading! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

Watch my interview on TVO: How Can Canada Make Housing Affordable

As I told my local Beach Metro News, we can expect an election sooner than later.

Every opposition party has said they intend to bring the government down. We’re set to have an election this year no matter what. And the new Prime Minister needs a new mandate, especially to deal with President Trump.

Of course, Prime Minister Trudeau leaves on a high note, in no small part because of how he’s stood up for Canada against Trump’s threats to our economic and national security.

We’ve had some disagreements over the years, but I’m also in politics because of Justin Trudeau’s commitment over a decade ago to more grassroots politics and I’m thankful to him for a great deal.

For his commitment to public service.

For meeting the moment in too many crises.

For making space for reasonable disagreement and more independence.

And for major progress in supporting families, climate action, reconciliation, and more.

The overriding focus for our new government and leader remains standing up against President Trump.

That work includes necessary retaliatory measures and firm diplomacy. It also means building Canada up with a stronger and more productive economy.

It is time to build. Especially housing and infrastructure.

A united response to the threat of tariffs, and hard work to build up Canada.

We live in the dumbest timeline.

An American president cozying up to the dictator Putin while threatening Canada.

Prime Minister Trudeau nicely summed up our nation’s collective frustration: “Make that make sense.”

One might say that it’s stranger than fiction, except that today’s plot parallels the B-movie classic Canadian Bacon. At one point in that film, a nutty security official even says about Canada: “They’re practically the 51st state.”

As a one-off comment from the President, it could be laughed away uncomfortably.

But when repeated and paired with damaging tariffs, we face a real and serious threat to our economic and national security. The long-standing friendship between our two countries is now upended, in the most chaotic and irresponsible way possible.

The tariff threat has been on, then off, then on, now delayed to April 2 (but maybe tariffs on dairy are still coming), all at the whim of America’s King Lear.

Back in December, I laid out the case against tariffs, explained the non-existent flow of illegal drugs and migrants, and pointed to our important history of cooperation.

Watch: Dear American, remember Canada is your ally and friend

But bad reality TV has gone to Washington and facts don’t seem to matter.

So we are left to fight tooth and nail, with a united Team Canada approach.

Prime Minister Trudeau has led the way, as the statesman and national leader our country needs. Our federal government has now implemented forceful and targeted retaliatory tariffs (if you are affected by these measures, there’s a remission process) that will be lifted when this trade war is over.

Premiers like Doug Ford have also been effective, not only taking the fight to the American airwaves, but moving forward with measures on alcohol and electricity.

In my last post, I shared my pride in being Canadian. Especially in this moment.

Watch: Proud To Be Canadian

Know that we will remain united. We will defend our country against these threats. And we will build our country up at the same time.

It’s time to build: update on Housing & Infrastructure

We will continue to build up Canada in a number of different ways.

Our federal government recently announced the next step towards high speed rail between Toronto and Quebec City. As I said in interviews, it’s a huge boon to productivity and we need to speed up the timeline for making it a reality.

Of course, sustained productivity also depends on increasing our housing supply.

Last week, in Winnipeg, I co-hosted a meeting with provincial Housing Ministers to discuss ways we can best work together to drive down the costs of home building, get more community housing built, address homelessness, and respond to the threat of tariffs. I spoke to CBC’s The House about this latter challenge too.

We’ve kept incredibly busy otherwise, making a number of deals with provinces and territories on housing enabling infrastructure, and travelling across the country for announcements:

• PEI: announced an $86 million deal to build more housing enabling infrastructure. See CBC interview here.

• New Brunswick: spoke at the Federation of Canadian Municipalities’ Sustainable Communities Conference about how we’re supporting zero emission transit, greener buildings, climate adaptation efforts, and more.

• Yukon: announced $33 million, the largest federal housing investment in Yukon history. A housing infrastructure fund deal is soon to come.

• BC: announced $675 million for over 80 affordable housing and rental projects. A housing infrastructure deal is coming there too.

• Manitoba: announced $240 million for over 100 affordable housing and rental projects, followed by a $204 million housing enabling infrastructure deal.

• Ontario: announced over $85 million to address encampments and homelessness, over $130 million for the Housing Accelerator Fund, as well as $2.2 billion to strengthen and expand existing public transit networks in 40+ cities.

  
  In Toronto, we landed a major deal (federal contribution of $500 million) on the waterfront to unlock 14,000 homes, finalized a $1 billion deal to deliver 50+ subway cars, and we’re working towards a Toronto Builds financing model.

• Quebec: met with Ministers towards a deal on housing enabling infrastructure, hosted a roundtable with Quebec builders, and engaged with community housing providers.

We are also starting to announce a number of community and climate resilient infrastructure projects. Last week, for example, we committed:

• $20 million to build a new Somali Centre for Culture and Recreation.

• $25 million to expand the McMichael Canadian Art Collection.

• $7.2 million for a new skilled trades training centre in Scarborough through the Toronto Business Development Centre.

On the question of driving down the costs of homebuilding, we’ve seen major progress in zoning and permit approvals through our Housing Accelerator Fund. Next, via the Housing Infrastructure Fund, we’re pushing for action on development charges, including a freeze, deferring collection (and waiving interest) to occupancy, and waiving DCs entirely on the first 4 units of a multi-unit residential building.

On a personal note, I’ve made clear my commitment to ending homelessness on a number of occasions, including recent remarks at the Youth Homelessness Prevention Conference. I’m now working to reprofile funds that are set to lapse and direct them towards addressing homelessness in communities that did not receive initial support and CMHC has opened applications for innovative housing solutions, prioritizing delivering homes to address homelessness.

Watch: Ending Homelessness and Addressing Encampments

If I leave you with anything, it’s that my team and I have worked to make the most of too short a runway.

What comes next?

That runway will hopefully be extended in the coming months.

There’s so much more to do (especially on community housing), and we need experienced and thoughtful leadership now more than ever. We’ve seen a huge shift in the polls, driven by many things no doubt, including a realization that we can’t afford the unserious slogans and childish personal attacks that Poilievre’s leadership represents (after a brief flirtation with defending Canada around Flag Day, Poilievre and team are already back to their regularly scheduled character assassination).

We deserve better in our politics. We deserve smart, fair, and honest representation. And we deserve a leader who has what it takes to stand up against President Trump.

Thanks to everyone who has participated in the leadership process (I know how challenging the voting process has been).

I’ll be in Ottawa on Sunday to welcome our new leader and Prime Minister, and I remain committed to serving our community and country in these challenging political times.

Celebrating our flag today. We live in one of the freest countries in the world. And it’s going to stay that way.

I am proud to be Canadian.

Yes, there’s still work to reconcile with our past, because we believe in justice. And sure, we have our fair share of challenges. What country doesn’t?

But we aren’t broken, and certain politicians should stop talking down this great country.

Canada will always be a work in progress, and it’s also an incredible success.

Today we’re celebrating 60 years of our national flag, and it’s an interesting reminder of how Canadians in the past thought of themselves as British. The idea of a new flag was jeered by many at the time.

Over time, we forged our own identity. And then Prime Minister Pearson understood that that sense of identity should be reflected by a unique flag of our own.

As Canadians, we are defined by many regional differences. Of course we are.

But we share values. Freedom, equality, and rule of law in our democracy. Honesty, hard work, and a sense of humour in our homes.

We are a multicultural country welcoming people of all creeds and colour.

And our sense of individualism sits alongside our sense of solidarity and concern for our neighbours.

We are good neighbours.

That means we show respect and we expect the same.

So don’t take our decency, kindness and generosity as a sign of weakness. We are also tough as nails and we persevere.

We live in one of the freest countries in the world. And it’s going to stay that way.

Drive down the costs of home building, double down on our commitment to community housing, end homelessness, and treat housing as a home first and an investment second.

I’ve been busy making transit and housing related announcements across Ontario these last few weeks, and we’re set to travel across the country going forward. As a result, I’m a little behind on writing and sharing ideas.

Of course, the US-Canada relationship and the real threat of tariffs have been, and will continue to be, the government’s primary focus. For example, at the Federation of Canadian Municipalities’ Big City Mayors caucus this past week, we spoke about how to best prepare for the worst on tariffs, including supply chain disruptions and pricing uncertainty, and potential stimulus for capital projects.

I also shared my core priorities on the housing file with the big city mayors, which I laid out in this explainer video in greater detail.

We’ll be doing deeper dives on these specific priorities in the coming weeks:

• Driving down the costs of home building: How can we best reduce taxes (including development charges), cut red tape and end exclusionary zoning, and drive innovation and economies of scale in home building?

• Re-investing in social and community housing: How can we double the amount of nonmarket housing over the next decade? We used to build much more community housing in this country and other countries build much more today.

• Ending homelessness: I did this deeper dive on a Housing First approach, the increased commitment from the feds to address homelessness through rapid housing and operational supports, and the growing challenges despite that substantial federal contribution.

• Treating housing as a home first and investment second: We should incentivize new investment in building homes across the housing continuum. But in a competition for existing homes, investment dollars shouldn’t displace affordability. We should look at all available rules to prioritize people who are buying houses as a place to call home.

• Canada-US relations and home construction: I didn’t touch on this in the above video, but about a month ago I did this explainer on tariffs, the trade deficit, border concerns, and why the Canada-US relationship should be built upon, not undermined. I’ll be doing an update given where we seem to be headed, potential impacts to my portfolio, and why we should continue to choose Canada.

If you’ve got other questions, we’ll work to answer those too by way of short video explainers or posts here. Just send us an email or post in the comments.

Thanks for following otherwise. And let’s stay strong, free, and united in the face of this serious threat to our economic and national interests from our long-standing ally.

We should all be embarrassed that we’ve let shameless politics kill a system that cost-effectively reduces pollution and ensures the poorest are overwhelmingly made better off.

Policies need popular support to be sustained. I get that. And the carbon pricing + rebate system is now dead, killed by Conservatives in a dedicated campaign of lies.

We failed to defend it successfully.

Singh already walked away from consumer carbon pricing months ago. And now all LPC leadership candidates are ready to do the same.

We should all be embarrassed that we’ve let shameless politics kill a system that cost-effectively reduces pollution and ensures the poorest are overwhelmingly made better off.

We forget too easily that Harper, Poilievre, Manning and politicians who otherwise express unending devotion to free markets all previously supported carbon pricing.

Why? Because it’s a market-based mechanism for reducing pollution, by internalizing a negative externality and driving innovation.

Too many too easily accept the lie that carbon pricing makes Canadians poorer.

Yes, it could have been better designed to recycle revenues in a more targeted way to working class families rather than universal payments. But the rebate system clearly made the poorest in our society better off.

So what happens now?

1) Fighting climate change gets more expensive for the taxpayer. Consumer carbon pricing only represented around 10% of emission reductions in the overall plan, so it’s thankfully not fatal. But alternative subsidy approaches to reach the same cuts to pollution will cost us more.

2) The poorest will now be worse off. The rebate made most families whole on a fiscal basis, but the poorest in our society were much better off. Without the price on pollution, there’s no revenue for the rebates.

I’m not new to politics. I understand the need to win to implement good ideas. But it’s shameful that we’ve gotten to this place, where good ideas must be sacrificed to sustained lies.

LPC leadership contestants need to step up with better ideas now: on affordability, productivity, inequality, democratic reform, and climate action.

See also:

An opportunity to shape our politics away from slander and towards substance. Why I’m supporting Mark Carney for leader.

We have an opportunity to shape our politics.

So here’s a final call to register to vote in the Liberal leadership race.

I have a ton of respect for my colleagues who are running for leader. We are lucky to have the quality of contestants in this race that we do.

My vote for the next leader will go to Mark Carney.

He’s serious and thoughtful.

He’s committed to economic and environmental sustainability.

And he brings a wealth of experience, having helped Canada navigate the Great Recession and the UK manage through Brexit.

With that experience, Mark is best placed to defend Canadian interests against the threat of tariffs.

He’s a strong contrast to Poilievre’s cartoon slogans and shallow attacks.

And he’s the right leader to protect our progress, and to build on it.

As Mark says: it is time to build.

Having just hosted an event with Mark in Beaches-East York, I can also say that he draws a real crowd. Canadians (from across the political spectrum) are looking for someone to vote for, rightly find the alternatives wanting, and see in Carney someone with substance.

Can Toronto get a new housing deal?

Here’s an article by / Q&A with journalist Simon Lewsen for The Toronto Star.

When Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, member of Parliament for Beaches-East York was sworn in as Minister of Housing, Infrastructure, and Communities last December, it was surely a mixed blessing. The rising-star MP was finally getting a cabinet portfolio. But he was being tasked with managing one of the toughest problems in Canada on a timeline that, depending on the next election, could be incredibly short.

But Erskine-Smith aims to make the most of things. In an interview that has been edited for clarity and length, he spoke about the Trudeau government’s successes and failures on the housing front, and why he’s looking forward to the months ahead, despite the challenges his party — and country — now face.

The federal government announced its national housing strategy in 2017, with the intention of reducing the number of people in housing need. Since then, that number has increased by 660,000. What went wrong?

With the national housing strategy there was, for the first time in decades, a reassertion of the federal role in housing. Was it sufficient to address the scale of the problem? No. We’ve got to double down. But the federal government can’t act alone. We need provincial leadership. We’re seeing success in some provinces, but Ontario is dragging the country down when it comes to housing starts.

Is it your opinion that the national housing strategy was doing the right things but at a scale that was incommensurate with the problem?

I would add that the 2017 version of the strategy was missing components. The original plan was focused on providing low-interest loans [to repair or build affordable homes. You’ve got to marry that loans program, though, with significant grants, specifically for non-profit housing. Recently, we’ve expanded the loans programs. We’ve also added the Housing Accelerator Fund to address red tape.

The Housing Accelerator Fund is money given to cities if they meet certain benchmarks in terms of red-tape reduction, yes?

Exactly. This was not part of the 2017 federal agenda but is now.

Recently, there’s also been a push to better use federally owned land — land that has, maybe, a two-storey post office or a parking lot on it.

We want to unlock those lands for housing.

Unlocking, I presume, means making the land available, perhaps at low cost or no cost, so that developers will build affordable or community housing?

Yes. This is where I see a contrast between our approach and what you hear from the federal Conservatives. They want to sell federal land off to the highest bidder. We want to partner with actors who are committed to affordability.

When it comes to housing, it seems, you want government to be both more and less involved. Fair?

Pierre Poilievre thinks the government should get out of the way entirely. I would say, no, the government should get out of the way specifically when there are barriers to the market building for the market. There are pain points — exclusionary zoning, excessive development charges — that must be removed. But the market is not going to deliver affordable housing, social housing, or community housing. So the government needs to reassert itself in those areas.

Your predecessor, Sean Fraser, made a comment in a Bloomberg interview, which seemed to imply that we can, somehow, make housing more affordable without undermining the value of people’s existing homes. I felt like he was evading the tension between the interests of people seeking to get into the market (who benefit when prices come down) versus people already in the market (who benefit when prices stay high).

It’s not the government’s job to say that a home should be a certain price, but we should be concerned when home prices run away from incomes. There is a generational unfairness to the housing market.

But the unfairness benefits certain people. Those people are voters. Many are Liberal voters. One question on my mind is: Why have governments been slow to address the housing crisis? One possible answer is that there are political incentives to move slowly. A lot of voters are, frankly, happy with the way things are.

I’m not going to disagree that there are competing interests in the housing market. But I think the question of “what price should a home be?” is a distraction. It’s not the government’s job to protect a certain amount of equity that has built up in a person’s home.

One criticism of programs that make it easier to buy a home is that they’re inflationary. If you’re not paying the land-transfer tax because you’re a first-time home buyer — or if you only need a 5 percent down payment instead of, say, 20 percent — then you have more financial leverage. You can bid higher, thereby driving prices up. Do you agree that these demand-side policies are counter-productive?

These policies tend to be put in place because they’re good politics. But if you’re solutions-oriented, you should be driving supply. As housing minister, I’m not going to push demand-driven policies.

You may not be housing minister for long. What can you do with the time you have?

There are three big categories. One is the Affordable Housing Fund, [which offers low-interest and forgivable loans to partnered organizations] and the Apartment Construction Loan Program. I’m leaning into those programs to prioritize social and non-profit housing and to get as many conditional approvals in place. The second piece is the $6 billion Housing Infrastructure Fund. You can think of it as the Housing Accelerator Fund 2.0. It’s focused on delivering for municipalities and provinces when they’re reducing red tape and stabilizing development charges. Ontario’s share is $2 billion. If we can’t get a deal done with Ontario, we’re going to do deals directly with municipalities. The third piece is around transit. I’m hoping to land a bigger deal with Toronto, and with other municipalities and provinces on transit, especially where there are ambitious proposals ready to go.

You’ve commented recently that the number one government priority is US-Canada relations. Housing is number two. But those issues are linked. A trade war could make housing construction more expensive at the exact moment we’re trying to make it cheaper.

A trade war is linked with all sorts of negative outcomes for our economy. We have to squarely focus our efforts on responding to the tariff threat — we have to make sure there are retaliatory measures in place — because it’s a threat across the board to productivity. But another threat to productivity is housing.

Can you explain why housing is a productivity issue?

If you can’t attract talented people because housing is too expensive, that’s a problem. Also, we need to be treating housing as a home first and investment second. I want to encourage investment dollars to come in to build housing. But it’s an unproductive use of investment dollars if people are just competing in the residential resale space.

The first time Trump was elected and there were threats of a trade war, the Trudeau government had a coordinated response. Seemingly everybody was talking with US business leaders and Republican operatives and state governors to counter Trump’s threat. Do you feel like the government is in a position to put up a united front again?

The prime minister has done this before, the government has done this before, and they’re ready to respond as necessary. But the difference is the timing of our electoral cycles. We’re facing repeated calls for an election from the Conservative opposition leader, who doesn’t want to be seen working with Trudeau at all.

To achieve a unified front, should the Liberals have acted faster to install a new leader and call an election?

Imagine we were in an election now. Do you think that would add stability or instability? I think it would add instability. And having stability, especially heading into the inauguration, is important for the same reason that it was important that the prime minister didn’t step down as prime minister. If he’d done that, we would have an interim leader who wouldn’t be able to hit the ground running. We’re going to have an election this year no matter what. Is it ideal in the context of the Trump tariffs? No. But that’s the world we live in.

Given the Trump threat, do you think ministers should not be running for party leader?

If I were a minister who was running in the leadership race, I would resign my portfolio.

I guess you’re not running then.

I am not.

Can the government respond to Trump without a parliament?

If you look at the first iteration of the response to Trump, it was a government response that was coordinated across party lines. It was not a parliamentary response. It will be important if the tariffs drag on into the spring— and if that response is not working — that there’s an accountability function for parliament to play. In the meantime, the government continues to govern.

What’s the mood like in the party now?

There’s a sense of optimism that this moment can be a reset. The timing is going to be short between the leadership race and the general election. So anyone who’s running for leadership has to think of this as one big race. They are introducing themselves to the Canadian public. There is an opportunity here to have a campaign of ideas, to establish renewal. There’s more optimism in the party than there’s been in a while. Whether it translates into better outcomes remains to be seen.

Original Article in the Toronto Star by Simon Lewsen. Check it out here.

No, I’m not running for leader. Yes, I have thoughts on the Prime Minister’s announcement, what prorogation means, and the opportunity for renewal and a campaign of ideas.

Earlier this week, the Prime Minister announced that he won’t be the leader heading into the next election.

Now, I haven’t always seen eye to eye with him over the years, but Justin Trudeau loves this country, he’s deeply committed to public service and a progressive politics driven by fairness and sustainability, and I wouldn’t be in politics but for his call a decade ago to do things differently.

He described himself as a fighter in announcing his decision to stay on as Prime Minister while a new leader is selected by the Liberal Party.

For my part, I thought he was a class act in his short remarks, especially given how hard it must have been to give up the ball. Few true aces give up the ball without a fight. And he still believes he has so much fight left.

Of course, it’s not enough to be a fighter. A leader’s only as good as their team, and a messenger needs an audience that’s at least open to listening.

And for months we’ve inadvertently given Poilievre’s reform party politics a free pass when every question is palace intrigue on our end.

We needed certainty one way or the other.

And now we have it.

Prorogation isn’t exactly a word we hear every day. So let’s be clear about what it is and what it isn’t.

This is not some undemocratic shutdown of the country. This isn’t a caretaker situation. Our government will continue to govern the entire time.

I’m the Housing Minister, for example, with three months to get some important work done on social housing, encampments, and working with councils and provinces that agree to remove barriers to build.

There is absolutely nothing that stops that work.

A prorogation simply means a parliamentary reset. All legislative work comes to an end and the legislative agenda is reset when we come back.

In this case, the Governor General granted the Prime Minister’s request for a prorogation until March 24.

It sounds longer than it is, because no Parliament sits every week. In Ontario, for example, after a parliamentary break from early June to mid-October, the legislature rose again in early December til early March. For really no good reason.

In contrast, this full reset will cost us a net loss of 4 weeks that Parliament would have otherwise sat between now and the end of March.

Given the current state of our parliamentary dysfunction, as this minority parliament veers into an election, almost all legislation has been stalled since early fall anyway. So losing 4 weeks of parliamentary sitting and resetting the legislative table isn’t exactly a real blow.

Instead, the time will ensure the government continues to deliver within existing authorities, that we have as much stability as possible heading into President Trump’s inauguration, and that we’ll have a shortened window to select a new leader to face off against the unserious duo of Pierre Poilievre and Jagmeet Singh.

To give Canadians a real choice.

The Liberal Party has an opportunity to embrace renewal and change. And Canadians and Liberal members can shape what that change looks like.

What approach do we want from our leaders? What ideas do we want to see championed? What kind of country do we want to live in?

There are already any number of potential leaders organizing for what will be a short race that should end in March.

I’m not on that list of potential leaders, by the way. But I do have some thoughts.

First, I am incredibly concerned by just how unserious our politics is becoming.

Poilievre and Singh offer anger, sure. And there’s a lot to be angry about at times.

But to the extent that that empathy is anything other than contrived, it should come with more than slogans for solutions.

We face an incredible challenge in President Trump, a housing crisis that has upended for an entire generation that core value of equality of opportunity, and global conflict and climate change that require collective action and leadership on the world stage.

In response? Poilievre, riding high in the polls, releases an amateur-hour video of personal attacks against Liberal Ministers, and calls Trudeau an authoritarian socialist, because what – we introduced childcare and carbon pricing? Canada’s history is one of social democracy, and the would-be Prime Minister doesn’t believe in basic social programs.

As far as approach goes, competence is an underrated value in politics and a serious and thoughtful politics would stand in stark contrast to what stands across the aisle.

To follow through on that approach requires a campaign of ideas. Yes, sure, some people will give out marks for being a good Liberal, whatever that means.

But the answer, the same as it has always been, is participation.

To win, we need people to see themselves in our next leader and party.

To be compelled and excited to participate.

For Canadians rightly angry about the cost of housing, the next leader needs to be seized with that frustration, empathetic to it, and deliver a comprehensive and more ambitious plan to address it.

Acknowledge imperfection in our efforts, be honest that nothing will be fixed overnight and clear that population growth and housing supply go hand in hand, emphasize the progress we’ve made in restoring the federal role because there has been significant progress, and protect and build on that progress, by matching the ambition this country had on housing, including social housing, until the 1980s.

For the 6 million Canadians who don’t have a family doctor, tell us that healthcare is a priority and how the next Liberal government will do everything in its spending power to tackle that most basic of needs.

Don’t walk away from commitments to sustainability and climate action, at a bare minimum. Build on those efforts. And hey, maybe revisit electoral reform?

Tell us what you’re going to do about the fact this is a country of oligopolies and the lack of competition across sectors comes at the expense of consumer protections and our pocket books. What’s the direction we should expect your government to take to address productivity?

Tell us what you think about fairness and how the government should address wealth inequality and help those in the greatest need. How you’ll match progressive policy action with fiscal discipline so that that progress is sustainable and lasting.

Yes, we need robust measures in place to address any prospect of foreign interference. But that doesn’t mean you can avoid having clearly defined views about Canada’s role on the world stage today.

I’m not asking for a detailed platform. I am asking for more than slogans. Don’t play it safe. Style AND substance would be nice.

Beyond ideas, we need a relentless focus on grassroots engagement. I ran in an open nomination a decade ago because of a commitment to more independence and a bottom-up approach to our politics.

What kind of party do you want to build and where do you think power should reside?

It’ll be a short race. But that doesn’t mean it should be short on ideas.

It’s not going to be enough to ask people to vote against Conservatives. What direction do we all want for our country?

Let’s give Canadians a positive reason to vote for us again.