Trudeau Says Housing a ‘Core Priority’ Following Cabinet Retreat

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks during a visit to an apartment complex under construction in Hamilton, Ontario, July 31, 2023. The Canadian Press/Peter Power

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said housing was one of his government’s “core priorities” in an Aug. 23 press conference following the Liberal cabinet retreat in Prince Edward Island. He did not announce any new housing initiatives.

“We are looking forward to continuing to do the work we’ve been doing on housing and do even more,” Mr. Trudeau said when asked by a reporter if he was introducing any new housing policies in response to climbing prices nationwide.

Mr. Trudeau said there was no “silver bullet” that would solve housing issues, and that the rising cost of housing was a challenge that’s been “decades in the making.”

The prime minister said that during the retreat his cabinet had studied historical trends and data from Statistics Canada’s long-term census in order to “understand these issues even more clearly.” Mr. Trudeau added that the issue of housing would require solutions from all levels of government, the private sector, and the non-profit sector.

“There’s no doubt that we all have a lot of work to do because more and more vulnerable people are at risk of homelessness, middle-class Canadians who want to build equity through homeownership feel increasingly like that dream is out of reach, and now more and more renters in the housing market means rising demand is causing rent to rise for everyone,” he said.

When asked by reporters if he would consider committing to a National Housing Accord, Mr. Trudeau highlighted his government’s efforts via the $82 billion National Housing Strategy, the $4 billion Housing Accelerator Fund, and $2.5 billion Rapid Housing Initiative.

“These are the kinds of things that we’ve been doing. But yes, it is clear there is a need for much more coordination,” he said.

Mr. Trudeau’s comments came following a Leger poll that found 40 percent of respondents blamed the federal government for Canada’s housing crisis, while 32 percent blamed their provincial government, and 6 percent blamed municipalities.

Solutions Needed, Says Poilievre

During an Aug. 23 press conference on Parliament Hill, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre said the Liberals were “supposed to have solutions” emerging from their retreat, but said all they provided was “more speeches, more photo ops, more puff pieces for his incompetent housing minister to go out and attack the very programs he was running two weeks ago.”

According to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s (CMHC) Spring 2023 Housing Market Outlook report, rental affordability is set to decline in Canada due to demand outstripping supply over the next year with a “significant drop in housing starts” in British Columbia, Quebec, and Ontario.

The CMHC said in 2022 that in order to restore housing affordability, an additional 3.5 million affordable units will need to be built by 2030.

On Aug. 21, the prime minister said Canada’s high immigration targets would provide a solution to labour shortages and would allow for more housing to be built.

“One of the things I have heard consistently in the construction industry is the lack of labour: more carpenters, more skilled labourers, more folks to work in the construction industry to build the homes that we are needing to match the growing economy that we have right across the country,” Mr. Trudeau said.

Housing Minister Sean Fraser, who was immigration minister until the Liberals’ cabinet shuffle two weeks ago, said on Aug. 21 that the federal government was considering putting a cap on the number of international students to ease the pressure on the domestic housing market, adding that post-secondary institutions bringing in international students must be “part of the solution as well by making sure that they have a place to live.”