If there's one thing the Liberals don't know how to do, it's to communicate. Max Fawcett writes:
After nearly eight years in power, one thing has become abundantly clear about Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government: it can’t communicate to save its increasingly vulnerable political life. From the carbon tax to COVID-19, its otherwise good policies are consistently undermined by a total inability to explain them to Canadians. And for some reason, it seems determined to add its response to Canada’s housing crisis to this list.
Witness the op-ed published last week in the National Post under Minister of Housing Ahmed Hussen’s byline that almost seemed designed to irritate young people in Canada’s biggest cities. It began with the patronizing suggestion that housing “is not a political issue,” one that was undermined almost immediately by a lengthy political attack on Conservative Party of Canada Leader Pierre Poilievre. But as Matt Lundy, an economics reporter for the Globe and Mail, noted on Twitter, “I assure you, we think it's political!”
It's a lot more than political:
Yes, the Liberal government implemented a national housing strategy in 2018, an $82-billion plan to build more social housing and help first-time buyers get into the market. That’s more than the Harper Conservatives did while they were in office, and it marked a welcome return by the federal government to the table. But so far, it’s been insufficient to meet the growing challenge housing poses for so many people. It’s like trying to fight a house fire with a water gun — sure, it’s better than nothing, but it’s not doing much for the people in harm’s way.
That doesn’t seem to have gotten through to the Liberals. In his op-ed, Hussen wrote: “We are putting Canada on track to double housing construction over the next decade. And we are just getting started.” But after eight years in power, and with a housing market that is more treacherous and less affordable than ever, Canadians don’t want to hear that the government is “just getting started.”
Canadians don't want to be lectured to. But the Liberals like to lecture:
The fact that younger voters in Canada’s big cities and suburbs are more open to Poilievre than they’ve been to a Conservative leader in decades should be a huge, flashing warning sign to the government. That support, after all, has nothing to do with his habit of posing with anti-LGBTQ bigots or non-existent climate policies, and it’s definitely not a product of his charm or charisma. It’s a reflection of the fact that he’s the only federal leader who seems to be taking this issue seriously. If the Trudeau Liberals don’t start doing the same, they’ll deserve to lose the next election.
As readers of this blog know, I'm no fan of Poilievre. But political malpractice from the Liberals could assure his ascension. The movie Cool Hand Luke popularized the phrase, "What we've got here is a failure to communicate."
That's precisely what we have here.
Image: YouTube
12 comments:
The Liberals don't have an answer to the housing issue, in part because there isn't much they can do, unless they want to stop people from other countries from coming here and/or stop those people from buying into our market. We need immigration to make up for our lack of young people (not enough young workers, too many old retirees who now live a lot longer). We are committed to immigration levels of hundreds of thousands annually. These people need a place to live. So why would we be surprised that there is a housing shortage in our most populated urban centres? Additionally, what is the definition of the housing crisis? Is it that millennials can't afford a house in Toronto or Vancouver? Is it that it is too expensive for the average person to rent an apartment in some jurisdictions? IMHO, maybe a lack of inventory might have something to do with shortage (not to mention the money the Libs pumped into the economy at the beginning of Covid, which drastically impacted housing costs). Canada is a very desirable location to live, and lots of people want to come here. Plus, for many people, their home is their only investment, and they will need the equity from that home to survive on when they are older. Also, it needs to be stated the Mr Fawcett is perhaps not the most credible source when it comes to matters of this nature. He has an obvious political bias, so his opinions should be taken with a grain of salt. The home ownership rate in Canada is about 66%. No government is going to alienate that group with removing the capital gains tax exemption you enjoy when selling your home. AX
The whole idea of a house has changed since the 1950s, AX. Back then houses were smaller and less expensive. Back then, a house was a place to live and raise a family. Now it's primarily an investment.
Please no Liberal agenda promotions!
Canadian liberal politics are so ,so but much more palatable than the alternatives!
Trudeau himself is an enigma , a person who is , like his opposite Pollieveire, completely out of touch with the reality of Canadian life.
The similarities of Trudeau to Biden or Trump are many to the point of vomit!!
We have reached a point of deciding , when voting, of choosing between the corrupt or the lesser corruptible!
We have NO heros of this debate!!
TB
@ Owen Gray said...
The whole idea of a house has changed since the 1950s, AX. Back then houses were smaller and less expensive. Back then, a house was a place to live and raise a family. Now it's primarily an investment..
well said.
Today's homes are cathedrals for the masses!!
TB
It's hard to find any heroes these days, TB.
Brian Mulroney, Paul Martin and Jean Chretien should be dragged (figuratively) to the public square where they renounce the Reagan/Thatcher economic reforms that gutted our civic sphere, including the building of public housing at a reasonable pace.
(Calling Canada's Red Guards!)
As for " "What we've got here is a failure to communicate.""
It would be easier to push back on Lil'PP's trite, thin gruel if they actually were doing something substantive on this file.
That's the point, PoV. They have to do something substantive.
It's all about showing off, TB. It's a way of saying look at me. Come to think of it, that's nothing new.
The Liberals don't have an answer to the housing issue, in part because there isn't much they can do
There are any number of things they can do. Look back to the end of WWII. Canada had a looming housing crisis on its hands. The existing housing stock was mainly pre-depression era. With years of the depression and then the war limiting maintenance the existing, already inadequate, housing stock was in a terrible state of repair.
In IIRC, 1944 the Canadian Government began to plan for the housing needs in the post war era. Among other things this resulted in the National Housing Act and the creation of the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), now the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation.
CMHC supplied financing for all kinds of housing, public and private, low rise and high-rise, encouraged innovation in housing, and directly built housing. Just in public and co-operative housing the Gov't of Canada through CMHC built thousands of housing units.
For anyone who knows Ottawa, one of CMHC's projects is on LeBreton Flats just across Wellington St. from the Canadian War Musueum. It is roughly 1.5km west of the Parliament Buildings. Look for the red brick wall at the Corner of Wellington and Booth Streets.
It is not that the Gov't, Liberal, Conservative, NDP, Rhinoceros, or whatever cannot do anything, it is more that Canadian government like most of the Western world have bought into the neo-liberal idea that things should be left to the private sector and the market. Direct intervention is heresy. Thank you Milton Friedman, Ray-gun Ronnie, & Maggie Thatcher.
Spot on, jrk. Milton Friedman continues to haunt government policy.
Milton Friedman continues to haunt much of the world. It's a bit like the night of the living economists. Zombies are passés.
I am constantly amazed at orthodox economists' ability to defiantly cling to theory in the face of mere fact. Back in the 1990's at the height of the Silicon Valley tech explosion, I had an academic economist assure me that he could prove to me that a monopoly was the best place to encourage innovation.
Paul Krugman calls that "zombie economics," jrk.
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