Millennials, we're told, are shifting their votes to Pierre Poilievre. Max Fawcett writes that Poilievre is playing them for fools:
Credit where it’s due: Pierre Poilievre has talked a good game about housing ever since he was elected leader of the Conservative Party of Canada. Sure, he keeps fibbing about being the Harper government’s housing minister (no such role existed) and continues to pretend the problem magically started when the Trudeau Liberals were elected, but he’s effectively drawn attention to an issue that’s been overlooked for too long. The huge surge in Conservative support among millennial voters, who now outnumber baby boomers, helps explain why his party is so far ahead in recent polls.
Housing-hungry millennials might want to look a little more closely at what he’s actually saying about the issue, though. Yes, Poilievre has been very good at feeling their pain and harnessing it to his own political ambitions. But if anyone’s expecting him to heal it as prime minister, his recent behaviour suggests they’re setting themselves up for some pretty major disappointment.
It's wise to concentrate on what Poilievre does and not on what he says:
He has, for example, decided to make an enemy out of NDP Premier David Eby, who he recently suggested has “probably the worst housing record of any politician on Earth.” Eby, of course, has been premier of British Columbia for just over a year now. In that time, he’s transformed the housing market in his province, implementing a raft of hugely ambitious and aggressive reforms that target everything from short-term rentals and restrictive local zoning bylaws to design-oriented regulations that can unlock more supply. Leo Spalteholz, a pro-supply housing activist in B.C., described the changes as “transformational.”
Poilievre is apparently counting on Canadians to ignore that progress or the context in which it’s taken place. “Look at the prices,” he said in a video that was clipped and shared by Canada Proud. “Vancouver is now the third most expensive housing market in the world, comparing median income to median house prices. Check it on Demographia.ca for yourself.”
Well, I did. Despite the dead link Poilievre tried to direct people to — it’s demographia.com — the data doesn’t tell the story he might like to pretend. Back in 2015, for example, Demographia’s annual study of housing affordability revealed that Vancouver was the second most expensive city in the world on those same criteria. Maybe, just maybe, it’s about something other than Justin Trudeau and Eby.
Curiously, while Poilievre is happy to blame Eby for the high housing prices that long predate his entry into provincial politics, he’s conspicuously silent about Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s track record. Prices and rents there have soared since his Progressive Conservatives took power in 2018, and most of his government’s legislative efforts on this file have revolved around trying to enrich Ford-friendly developers and exacerbate the province’s existing problems with sprawl. The Ontario PCs have repeatedly ignored the recommendations of their own Housing Affordability Task Force and in some cases, actively opposed them.
As a result, while housing starts were up 11 per cent in Eby’s B.C. in 2023, they dropped 36 per cent in Ford’s Ontario. As The Hub’s Steve Lafleur noted, federal Housing Minister Sean Fraser has been leading the charge for better housing policies in Ontario. “He’s getting municipal governments to make tough reforms the premier hasn’t thus far been willing to impose. Indeed, many of these reforms are straight out of the Housing Affordability Task Force report. The premier doesn’t have to drive the bus, but he really shouldn’t stand in front of it.”
As a New York City official once said of Donald Trump, "I wouldn't believe a word he says -- even if his tongue were notarized."
Image: DiJones
