Alberta refuses to be bribed by Trudeau
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
217.78612
Summary
In this episode, Alberta Seniors, Community and Social Services Minister Jason Nixon joins me to discuss the Alberta Priorities Act, which could see blanket rezoning in order to help solve the housing shortage in our province.
Transcript
00:00:00.720
Rachel Emanuel brings the news each day on Alberta Roundup, she has her say.
00:00:12.720
Hey everyone, welcome back to the Alberta Roundup. I'm your host Rachel Emanuel.
00:00:16.240
Today we are going to be looking at the Alberta Priorities Act and I am joined by Alberta Seniors
00:00:22.000
Community and Social Services Minister Jason Nixon. Minister Nixon, thanks so much for joining us today.
00:00:27.280
Thanks for having me on Rachel, great to see you.
00:00:29.440
So we know that your government had kind of hinted at this legislation for a little while,
00:00:33.600
but before we get into the actual legislation and what it's going to do,
00:00:37.360
this came after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau flew to Calgary, announced a bunch of money through a
00:00:43.600
housing fund about six billion dollars. Your government came out and they took issue with
00:00:48.240
some of the money and the way that it was going to be spent and then you also announced Provincial
00:00:51.760
Priorities Act which should hopefully prevent the federal government from working directly with
00:00:55.600
municipalities without your government's sign-on. One of the ways that municipalities appear to
00:01:01.040
be eligible for this funding is through rezoning, things like duplexes, triplexes, four-unit housing.
00:01:07.120
I know that we're experiencing housing crisis even here in Calgary, you know everyone I talk to
00:01:11.520
they're having a hard time finding housing and it is so expensive. That said, a lot of people spend
00:01:16.160
their lifetime investing in their home. They pick a neighbourhood they specifically want to live in,
00:01:20.400
that they value and cherish, that meets the needs of their family, that feels safe to them and right
00:01:25.040
now in Calgary we're looking at a situation where there's blanket rezoning. People are so upset about
00:01:28.960
this. Now I know that we need the housing on the one hand, on the other hand people really care about
00:01:33.360
their neighbourhoods and they're really upset about this blanket rezoning. What are your thoughts? Do you
00:01:36.800
think that blanket rezoning is something that we need to see in Calgary or are you concerned about
00:01:40.560
it's really going to change the fabric of some of these neighbourhoods?
00:01:42.960
Yeah look, I mean my viewpoint, first of all, the federal government has no business stepping in and
00:01:48.000
trying to blanket rezone anything. They don't have any business stepping in and zoning anything.
00:01:51.920
It's, you know, municipalities are solely the jurisdiction of the province, of the provinces
00:01:56.880
in our country under our constitution and it certainly is federal overreach for them to go
00:02:01.200
anywhere near zoning issues. You know, my belief is that we have 300 plus municipalities in our
00:02:06.000
province. All of our communities have different needs. My hometown is sundry. We'll have to deal with
00:02:10.800
zoning issues in very different ways than Calgary, for example. And so this is why we have elected municipal
00:02:16.000
councils to go through that process to hear from their local communities to make decisions on what's
00:02:20.960
best for each neighbourhood. I also don't think that blanket rezoning actually solves our housing
00:02:26.160
problem. We certainly want to be able to deal with some zoning issues, increase permit speeds in
00:02:33.760
many cases to be able to make sure we can build more houses, but it's also about making sure that we
00:02:37.120
zone still in the right places. So just saying, hey, we zone an entire city is not going to solve the
00:02:41.040
problem. So I'll give you an example. The best spot probably to do some real high density housing
00:02:45.920
in Calgary will be along the existing already train lines, which actually has not much impact
00:02:50.880
on existing neighbourhoods. We can already build on some of the existing infrastructure footprints
00:02:54.880
that are in place that likely will work for many communities. And that's why, you know, cities should
00:02:59.200
go through that process with each neighbourhood and their constituents to get it right. But, you know,
00:03:03.120
we want to build more houses. We already are. I've got to stress that. I mean, Alberta is the only place
00:03:07.120
since having any real significant positive numbers when it comes to residential construction, which
00:03:12.080
I think shows already that our pro industry red tape reduction methods in our province are working.
00:03:18.080
But to be clear, we think that communities should have the individual zoning conversations and make
00:03:23.200
sure that they get it right. And then we can work together to speed up construction.
00:03:26.960
When we talk about communities actually having that say with their municipal government about what they
00:03:31.200
want their neighbourhood to look like and whether they're going to allow for this rezoning. I mean,
00:03:34.560
the federal government is kind of coming here and they're dangling a stick in front of Calgary.
00:03:37.680
They're offering a lot of money. Are you concerned that the municipal government here in Calgary,
00:03:41.920
Mayor Jody Gonick, isn't going to take residents' concerns seriously because there's just so much
00:03:45.840
money on the table for them? Yeah, well, this is one of the reasons why we're bringing in the new act
00:03:51.360
to be able to prevent the federal government from going directly to those municipalities is because it was
00:03:55.280
becoming very clear two things. One is that only mayors were getting attention from the federal
00:04:00.400
government that seemed to have a relationship with the current federal government or shared their
00:04:04.240
left-wing ideology. And so you saw, you know, situations where Edmonton and Calgary were getting
00:04:10.240
money for the federal government, but places like Cochrane, which is one of the fastest growing
00:04:13.840
communities in the country, were not even getting a phone call. And so we really saw a need to step in
00:04:19.040
to be able to make sure that we're distributing money across the province where it's needed.
00:04:23.040
And then second, it was very clear that they were willing to, you know, to change rules or to sell out
00:04:29.520
their own constituents to be able to get to that money. And we were mostly concerned, the premier and
00:04:35.040
I, you know, in the last couple of weeks that the federal government was indicating that you would
00:04:39.040
have to do one or two things, or two things specifically. One is to do blanket rezoning,
00:04:44.000
which we, you know, as you just covered, is challenging to do it that way. But second was
00:04:48.880
to sign onto the green building code, which we, you know, what exactly that means from the federal
00:04:52.880
government. They were light on details, which is not abnormal, but given the history of this federal
00:04:58.480
government, when it comes to the green ideology, is deeply concerning about what that impact could
00:05:02.400
be on our construction history and the cost to Albertans to buy a house and to ultimately rent
00:05:07.120
houses as well, because it would raise the price in both sides of the market. And so that's why we
00:05:13.040
stepped in and said, we're done. The federal government needs to deal with the province. We
00:05:17.040
have jurisdiction in this area. We're going to enforce that jurisdiction. It'll be us who works with
00:05:22.400
our municipalities because we don't tend to be bribed with our own money by the federal government to
00:05:26.880
bring in Justin Trudeau, you know, Justin Trudeau's ideological agenda on things like green building
00:05:31.600
codes. Now, I know you said that they were light on the details, not unusual for the federal government,
00:05:36.400
like you mentioned, but what are some of the specific building codes that you were worried
00:05:40.720
they might force municipalities to implement with this green agenda that you've been talking about?
00:05:45.440
What specifically? Well, one of the big things that there's been musing about at the federal level,
00:05:50.160
again, both Premier and I have spoken about this recently, is, you know, the possibility of saying that
00:05:54.720
houses cannot connect to natural gas and that we'd have to go with, you know, solar or wind or
00:06:00.320
different type of electricity sources to be able to get to that funding. That would astronomically
00:06:05.600
increase the cost of construction. I mean, I think would be catastrophic in our market here in Alberta
00:06:12.320
for a variety of reasons. But, you know, that'd be one example. But even simple things like if they were to
00:06:18.400
increase insulation requirements beyond what you would see elsewhere in North America,
00:06:23.600
you know, you're just going to see the cost go up astronomically. And again, it's not their jurisdiction.
00:06:29.600
The province is responsible ultimately for setting a building code. We can sign on to a national
00:06:34.640
building code. That's up to us if we want to. But we're not going to sign on to a building code that
00:06:39.440
is more extreme or unknown in exchange for money from the federal government.
00:06:43.200
When you talk about one of your fears being that the federal government could say,
00:06:47.280
we want, you know, these buildings to have solar and power be generated by solar and power energy.
00:06:51.120
Is that something that we're even in a place where we're ready for in this province?
00:06:53.840
It's my understanding that we're looking to actually get more baseload.
00:06:56.960
All the people moving here, we actually have higher electricity demands.
00:07:00.320
Well, like most of the federal policies, as you know, Rachel, I spent many years as
00:07:04.240
Alberta's environment minister. So I'm very familiar with this issue. And most of the federal green
00:07:10.240
policies that they're trying to push forward in this country are impossible, like actually impossible.
00:07:15.600
And if we were to try to implement them in the timelines that have been laid out by the federal
00:07:19.840
government, you would end up with mass blackouts, people not being able to heat their homes.
00:07:24.480
We already saw some of those circumstances this year where it was really cold, which shows some
00:07:28.160
of the challenges on Canadians electricity grid. And so that that's exactly right. It's just it's an
00:07:33.360
impossibility. But you know, when you're dealing with Justin Trudeau and the federal government on this
00:07:37.680
issue, the possibilities don't seem to register with them. They just continue to drive forward and not
00:07:42.320
want to have this conversation in a resemblance of reality. And, you know, that's unfortunate.
00:07:48.560
But when it comes to our housing issues, which is one of the biggest issues in the country right
00:07:52.960
now, it's certainly one of the biggest issues in the province about making sure we have enough
00:07:55.680
housing stock. We just cannot let that happen because at the end of the day, all it will do
00:08:00.560
is increase the cost of construction, which ultimately will increase mortgages and will increase rent.
00:08:06.080
And our main focus right now has to be to create more supply to keep those, you know,
00:08:10.160
keep affordability both within the rent in the mortgage market in our province.
00:08:14.560
So on the Alberta Provincial Priorities Act specifically, that's going to be ensuring that
00:08:18.720
the federal government receives the UCP's government sign off on any projects that they
00:08:23.440
hope to strike with municipalities. Now, when we're looking at this six billion dollars for housing
00:08:27.680
specifically, is this legislation when it passes, is it going to stop any money that was promised
00:08:33.280
to municipalities in its track? Or is it too late? And is that deal going to go ahead?
00:08:36.320
So our intention right now is not to be retroactive on, you know, if deals have been signed, we want
00:08:42.160
to continue to get work done. But going forward, and certainly for this latest round of announcements
00:08:48.160
that are associated with the federal budget, this legislation will be applicable and it will force
00:08:54.320
the federal government to come to the table like they did in Quebec and in BC and make a deal with the
00:08:59.200
province. And then we would work with our municipalities to be able to build houses where and when they are
00:09:03.920
needed within our province. But going forward, what will have to happen is the federal government
00:09:09.120
cannot go to a municipality or any other entity that is created by the provincial government or is
00:09:15.360
over 50% funded by the provincial government without the permission of the provincial government.
00:09:20.000
So what essentially that does is it forces the feds to come to the table of the province to make a deal.
00:09:24.560
And we saw this in Quebec. Quebec was the first province because they have this law
00:09:28.000
that was able to get a housing deal in the country. And that's because the feds had no choice but to come
00:09:33.360
have a conversation with the provincial government. One other thing I wanted to ask you about is
00:09:38.240
obviously your government has been working hard on the Alberta is Calling campaign trying to attract
00:09:42.560
new skilled workers to the province. Do you think that there's maybe a time where we would want to
00:09:46.080
put a pause on this campaign? I know the premier says, look, we're really trying to attract skilled
00:09:49.200
workers, even construction workers. But you know, a lot of these people are moving to bigger cities.
00:09:52.720
We're seeing a little bit of a housing crisis here. I'm not quite sure that demand is keeping up.
00:09:56.400
I know that there's a lot of new houses up and coming, but right now we're really feeling that pinch.
00:10:00.160
I talked to a lot of people trying to buy, a lot of people trying to rent. There's very little on
00:10:03.440
the market. Do you think that there's maybe a need to put a pause on something like that? Or do you
00:10:06.960
think there's just always a need to bring as many people to the province as possible?
00:10:10.560
Well, we want to obviously keep our economy going, but you're right. I mean, we have to be able to
00:10:14.240
house everybody that comes to our province. I think what we're focused on with Minister Jones,
00:10:19.840
who's a lead on Alberta's Calling, the Minister of Jobs and Economy in our province,
00:10:23.760
is actually adjusting Alberta's Calling to be very much focused on specific
00:10:28.960
trades and specific careers that we need filled within our province. So nursing,
00:10:34.000
for example, obviously anything that is medical and then residential construction being one of
00:10:38.000
the highest priorities. And so he, you know, he'll have more details on that as this progresses.
00:10:43.760
But the work that they're going to be doing is be really focused on attracting some of the trades
00:10:48.080
that we need to be able to make sure that we can build the houses to be able to keep fueling our
00:10:51.920
economy's growth. So you're right. I mean, at the end of the day, we have to be able to make sure that we're not
00:10:56.240
just having people move to Alberta for just for the sake of moving to Alberta, if there's nowhere
00:11:00.480
to live. And so the logical spot right now to focus on is the people that we need to be able
00:11:04.400
to continue to build all the homes that we need, but also all the commercial real estate we need
00:11:09.040
in other areas where we're short professionals. Minister, just the last thing I want to touch on
00:11:14.320
here, your son, Austin, we know that he was in that horrible car crash about four months ago,
00:11:18.000
a horrible rollover with his twin sister. He was in the hospital. We know he came home about two
00:11:22.080
weeks ago and he's working on his rehabilitation. I know my audience has been pretty interested in
00:11:25.840
this and very concerned for your family. I'm just wondering if you'd be able to give us a quick
00:11:29.200
update as to how he's doing and how your family's doing. Well, first of all, thank you for asking
00:11:33.920
to your audience and to all Albertans. My family has been very well supported and we really appreciate
00:11:39.440
all the prayers and thoughts that went through Austin's experience. He spent almost a month in a
00:11:42.960
coma, which was obviously very traumatic for us. But you're right. He came home about two weeks ago.
00:11:48.240
He's walking and he's talking now. He's probably about 75%. He's got about a year or longer of
00:11:54.000
very serious physical and mental recovery ahead of him. But he's up to the task and we're just very,
00:11:59.280
very grateful to be on this journey. I can tell you before Christmas, it didn't look like we were
00:12:02.960
going to be on this journey. And so we're just excited to continue to work with Austin and try to
00:12:07.680
try to get him all the way back to normal. Thank you for that. Well, we'll continue to keep him in our
00:12:12.080
prayers and that he has a speedy recovery and that the rest of your family is able to really move past
00:12:16.880
us. I can't imagine how difficult that must have been. Minister, thank you so much for joining us
00:12:20.560
today. For the rest of you, I'll be back on Saturday with a special episode for you guys
00:12:23.920
this week. I am interviewing Alberta Premier Danielle Smith. So you'll definitely want to
00:12:27.920
tune in on Saturday to catch that. I hope that you guys have a great rest of your week. I'll see
00:13:07.520
14th, 46th, 25th, 66th, 26th, 5th, 36th, 6th, 7th, 6th, 7th starts.