Juno News - May 03, 2024


Trudeau blames EVERYBDOY except himself for housing crisis


Episode Stats

Length

7 minutes

Words per Minute

134.29054

Word Count

1,007

Sentence Count

2


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.800 if we could go back to the housing crisis that we're in now just sort of as an overview i wanted
00:00:06.960 to run this past you in 2015 when you became prime minister the average house in hamilton was about
00:00:13.760 three hundred and thirty four thousand dollars 2024 it's eight hundred and fifty thousand
00:00:19.120 beyond the reach of many people what happened how did governments let this happen um boy we could
00:00:26.880 talk about uh the global economy the inflation crisis that came from the fact that we had a
00:00:32.800 once in a century pandemic that had a huge impact on all of our lives we could talk about the labor
00:00:40.720 shortages that we're facing that continue to mean we need to grow our population we're to continue to
00:00:45.120 talk about uh inflation crisis around the world that has led to higher interest rates that have
00:00:49.600 slowed things down we can talk about the fact that canada has only about four percent of four
00:00:56.640 affordable housing stock across the country whereas comparable countries like france or the uk
00:01:04.160 have on the range of 17 or 18 percent affordable housing decisions taken by governments of all
00:01:12.640 stripes over decades have led to this moment particularly the previous government in which
00:01:23.040 pierre polyev was actually housing minister that explicitly said the federal government has should
00:01:29.760 have absolutely nothing to do with building affordable housing or creating affordable housing
00:01:36.720 it's not rocket science to see that decisions particularly in something like a housing market
00:01:42.560 that are taken years ago have impacts for years for decades for generations to come
00:01:48.640 so the question we have to ask is given absolutely the fact that there is a crisis in housing right now
00:01:57.440 and that crisis is best defined by the fact that these young people who are working incredibly hard
00:02:04.480 many of them at great jobs don't have the same opportunities that canadians in their position just 20 years ago
00:02:14.400 would have to be able to buy a home there's something wrong with the way the system is built
00:02:22.080 so the question canadians should ask themselves or the way the system has evolved the question people
00:02:27.120 should ask themselves is who's going to fix that system who has a plan to actually fix that system
00:02:35.840 now let's take a very simple example to contrast the conservative and the federal liberals plan
00:02:41.680 the conservatives have said we should use public land sell it to the highest bidder bidder so that
00:02:48.720 they can create housing on it which sounds at the surface of it like that's a reasonable thought
00:02:55.040 bring in a little more money for government coffers and get some more housing built except if you're
00:03:00.240 selling public land to the highest bidder that developer who bought that land at top dollar
00:03:08.080 is not going to be building affordable housing on it not going to be building affordable rentals on it
00:03:14.560 and that's the fundamental problem with the approach the conservatives continue to take
00:03:19.680 that they think if you give tax breaks and advantages and benefits to the wealthiest it'll all trickle
00:03:25.680 down to everyone else except it doesn't it never has so our approach on that exact same problem
00:03:34.080 is to say let's actually take that public land and lease it for 99 years to developers or non-profits who
00:03:45.040 then won't have had to pay much for the land and can then build affordable homes particularly because
00:03:51.760 we'll force them to build affordable housing on those lands that's a way of solving a piece of the
00:03:59.920 housing crisis choosing to invest in cities abilities to increase densification and accelerate
00:04:07.040 the construction of housing with a four billion dollar fund that's our approach to work with cities
00:04:13.680 to solve the housing crisis mr polyev support approach on that is to cross his arms and say not
00:04:21.120 only are we not sending you the housing accelerator fund money we won't send you any other money unless you
00:04:28.480 figure out how to solve the housing crisis on your own is that how you're going to solve the housing
00:04:34.880 crisis no it's an unreasonable plan that is focused on actually having government do less to help
00:04:42.960 canadians to invest in the future and that's even more nonsensical as an approach
00:04:52.000 given the fact that the entire core message of the conservative party of canada is that somehow canada is
00:05:02.880 broken and the investments this government has made over the past years has rendered us into a horrific
00:05:09.760 fiscal position now the reality is yes canadians are squeezed right now but that's why it is important
00:05:18.720 for governments to step up on things like free dental care for seniors cutting child care fees in half
00:05:27.600 delivering free insulin and free prescription contraceptives stepping up with programs that
00:05:34.800 bring in global investments whether it's stillantis or volkswagen or honda or what have you right across
00:05:40.960 the country these are decisions we're taking because we can because canada despite what mr polyevs has has
00:05:50.720 the best fiscal position in the g7 the lowest deficit the lowest debt to gdp ratio the size of our debt
00:06:00.720 as proportion to the size of our economy is lowest and getting lower moody's yesterday one of the
00:06:08.880 independent bond rating agencies so you don't have to take my word for you have to take his word for it
00:06:13.760 you can look to the experts has said canada has confirmed its triple a rating we are the third largest
00:06:20.480 economy in the world after the u.s and germany with a triple a credit rating it means we have a responsible plan
00:06:28.240 even with or perhaps because of all the investments we're making in supporting canadians through this
00:06:36.320 so when pierre polyev throws up his hand and says everything's broken we should just be really mad
00:06:44.240 without actually offering any solutions for these young people while he continues to play footsie
00:06:52.560 with extremist white nationalist organizations you begin to see the kind of
00:06:59.680 unreasonable leadership that he's proposing
00:07:06.320 in the way to the higher