Trudeau blames EVERYBDOY except himself for housing crisis
Episode Stats
Words per minute
134.29054
Harmful content
Misogyny
1
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Summary
Learn English with Justin Trudeau. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been Prime Minister of Canada for the past four years, and in that time, he has been the Prime Minister and Finance Minister, the Finance Minister and the Minister of Finance. In this episode, Justin Trudeau talks about the housing crisis in Canada, and why it is so important that governments have not done enough to address it.
Transcript
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if we could go back to the housing crisis that we're in now just sort of as an overview i wanted
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to run this past you in 2015 when you became prime minister the average house in hamilton was about
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three hundred and thirty four thousand dollars 2024 it's eight hundred and fifty thousand
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beyond the reach of many people what happened how did governments let this happen um boy we could
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talk about uh the global economy the inflation crisis that came from the fact that we had a
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once in a century pandemic that had a huge impact on all of our lives we could talk about the labor
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shortages that we're facing that continue to mean we need to grow our population we're to continue to
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talk about uh inflation crisis around the world that has led to higher interest rates that have
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slowed things down we can talk about the fact that canada has only about four percent of four
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affordable housing stock across the country whereas comparable countries like france or the uk
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have on the range of 17 or 18 percent affordable housing decisions taken by governments of all
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stripes over decades have led to this moment particularly the previous government in which
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pierre polyev was actually housing minister that explicitly said the federal government has should
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have absolutely nothing to do with building affordable housing or creating affordable housing
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it's not rocket science to see that decisions particularly in something like a housing market
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that are taken years ago have impacts for years for decades for generations to come
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so the question we have to ask is given absolutely the fact that there is a crisis in housing right now
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and that crisis is best defined by the fact that these young people who are working incredibly hard
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many of them at great jobs don't have the same opportunities that canadians in their position just 20 years ago
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would have to be able to buy a home there's something wrong with the way the system is built
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so the question canadians should ask themselves or the way the system has evolved the question people
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should ask themselves is who's going to fix that system who has a plan to actually fix that system
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now let's take a very simple example to contrast the conservative and the federal liberals plan
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the conservatives have said we should use public land sell it to the highest bidder bidder so that
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they can create housing on it which sounds at the surface of it like that's a reasonable thought
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bring in a little more money for government coffers and get some more housing built except if you're
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selling public land to the highest bidder that developer who bought that land at top dollar
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is not going to be building affordable housing on it not going to be building affordable rentals on it
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and that's the fundamental problem with the approach the conservatives continue to take
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that they think if you give tax breaks and advantages and benefits to the wealthiest it'll all trickle
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down to everyone else except it doesn't it never has so our approach on that exact same problem
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is to say let's actually take that public land and lease it for 99 years to developers or non-profits who
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then won't have had to pay much for the land and can then build affordable homes particularly because
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we'll force them to build affordable housing on those lands that's a way of solving a piece of the
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housing crisis choosing to invest in cities abilities to increase densification and accelerate
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the construction of housing with a four billion dollar fund that's our approach to work with cities
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to solve the housing crisis mr polyev support approach on that is to cross his arms and say not
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only are we not sending you the housing accelerator fund money we won't send you any other money unless you
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figure out how to solve the housing crisis on your own is that how you're going to solve the housing
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crisis no it's an unreasonable plan that is focused on actually having government do less to help
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canadians to invest in the future and that's even more nonsensical as an approach
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given the fact that the entire core message of the conservative party of canada is that somehow canada is
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broken and the investments this government has made over the past years has rendered us into a horrific
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fiscal position now the reality is yes canadians are squeezed right now but that's why it is important
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for governments to step up on things like free dental care for seniors cutting child care fees in half
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delivering free insulin and free prescription contraceptives stepping up with programs that
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bring in global investments whether it's stillantis or volkswagen or honda or what have you right across
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the country these are decisions we're taking because we can because canada despite what mr polyevs has has
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the best fiscal position in the g7 the lowest deficit the lowest debt to gdp ratio the size of our debt
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as proportion to the size of our economy is lowest and getting lower moody's yesterday one of the
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independent bond rating agencies so you don't have to take my word for you have to take his word for it
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you can look to the experts has said canada has confirmed its triple a rating we are the third largest
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economy in the world after the u.s and germany with a triple a credit rating it means we have a responsible plan
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even with or perhaps because of all the investments we're making in supporting canadians through this
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so when pierre polyev throws up his hand and says everything's broken we should just be really mad
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without actually offering any solutions for these young people while he continues to play footsie
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with extremist white nationalist organizations you begin to see the kind of