The federal and B.C. governments want to use taxpayer dollars to buy thousands of unsold housing units in Vancouver. Supporters call it a housing solution. Critics call it "a bailout" for wealthy developers. I spoke with BC Tory MP Aaron Gunn about who really benefits, why the plan is facing backlash, and whether taxpayers are about to compete with their own government for a home.
00:00:00.000is injecting taxpayer money to buy these unsold condos
00:00:05.120rather than just allowing the market to do its job
00:00:08.040and having these prices drop to a point at which they become affordable
00:00:11.700for everyday British Columbians that actually want to go out and buy them.
00:00:15.200And here's the ridiculousness of all of this.1.00
00:00:18.460You have so many British Columbians and so many Canadians
00:00:21.580saving up, desperately trying to be able to afford to enter the housing market.
00:00:25.820And now when they go to actually purchase one of these housing units,
00:00:29.400They have to compete with their very own government to be able to afford one.
00:00:34.100It's the exact opposite policy than the one that they've been supposedly articulating for the past couple of years.
00:00:48.140This is corporate welfare. This is a bailout.
00:00:51.820This is something real estate condo deals have been referred to by many as a bailout. Is it a bailout?
00:00:57.180This is a bailout. Do not fall for the spin that you're going to get from Premier Eby and the Prime Minister. These empty condos that we have in British Columbia, particularly Metro Vancouver, they're largely one-bed studio apartments that just have not been able to sell. They used to sell to a certain investor class that would use them for short-term rentals or perhaps for students, but that market isn't there anymore.
00:01:18.740Did anybody ask you for this from the development community?
00:01:23.040First off, thank you for asking me that question.
00:01:27.080No developer asked for this for me directly.
00:01:42.500Critics called a bailout for wealthy developers.
00:01:44.600I spoke with BC Conservative MP Aaron Gunn about who really benefits, why the plan is facing backlash, and whether taxpayers are about to be forced to compete with their own government for a home.
00:01:56.800Aaron, thank you for joining me today.
00:01:59.620Thank you for having me. It's good to chat with you again.
00:02:02.580Likewise. To start broadly, what's the reaction to the joint plan from Mark Carney and David Eby? I mean, this has been used now for the past two weeks. What do you make of it?
00:02:10.800Yeah, well, I can tell you from the constituents in my riding that it was dead on arrival, quite frankly. Neither the Liberals nor the NDP campaigned on using taxpayer money to bail out billionaire condo developers in the fifth most unaffordable housing market in the entire world, propping up prices that are already unaffordable instead of letting them moderate to a price where hardworking British Columbians and Canadians can actually afford them.
00:02:37.700So, you know, from, I think this smells fishy from the very beginning, who came up with this idea, who lobbied for it, and probably most importantly, who stands to benefit the most when it comes to developers, banks, and foreign investors.
00:02:53.020affordable housing has been a big thing i mean i'm in ottawa and every time that marconi steps
00:02:58.200into press conference outside from the hill it's oftentimes to do with housing announcements in the
00:03:02.500bar haven pn east and west ends of the city where of course like ottawa and everywhere else in the
00:03:08.020major capitals we have uh you know housing challenge so what do you make in terms of
00:03:12.700the argument of that this would be a possible proposal to help with the housing affordability
00:03:17.060crisis in the country oh well i i think on the face of it you don't even have to look very deep
00:03:22.860it's actually the exact opposite of that. It is injecting taxpayer money to buy these unsold
00:03:29.520condos rather than just allowing the market to do its job and having these prices drop to a point
00:03:35.320at which they become affordable for everyday British Columbians that actually want to go out
00:03:39.160and buy them. It's a bailout of wealthy developers who've made billions over the past 20 years who
00:03:45.280built and priced condos that nobody could afford. And I think most grotesquely speaking as a
00:03:51.540millennial. It is taking tax dollars from individuals who have been unable to afford to
00:03:57.200enter the housing market and transferring it to developers who made billions of dollars over the
00:04:02.060past 20 years on the very same Vancouver housing market they're now bailing out. So no, they're
00:04:07.200trying to create a price floor instead of allowing the free market to lower these prices to a more
00:04:13.160sustainable and affordable level. So it is the exact opposite of creating affordable housing.
00:04:18.700So earlier today, you were at the committee meeting.
00:04:22.740And do you think that Canadians have received enough transparency so far about how this plan would work and how the money could be spent?
00:04:29.960Well, I think the Liberals are clearly scared of this issue.
00:04:33.000They've spent half the time before shutting down the meeting, pointing fingers at David Eby and the NDP in British Columbia, trying to say that the details aren't there yet.
00:04:46.140At the bottom line, if they thought this was such a great idea, they should welcome the opportunity to hold committee hearings, to march out their Liberal ministers to talk about how great of a program this is.
00:04:58.720The fact is, I think they know this is being badly received by British Columbians and by Canadians, because nobody wants to see their hard-earned tax dollars, especially in today's economy with the affordability crisis that we've seen, get handed out to wealthy developers, the majority of which, quite frankly, are close Liberal donors.
00:05:18.980So there's a lot of frustration here, and so we maybe weren't that surprised that the Liberals ran away from this argument and moved to shut down this meeting as quickly as possible.
00:05:28.720premier ab has said that the government expects to purchase these units at quote liquidation
00:05:34.100prices at the same time bc's housing minister has acknowledged that specific condos to be
00:05:38.780purchased are still yet to be determined how can taxpayers be confident that they're getting the
00:05:43.660best value when those details haven't even been finalized yet well they're definitely not getting
00:05:49.080them at liquidation prices because to do that you'd actually have to wait for the condos to go
00:05:53.900up for liquidation and here's the here's the ridiculousness of all of this you have so many
00:05:59.840british colombians and so many canadians saving up desperately trying to be able to afford to
00:06:04.920enter the housing market and now when they go to actually purchase one of these housing units
00:06:09.480they have to compete with their very own government and to be able to afford one it's
00:06:14.280the exact opposite policy than than the one that they've been supposedly articulating for the past
00:06:20.140couple of years, they've introduced in BC all sorts of policies like the vacancy tax, speculation
00:06:25.240tax, you know, restrictions on foreign buyers, the Airbnb ban, all under the rationale that they
00:06:34.620want to reduce demand for these housing units to lower prices. And then when that actually happens
00:06:41.240and you have these unsold units on the market and prices prepared to come down, the government
00:06:46.180steps in with its other hand and uses 1.45 billion dollars of taxpayer money to prop up the market
00:06:54.420again rather than just letting prices moderate on their own are you supportive of the measures
00:06:59.860that you could support you talk about the airbnb ban foreign buyers ban some of these things have
00:07:04.100manipulated the market demand against popular demand do you think that you support those
00:07:10.420measures frankly given the results of the fact that we have unsold condos in vancouver
00:07:16.180Well, most of those policies, as you know, are provincially put forward from the government of British Columbia.
00:07:22.640So I don't know how much in detail I want to comment on them, but I bring those up to point out the ridiculousness of bringing in a suite of policies to notionally reduce the price of housing in a metro area like Vancouver, which, as I mentioned, is the fifth most unaffordable housing market in the world.
00:07:41.040and then just at the point where that's about to happen because you've built up this inventory of
00:07:46.200unsold units you come in with your other hand using taxpayer money to prop up the same housing
00:07:52.360market that you just passed a bunch of policies with the deliberate intent to actually lower the
00:07:58.340prices so you it's like the left hand and the right hand of government doesn't know what it's
00:08:02.340doing and the only person who really benefits is all of these wealthy condo developers who seem
00:08:06.700to you know privatize and get to keep all of their profits when times are good but then if they make
00:08:12.100a bad investment decision instead of god forbid they have to take a loss the government is there0.83
00:08:16.880with taxpayer money to bail you out so i just think it's it's it's ridiculous it's absurd it's
00:08:22.140a gross a transfer of wealth from millennials and uh also it is maybe the worst kind of embodiment
00:08:29.120of what's known as crony capitalism that i can imagine and if i can just read the definition of
00:08:33.960crony capitalism, if this doesn't sound like what's happening in Canada today, an economic
00:08:38.260system where business success depends heavily on close ties between corporate executives
00:08:43.560and government officials. Instead of competing in a free meritocratic market, companies thrive
00:08:50.940by securing political favors such as bailouts, tax breaks, subsidies, or specialized regulations to
00:08:57.360reduce competition. That's not my definition. That's the dictionary definition of crony capitalism.
00:09:01.960I think that's what we've been seeing here in Canada.
00:09:05.240If you were as a member of both the Conservative Party and the member of British Columbia Caucus, if you were devising the federal government today, given your understanding of your region, what would you be your alternative plan to improve housing affordability without using taxpayer dollars to buy unsold housing units?
00:09:26.780well the good the good thing is to create more affordable housing in british columbia
00:09:32.360the government actually doesn't have to they just have to not use taxpayer money to bail out these
00:09:38.420wealthy developers and let the market uh proceed with a price correction in the city of vancouver
00:09:44.380and reduce prices to a more moderate affordable and sustainable level the other thing that we
00:09:50.000want to do of course is to remove the gst off new homes and make it easier and and cheaper
00:09:55.160for developers, new developers to actually build these housing units to create more supply
00:10:00.140and more competition on the open market to reduce market prices, not create this weird
00:10:05.000kind of system where government goes in and buys a handful of housing units using your
00:10:10.540tax dollars and then gets to randomly pick and choose who gets affordable housing where
00:10:15.240everybody else is stuck playing the higher bill.
00:10:19.220Well, Aaron, thank you so much for your time today and thank you for engaging with the