The Liberals Will Not Fix Housing
We can’t trust another empty promise
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Housing is a basic human right. People deserve to live safely, affordably. They deserve to live knowing this is their home and no one can renovict them. Or use some other paper-thin excuse to get them out so they can charge the next people more.
There are those who might sit in the camp of housing being a luxury. But they’d have no problem selling oxygen only to those who could afford it.
The Liberals Refuse to Progress on Housing
Canada has a housing crisis. We have rising homelessness. Under housed people. Social housing in need of repairs. As for affordable housing, it would be easier to find that proverbial needle.
How’d we get here? We can thank the Conservatives under Brian Mulroney, circa 1984. Their deep cuts to social services… are why we are living these consequences.
When the Liberals under Justin Trudeau came to power in 2017 they announced an undoing of the Conservative era policy. A “$40 billion dollar strategy to reduce homelessness by 50%.” Finally, we’d move forward on helping people. On providing homes.
The Broadbent Institute in Canada is a progressive policy organization. They did a deep dive into the Liberal’s proposed $40 billion housing investment. Turns out after reviewing the numbers, the Liberal government’s plan was no different than the Conservative party.
“The housing strategy is a public relations gimmick, assisting fewer low-income people than in the past and it is not actually federal spending of $40 billion or $55 billion over 10 years but about $16 billion.”
Ouch. And that halving of homelessness?
The National Housing council warns that the 50% reduction might not happen by 2030.
You’ll Never find anyone as good as me
Now the Liberals are back on the campaign trail and know what they’re promising again? Housing. Except now, they’re not playing around with “reduction,” they’re aiming for the gold buzzer — to, in their words, “eliminate” homelessness.