Canada’s new housing minister doesn’t think prices need to come down

Former Vancouver mayor Gregor Robertson got a prominent cabinet position as minister of housing, and critics are questioning the move.

Canada’s new Housing and Infrastructure Minister Gregor Robertson says he doesn’t think housing prices need to come down, and that the federal government should focus on building more homes.

“No. I think that we need to deliver more supply, make sure the market is stable. It’s a huge part of our economy,” said Robertson on his way to the first meeting of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s new cabinet, when asked specifically if he thinks home prices needed to go down.

“We need to be delivering more affordable housing,” Robertson said. “The Government of Canada has not been building affordable housing since the nineties, and we created a huge shortage across Canada. That’s where the big need is right now.”

Housing ‘slow moving,’ needs to ‘speed up’

Pointing to the prime minister’s campaign pledge to double the pace of construction to see close to 500,000 new homes built a year, Robertson said the Liberals’ plans are “very ambitious” and acknowledged it will “take us years to really scale up.”

“We’re going to have to leverage Canadian technology with off-site manufacturing. We’ve got a lot of work to do on this, and it doesn’t happen overnight. Housing is a slow-moving creature, and we’ve got to do everything we can to speed it up,” he said.

Robertson also defended his handling of the housing file during his time as Vancouver mayor, saying he didn’t have support from other levels of government in addressing housing affordability in one of Canada’s costliest cities, and that similar housing price increase were seen nationwide.

“Since my time as mayor, we’ve seen a lot more movement here in Ottawa, and we’ve got great programs starting to work now,” he said.

“I’m here to leverage my history as a mayor, I know what works on the ground. I wasn’t getting the help I needed from the federal government when I was mayor, or the provincial government.”

Carney talks take-home pay increasing

Robertson’s comments seem to echo a message about the economy that Carney offered during his press conference following the swearing in ceremony when asked what tangible metrics there will be for Canadians to assess the new government’s progress on cost of living.

“There are two elements to cost of living. One is the actual cost of things, and the other is ‘are people’s salaries growing, is their take-home pay increasing, can they find jobs readily?’” Carney said.

“What we need to do is build this economy, create great jobs for Canadians, at the same time costs are held under control. But it’s really about jobs and growth in incomes that will help all Canadians get ahead.”

‘Nothing is going to change’: Poilievre

On Tuesday, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre criticized Carney for appointing Robertson to the housing file, calling his pick “problematic.”

“He increased housing taxes in Vancouver by 141 per cent, and the result was that housing costs went up by 149 per cent,” Poilievre said.

“Now Mr. Carney puts this gentleman in charge of housing. If this is the new blood that Mr. Carney is bringing into the cabinet, then sadly for Canadians, nothing is going to change.”