Pierre Poilievre has a housing plan ready for Ottawa’s bureaucrats. Documents reveal some don’t believe it’s ‘grounded in reality’

Archived version: [https://archive.fo/8cQD2](https://archive.fo/8cQD2).

Summary:

>Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s marquee plan to address Canada’s housing crisis uses targets that aren’t grounded in reality and would set municipalities up for failure, argues an analysis of the policy drawn up by federal civil servants. 
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>But Poilievre’s team is standing by its “Build Homes, Not Bureaucracy Act,” saying Infrastructure Canada is misreading the bill, and putting politics before good policy.
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>Bill C-365 was introduced in the fall of 2023, at the end of a summer in which the Liberals’ record on housing was under intense scrutiny as the realities of Canada’s housing shortage were becoming more apparent by the day.
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>The behind-the-scenes departmental dive into Poilievre’s bill happened over the ensuing months, with Infrastructure Canada, the department that oversees housing policy, taking a fine-tooth comb to it to understand how its provisions would work if the bill became law.
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>“In conclusion, the bill is flawed, does not provide definitions for core terms, fails to take into account renters and other types of housing outside of ownership,” reads one summary, obtained by the Star under access to information law.
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>Private members’ bills rarely become law but departments do routinely analyze them, since any legislation introduced in the House of Commons could pass.
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>While Poilievre’s legislation failed to pass at second reading, his housing strategy is core to his pitch to voters and would likely be included in his next campaign platform. 
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>That means Infrastructure Canada, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CHMC), and Public Services and Procurement Canada would then be tasked with its implementation.
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>All three reviewed the bill, although comments related to the section on CHMC — a pledge to eliminate performance bonuses or cut pay if housing targets aren’t met — were redacted. 
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>The meat of Poilievre’s plan is a carrot-and-stick approach to housing that most experts agree is required to jump start home construction: one of the few ways Ottawa can convince cities and provinces to build more housing is to dangle federal dollars in exchange.
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>Poilievre would tie federal infrastructure money directly to the number of homes that “high-cost” municipalities build each year, require that number to increase annually, and claw back the funds if it didn’t. He’d also hand over federal transit funding only once homes around stations were completed.
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>He’d use GST breaks to spur affordable apartment construction and punish municipalities if they take too long to approve building permits — including allowing people to call the federal minister to lodge complaints. He’d also sell off 15 per cent of federally owned land; the bill lays out a timeline for the minister to draw up a list of potential properties and have a plan to get them to market.
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>The analysis argued there are gaps and contradictions for each of his proposals.
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>Among them: The requirement to build 15 per cent more homes each year doesn’t take into account how long it can take to build a house, and the approach seems to focus on single-family home ownership without considering the other kinds of housing cities need. 
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>The GST breaks for affordable rentals also have questionable timelines, according to the analysis. New homes would have to be completed within three years and have affordable rent for five. The former isn’t long enough to actually build, the latter isn’t long enough to ensure affordable rents are protected, the analysis said. 
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>Meanwhile, making transit funding contingent on completed housing sets up a “Catch-22” in which people won’t want to buy homes where there isn’t transit, and cities can’t build transit without having the money, the analysis argued.
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>Poilievre’s framework for federal land sales also sets unrealistic timelines that would require changes to more than a dozen laws and directives, the analysis said — while also noting the government does actually support the idea in theory.
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>The idea that federal ministers should take complaint calls from citizens over building permit denials was discounted.
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>“There are a number of jurisdictional, feasibility and financial concerns to this approach,” the documents said. 
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>The Star provided Poilievre’s office with a copy of the analysis. It offered an extensive rebuttal, arguing the internal review was based on misreading of the bill, ignorance of the fine print, and a refusal to connect dots. 
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>“The claim that Bill C-356’s formula overlooks rental affordability misunderstands how affordability is calculated,” his office said in response to one of the issues.
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>“Rising home ownership costs directly drive up rental prices, as more Canadians are priced out of buying homes and forced into the rental market.”

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>On transit funding, it noted that the Liberal government may currently require municipalities to explain how they’ll build more housing next to federally funded stations, but doesn’t actually make them do it. 
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>“In contrast, the common sense Conservative plan is focused on achieving results.”
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>Conservative housing critic Scott Aitchison said the amount of energy and time bureaucrats spent poring over the bill was misplaced. 
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>“It’s no surprise that the same government gatekeepers who helped design Justin Trudeau’s disastrous housing policies are viscerally opposed and feel threatened by the common sense proposals of his chief political rival,” Aitchison said.

!ping Can