Is Trump overshadowing housing this federal election? Edmonton advocates weigh in

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With the federal election inching closer, an Edmonton non-profit worries housing and its role in affordability are taking a backseat to the threat of President Donald Trump tariffs.

“Unfortunately, with this tenuous relationship between us and our friends in the south, this issue of housing, unfortunately, is kind of getting lost in the noise about tariffs and whatnot,” said Suzana Dumo, director of programs with Actions for Healthy Communities (AHC).

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While every major party in the upcoming election has discussed plans to address the nation’s housing crisis, recent international tensions could be distracting attention from the issue. With party leaders all vying to be the one to sail Canada through the choppy Trump waters, Dumo worries that the housing issues could once again fade to the back of the ballot concerns, causing potentially more years of strife.

“There’s been a lot of conversations about housing for the last maybe decade in this country and we know that new builds in the country has not necessarily kept up pace with the population growth,” said Dumo.

AHC is an Edmonton community-based organization that has, for 30 years, provided support programs to help people get access to housing, development services, and life skills. Dumo says it supports a variety of groups, including newcomers to Canada. While the programming for the organization covers several different areas of focus, Dumo said the role of housing and its effect on affordability is central to everything.

“It is one of the core things that we definitely address as part of our programming,” said Dumo.

“If people don’t have housing, it’s hard to be able to access other services. If people have, let’s say issues or difficulties affording housing, that means they’re also having difficulties affording food. They’re having difficulties affording other basic necessities that sustain life and well-being for people.”

AHC’s integration program manager, Suraj Khatiwada, says nearly half of the organization’s clients arrive with housing needs, but the organization is only able to help a fraction of them.

“About 40 per cent (of) clients came to our organization with housing needs, and when I was analyzing the outcome section only 25 per cent of those identified clients were able to secure their desired housing options,” said Khatiwada.

Will less demand lower housing prices?

Immigration is often cited as a key cause for the mounting housing crisis in the country, contributing to the rising costs, which in turn have an effect on overall affordability. However, following the federal government’s immigration policy change in October announced by Minister of Immigration Marc Miller, RBC Economics said in a report that although a decrease in newcomers could help lower demand for housing, it won’t lower prices.

“Narrowing the supply gap over time will give Canadians more housing options to choose from, but it will not solve the affordability crisis,” reads the report.

Dumo thinks framing the issue of housing or affordability around newcomers is oversimplifying the issue, and scapegoating a group who aren’t actually responsible for the problem.

“Personally, I don’t know that this is caused by the newcomers. I think the newcomers that are coming to the country may have just illuminated an existing issue that may or may not have been on the radar of governments. And so now it’s being associated with newcomers and the number of newcomers in the country, because I think people are not necessarily looking at it from from the root causes,” she said.

Causes of the housing crisis can be traced in part back to the 1980s when the federal government stepped back from its role as a facilitator, investor, and builder of affordable housing, turning it over to provincial and municipal governments as well as the private market.

What the major parties propose on housing

So what do the major parties have planned in this election to fix the housing crisis?

Conservative Party

1. Waive GST on all newly built homes sold for less than $1.3 million.
2. Use demand generated from new home buyers’ tax cut to spur construction of 36,000 homes per year.
3. Cover 50 per cent of city development charge reductions, up to $25,000 per home.
4. Cancel the Liberal Housing Accelerator and other federal housing programs.

NDP

1. Direct the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corp. to give preferential long-term, low-interest mortgages to working and middle-class families.
2. Build rent-controlled homes on public land.
3. Create at least 500,000 units of affordable housing in next decade.

Liberal Party

1. Waive GST on homes sold to first-time buyers for $1 million or less.
2. Invest $35 billion to build 500,000 per year for the next decade.

“When we were talking seeing all these parties plan for the election campaign, so many programs, so many different ideas they are presenting; I’m struggling to understand how they are coming down to the people who really need housing support,” said Khatiwada.

For Khatiwada, any solution to the housing crisis ought to start from the bottom up.

While supply plays a significant role in fostering affordability in the housing market, which Edmonton has a good start on, Dumo said supply on its own isn’t enough.

“Bottom line is, we don’t have enough supply of housing. But that is not necessarily the only solution that may address this,” said Dumo.

Rent control could help with the housing and affordability crisis, but so could better training to give Canadians access to higher paying jobs to outpace inflation, among other options, said Dumo. Overall, she’d like to see more proactivity from the next federal government, so that important issues don’t fall by the wayside amid a crisis.

“We have the issue of housing as one, the issue of jobs and high paying jobs is another, the issue of maybe seniors as well. These are things that I think oftentimes get lost in the in the chaos of of this situation of the tariffs. But I hope that whoever comes into the government after this election can really begin to look at being proactive about about some of these things, as opposed to reacting to things when it’s a critical or crisis situation,” said Dumo.