LILLEY: Trudeau's latest housing plan keeping ownership out of reach

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Justin Trudeau’s latest plan for housing might best be described as you will own nothing and be happy.

In a video posted to social media over the weekend, Trudeau laid out plans to use federal lands to build more homes without giving you the chance to own them.

“Here’s something we can all agree on, we need more housing,” Trudeau says enthusiastically as his social media video kicks off.

“But that the government should step up and make sure that housing gets built. That’s where some people disagree.”

No, not really.

There will be disagreement on what the government should do to ensure more housing is built, but there is no disagreement that we need more housing. Trudeau prefers an interventionist approach where the federal government works with municipalities to design and build neighbourhoods.

It’s an incredibly bureaucratic and cumbersome way to do things, but it is preferred by Trudeau and his supporters.

Meanwhile, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has said that he wants to remove the gatekeepers, lower the development charges that can make up about a third of the cost of housing and reward municipalities for building more homes. It’s a different philosophy than Trudeau’s, but it doesn’t mean the Conservatives don’t want action on housing.

Then in Trudeau’s video, he talks about his idea for using surplus federal lands for housing.

This idea has been featured in the 2019 and 2021 Conservative election platforms. It’s an idea that Poilievre has been pushing at rally after rally across Canada since he started his leadership campaign.

Liberals have mocked the idea in the past, but now they are adopting it — kind of. See, Trudeau’s Liberals want to use federal land for housing, but they seem to not want you to own your home.

“Take federal lands, land that’s owned by the federal government, that isn’t being used anymore,” Trudeau says. “The Conservative party leader wants to sell it all off to make a quick buck. That does nothing for you.”

Actually, it lets you own your home, unlike Trudeau’s plan.

“We’re offering up that public land for housing and we’re not just going to sell it all to developers, we’re going to long-term lease it,” Trudeau says.

This is why I equate Trudeau’s newest plan to the Great Reset slogan of, “You will own nothing and be happy.”

The Canadian dream is to be able to buy and own your home. In many parts of the world, that is not feasible, that is not attainable.

We need all kinds of housing to be built, from rental to affordable to geared-to-income homes, but also homes that people can afford to buy. Trudeau, though, only focuses on the rental market, the affordable and geared-to-income homes and now homes where the government will own the land your home sits on.

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At the same time, he makes it sound like the government selling off land to build homes is wrong, evil and should never be done. Yet this has been government policy for decades through the Mulroney, Chretien, Martin, Harper and Trudeau governments.

The Canada Lands Company, a federal agency, has sold off surplus land to developers for housing for years. The CLC has had direct input on the types of homes being built, from single family to townhomes, stacked towns, apartments and affordable housing, all in the same neighbourhood.

Areas like River Walk in Chilliwack, B.C., Garrison Woods in Calgary or Wateridge Village in Ottawa are examples of the type of development Trudeau now derides, even though some of it happened under his watch.

What Trudeau seems to be trying to do with his latest plan is to lower expectations that you will own a home and inject some good old-fashioned class warfare into the debate.

He’s grasping at straws, which is understandable given the polling, but his ideas won’t solve the crisis and they won’t make Canadians happy.