Prime Minister Justin Trudeau started his post-shuffle re-pitching of his government as affordability-focused to Canadians on Thursday, seeking to draw a sharp contrast between the Liberals and their Conservative rivals. Housing was another key change made as part of the shuffle, and now the minister in charge says his file will be a 'complete priority.'
They do have the housing generator fund to bribe cities into approving more housing, which is a nice supply-side carrot. The problem is that municipalities don’t deserve carrots. They deserve sticks. I can’t stand Poilievre, but he’s right there.
They give the cities a bunch of money. Poilievre proposes that they not do that for ones with lackluster performance building housing. I have trouble disagreeing with him despite how disagreeable he is.
Are you talking about funding for infrastructure or other big projects like that?
I’m not aware of any city getting regular blank checks from the feds in the same way they get from the provences.
Typically a city will ask the province and feds to help fund large projects they couldn’t hope to fund on their own, this is partially realted to cities having lots of limitations on the kinds of debt they can carry.
They do have the housing generator fund to bribe cities into approving more housing, which is a nice supply-side carrot. The problem is that municipalities don’t deserve carrots. They deserve sticks. I can’t stand Poilievre, but he’s right there.
The feds don’t really have sticks to use against cities, that’s the provinces jurisdiction…
They give the cities a bunch of money. Poilievre proposes that they not do that for ones with lackluster performance building housing. I have trouble disagreeing with him despite how disagreeable he is.
Are you talking about funding for infrastructure or other big projects like that?
I’m not aware of any city getting regular blank checks from the feds in the same way they get from the provences.
Typically a city will ask the province and feds to help fund large projects they couldn’t hope to fund on their own, this is partially realted to cities having lots of limitations on the kinds of debt they can carry.
https://www.infrastructure.gc.ca/plan/gtf-fte-eng.html
So ya, mostly large infrastructure stuff.