The ongoing dispute between the federal and provincial governments on housing is interesting. It’s interesting as a matter of policy. It’s also interesting as a matter of politics.
The core of the dispute is this: in 2018, under then-premier Kathleen Wynne, Ontario signed an agreement with the Trudeau government to accelerate the construction of affordable-housing units in exchange for federal financial support. Ontario is not hitting its targets, and the feds are threatening to withhold hundreds of millions of dollars in expected funding, on the basis of Ontario having defaulted on its part of the bargain.
Ontario is off the mark in terms of hitting the goal. That’s not denied by anyone. But there is a dispute between Ontario and Ottawa over just how far short of the goal Ontario is falling. The feds say we’re missing by a country mile, over 90 per cent; Ontario counters that it is retrofitting a large number of existing affordable-housing units and that those should count toward the goal. While it’s true that Ontario is way off hitting its goals for new units, it has retrofitted 170 per cent of what it intended to, says provincial housing minister Paul Calandra. Given the pandemic and various economic shocks — supply-chain disruptions, skilled-labour shortages, inflation and interest rates — that’s damn good, Ontario asserts.
That’s an intriguing notion, and one I feel favourably toward. A unit kept on the market or an existing-but-dilapidated unit returned to a livable condition is as important as a newly built unit. In that sense, I have some sympathy for Ontario’s position. The problem, though, is that even if Ontario has its way and counts all the units it’s retrofitting as contributing to its goal, the province is still way off.
Here we have to get into the actual numbers a bit: back in 2018, Ontario committed to building 19,660 new affordable-housing units by 2028; it has thus far built only a little shy of 1,200. The feds note that that means Ontario has just three years left to build 94 per cent of the homes it pledged to build. The province has a plan to get to just under 30 per cent of the goal by the end of the term, but federal housing minister Sean Fraser says that’s not good enough. That’s where Ontario counters with its retrofitting accomplishments. If those are included, Ontario can get to within 60 per cent of the goal.
And, yeah. That’s better. Twice as good, thereabouts. And, again, I actually am sympathetic to Ontario’s point. But let’s just be blunt here: Calandra is spinning to put the best possible face on a failure. He’s doing an okay job with the spin, but it is spin, because missing your goal by 40 per cent is the sort of thing that anyone outside politics and governments would regard, rightly, as a total failure. Only in the domain of governance and politics does anyone try to spin that kind of a flop as a form of victory. Calandra’s doing his best to keep a straight face, but come on. Ontario may well have a valid explanation for why it’s failing, but it’s failing. Fraser and the feds are correct about that.
This moves us away from the policy focus and to the political: Who’ll get the blame? Calandra is already trying to turn this around and attack the feds, saying that their threat to withhold the money is a direct attack on vulnerable people in Ontario. That’s cute. Fraser countered that the feds would still spend the money on affordable housing in Ontario but that they’d cut the Ontario government out of the loop and find another way to deliver the money. That’s cute, too.
Fraser has done pretty remarkable work for the feds on the housing file. Time will tell whether what he’s done will actually get much housing built — Ontario missing the mark so widely is illustrative of how hard actually building stuff can be — but Fraser has, if nothing else, helped blunt the political danger the housing file posed to his government. He can’t undo the damage already done. And, indeed, the damage that the cost-of-living crisis, particularly in terms of housing, has done to the federal Liberals will likely be fatal. But Fraser has at least stopped the bleeding and been a savvy and effective combatant when forced to go head to head with officials from other governments. Ontario being threatened with clawbacks is an example of that, and the province can’t say much about it — it’s how Queen’s Park has handled municipalities that aren’t living up to their deals, too.
Fundamentally, in a blame game, I think the feds come out victorious. Fraser is better at this than Calandra, and the feds have a better case. Calandra’s best move is to blame his failure on factors beyond his control, and there’s truth in that, but the housing minister is hobbled by a premier who can’t figure out a coherent message on housing. Ford’s partially walked-back comments about fourplexes — he at least seems to now understand what a fourplex is and isn’t — has damaged the provincial government’s credibility on housing. So has the Greenbelt fiasco. Calandra isn’t in much of a position right now to beg for trust, good faith, and sympathy. His government has not only not earned it but also seemingly deliberately sought to do the opposite.
And that’s a shame, really, because he does have something of a point. It’s worth asking how much retrofitted units should count toward the total goal. Fair enough. The problem is, Calandra’s trying to make this nuanced point while his government’s credibility on this file is as low as it has been. He’s up against a skilled opponent who knows that his government is waging — and, bluntly, losing — the fight of its political life. And that skilled opponent has money to spend. Money Calandra needs.
The feds are going to win this one in the court of public opinion. And Ontario did this to itself.
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