Roundup: Questioning the housing numbers

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The Parliamentary Budget Officer released a report yesterday on the federal government’s programme spending on housing affordability, and I have questions, both on the report, and on the responses to it. On the report itself, I’m having a hard time seeing how this is necessarily within his remit, and not that of the Auditor General. This is not exactly fiscal or macro-economic analysis – it’s evaluating programme spending, which is the Auditor General’s job. (Once again, the PBO is not a “budget watchdog” or a “watchdog” of any kind, per his enabling legislation). This doesn’t appear to have been at the request of any MPs in particular, though this updates his 2019 report which was requested by an unnamed MP at the time, but again, not really his wheelhouse. “Providing economic and financial analysis for the purposes of raising the quality of parliamentary debate and promoting greater budget transparency and accountability” is being taken a little too broadly.

The findings of the report are that the funds allocated to housing are being underspent, but doesn’t really delve into why, other than noting that some of the spending was related to having to renew bilateral agreements with provinces that were allowed to lapse in 2015, and that CMHC’s programmes have both faced “implementation delays” and that their shift toward funding capital contributions instead of affordability supports spread that funding out over the life of projects. Those “implementation delays” probably deserve a lot more exploration – the fact that municipalities in particular aren’t spending the dollars available fast enough because the projects are bottlenecked in their own jurisdictions (and Vancouver is most especially guilty of this) – and that’s a lot of what this report seems to be light on details about. Housing is largely a provincial responsibility, and aside from providing money, the federal government has very few levers at its disposal, and when municipalities can’t get their acts together, that’s not really a problem the federal government can solve.

As for opposition reaction, it was predictable in that it read the PBO’s topline and not much else. The Conservatives complained that the housing plans haven’t met their targets and that they need a plan that “gets homes built,” which again, is pretty hard to do with the very few levers available at the federal level. The NDP, meanwhile, accuse the government of dubious accounting and broken promises, as per usual, again based largely on topline figures and not the fact that many of the problems exist at the provincial and municipal levels. Federal dollars only go so far and can only wield so much influence, and these are details that matter when it comes to implementing promises.

Good reads:

  • Michael Spavor has been sentenced by China to eleven years in prison for spying, plus asset forfeiture and deportation – but there is no timeline for that to happen.
  • Moderna has signed an agreement to build a new mRNA vaccine production plant in Canada within the next two years.
  • Carolyn Bennett and David Lametti announced another $321 million for Indigenous communities to respond to the unmarked graves at residential school sites.
  • After threatening to do so for years, the federal government is (finally) creating a regulator for immigration consultants as a means of combatting fraud.
  • The government is launching consultations on plans to make web giants pay for news, given that they did not reach consensus on a path forward.
  • Canadian Forces are making contingency plans for the possible evacuation of the embassy in Kabul as Taliban forces get closer to the capital.
  • The military won’t turn over the investigation into sexual assault allegations by the former head of military personnel to civilian police.
  • Erin O’Toole says that Canadians aren’t safe in China, and renewed his call to boycott the Beijing Olympics next year.
  • Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister says he won’t run again, thus kicking off a new leadership process for his party.
  • Greg Fyffe explains the dangers to Canada’s entire intelligence ecosystem if MPs obtain classified information and release it publicly to score points.
  • Kevin Carmichael looks at the child care deals being made across the country, and sees them as a political win that Harper and the Conservatives learned the hard way.
  • Colby Cosh despairs at the policies on offer thus far in the upcoming election, particularly from the Conservatives who are picking questionable goals.
  • My column makes note of the IPCC report and its dire warnings, and points out that while the federal government has more to do, the premiers need to step up too.

Odds and ends:

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