Roundup: Singh’s curious housing assertions

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It looks like Jagmeet Singh is going to make another attempt at overplaying his hand, as he promises to use his “leverage” to try and squeeze more concessions from the government, particularly around housing. And sure, he can try, but part of this is going to go back to his absolute inability—or unwillingness—to understand how process works, and that’s kind of a big deal when you’re trying to demand the federal government do things.

For example, Singh was on Power & Politics the other day and insisted that the federal government can “rapidly” build new affordable houses, because they have “the land, the money, and the power” to do so. But I’m not sure this has entirely been thought through. Yes, the government has been going through their property portfolio to identify lands that can be sold for housing purposes, but that’s been ongoing for a couple of years and there hasn’t been a lot of traction because I suspect there isn’t a lot that’s available that is suitable for housing, and even if there was a glut that could be released, could they get it re-zoned for housing in short order by municipalities? I have my doubts. Yes, they have money, but that’s not infinite, and spending too much can have impacts on inflation, which they are trying to bring down (which is not helped by Singh’s stubborn insistence that only corporate greed is fuelling inflation, which is not true, and that a windfall tax will fix it, which is also not true). I’m also not sure what he means by the “power” to build homes—housing is primarily a provincial and municipal jurisdiction, where the federal contribution is mostly financial. Does he envision that they tender the construction of these houses? Because if that’s the case, a federal procurement process is neither simple nor quick (and just wait for the losing companies to sue the government, like what happens with defence procurement). Do they hire site planners, architects, and construction workers directly? Again, do you know what a federal hiring process looks like? And more to the point, there is a very tight labour market, which means that this will increases costs (and money is not infinite).

So, again, what process does he envision that the federal government can use to “rapidly” build these houses? Because remember, the timelines that the NDP are insisting on with their supply-and-confidence agreement have created their own problems, such as with the construction of the dental care programme, which has relied on a very poor kludge to get out the door within the deadline, and bad programme design just creates headaches, especially if it’s to meet an arbitrary deadline. Pharmacare is going to be similar—they’re insisting on particular timelines, but even if enabling legislation is passed this year, it’s not really going to matter unless nine other premiers sign on (and I haven’t seen Singh publicly haranguing NDP premier David Eby to do so). Process matters, and Singh pretending it doesn’t is a sign he’s not a serious person.

(As an aside, could every gods damned person who interviews Singh please stop asking why he hasn’t taken the nuclear option of tearing up the agreement as their first question? Seriously).

Ukraine Dispatch:

A combined overnight drone and missile attack on Kyiv killed two people, while an overnight drone attack, purportedly from Ukraine, struck military targets inside Russia and allegedly damaged four transport planes. Even more curious is that some of these Ukrainian drones appear to be made out of cardboard—for real!

Good reads:

  • Justin Trudeau is headed to Indonesia, Singapore, and India next week for an ASEAN meeting, bilateral talks, and a G20 meeting respectively.
  • Only one in five federally-funded EV charging stations is operational (so far).
  • The Canadian Forces are removing their “duty to report” regulations around sexual assault as a way of returning agency to survivors.
  • CIBC believes the government has undercounted the number of people in the country by as many as a million because of people with expired visas.
  • Our poor wheat harvest this year is going to mean higher pasta prices.
  • New research into declassified documents shows that Pierre Trudeau’s PMO was running an intelligence operation against Quebec separatists post-October Crisis.
  • The criminal trials for two of the Ottawa occupation organisers gets underway next week, and could be setting a number of precedents.
  • Some former Conservatives strategists in Quebec are warning the party not to put too much stock in their high polling numbers in the province right now.
  • Ontario’s Integrity Commissioner has found housing minister Steve Clark was grossly negligent in the Greenbelt scandal, but Doug Ford is keeping him anyway.
  • Danielle Smith treated Steven Guilbeault’s comments about the Suncor CEO as an attack on the province, because there’s no straw man she won’t attack.
  • Jen Gerson tries to get a sense of how prepared we are for a major disaster in this country, and is once again reacquainted with the realities of federalism.
  • Susan Delacourt pokes into the attitudes around how we let 24 Sussex crumble, and why Trudeau is likely to avoid making any decisions even longer.

Odds and ends:

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One thought on “Roundup: Singh’s curious housing assertions”

  1. Thankyou for outlining in detail how Mr. Singh’s lack of knowledge is further proof that he who aspirers to lead Canada is as dumb as a lead brick and joins his conservative rival for the honor,

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