Thus, Justin Trudeau’s government has decided to get involved in the housing issue. For the past week, as the next federal budget approaches, he has revealed sums in the billions to the provinces, both to increase the supply of housing and to tackle the issue — at least, that is what it is claimed — from the cost of housing.
After promising 5 billion to the provinces which would adopt the brand new “Canadian charter of tenants’ rights”, Justin Trudeau unveiled his program on Wednesday Building in Canadawhich will allocate funds to provinces to build new housing, subject to compliance with certain conditions to promote the efficient management of new construction, the use of government and community lands as well as the creation of affordable housing.
In Quebec, we immediately denounced the encroachment into provincial areas of jurisdiction. The affront is obvious, quite remarkable even, as the federal government seems to be writing a public policy from scratch in place of the provinces. This is ironic because the federal government has, in practice, allowed the country’s housing crisis to worsen and deepen for decades without flinching.
It is true that, when you have just received an eviction notice, you look at the price of rental housing with anxiety because everything is too expensive, too small, too shaky, too far away, the tensions of Canadian federalism , this is not the priority. If it is the federal government that ends up sending a lifeline, the poorly housed across Canada — and there are many of them — will not turn up their noses at it. If the provinces do not have the means, or the will to act, what is the other option?
In Quebec, the CAQ government is demanding a right to withdraw from the federal program, with full compensation. This is the least we can do, since Quebec has, despite everything, much more robust institutions than the other provinces to govern relations between tenants and owners. A designated administrative tribunal, a legislative framework that promotes security of tenure and prohibits certain abusive practices that occur elsewhere (the security deposit or the rent advance upon signing the lease, for example). This is not enough, and the trend towards the erosion of tenants’ rights is strong. Nevertheless, the defense of rights component of the plan presented by the Trudeau government appears here as a strange regulatory graft.
That said, the CAQ government cannot boast of its record on housing either. At a time when Justin Trudeau is worried about the power relations between tenants and owners, the Minister responsible for Housing, France-Élaine Duranceau, has just shoved down the throats of tenants a bill which accentuates this asymmetry. The fact remains that the federal government has no lessons to teach anyone.
In a work published in 2016, Greg Suttor, a researcher affiliated with the Wellesley Institute in Toronto, traces the evolution of federal social housing policies since the Second World War. It demonstrates that since the 1980s, under the government of Brian Mulroney, the federal government largely turned away from the question of housing, which was, essentially, erased from its vision of the social state.
While the mood was for decentralization and a neoliberal turn in public policies, the Mulroney government gradually withdrew funding for social housing, and transferred responsibility for housing to the provinces, without matching significant sums. The trend, of course, continued under the Liberal government of Jean Chrétien.
In terms of social housing, the shift was radical: while in 1993, a temporary suspension of federal funding for new social housing was announced, the decision became permanent in 1995, so that in 1996, the annual number of Social housing units supported by the federal government went from 25,000 to… zero. Since then, there has been no turning back.
In Quebec, observers and groups defending the right to housing all say it: this disengagement has created a structural problem in the supply of affordable housing. This has permanently weakened the housing conditions of low-income households, and contributed to creating a perpetual housing crisis.
There was of course a matter of economic circumstances; “a perfect storm” having sabotaged the supply of social and affordable housing, to which the Quebec government also contributed. At a time when the federal government was curbing its social spending and reducing federal transfers, in Quebec, the governments of Jacques Parizeau and Lucien Bouchard successively favored neoliberal management of housing, to the detriment of the supply of non-market housing. Here again, the trend has never been reversed. This is evidenced by the current direction of housing policies.
The current crisis has been co-produced by all levels of government, which have accepted the commodification and neoliberal management of housing. The fact remains that it is difficult not to welcome the sudden concern of the Trudeau government, which arrives with its billions and its big clogs in the areas of provincial jurisdiction, with suspicion and irritation. We could sum it up like this: it’s too little, too late, and it’s done wrong.