I want to stop seeing news items like this. They are an insult. We are smarter than this. Political announcements that are vague, non-binding, and heavy on “exploring options", are a red flag.
This news article should have been about how Carney walked in with a hollow, developer-friendly outline he tried to sell as an affordable housing plan, and how a room full of actual journalists tore it apart.
"We don't do that here."
*Sigh*
Instead, it’s… well, I can’t hear you when your mouth is full.
Yep. I went there. Because this is gross.
We know that if an affordable housing plan does not start with:
Binding affordability targets tied to incomes
Permanent affordability covenants on public land
Funding primarily for co-ops, non-profits, and Indigenous housing providers
Shovels in the ground this year, not after years of program design
…then it is not an affordable housing plan. It is a plan to transfer public wealth into private hands under the cover of a crisis.
Doug Ford did the exact same thing.
The headline promises relief. The fine print delivers subsidies to the wealthy, low-interest loans to developers, and valuable land to the wealthiest players in the housing market. And the people who actually need affordable housing get “consultations” and “explorations” while prices keep climbing.
Lots of houses will get built and the profit margins will be just wonderful for the builders, but there are no requirements built-in to pass that down to the buyer and actually make housing more affordable.
In an Oligarchy, Liberal and Conservative are the same.
Yep. I went there, too. Because this is gross.
Carney’s affordable housing plan feels like Doug Ford’s:
Promise to open land for housing
Hand it to a small group of connected developers
Deliver minimal or no affordability
Override local planning to push their projects through
Carney is bending over backwards to:
Promise affordability without defining it
Build a framework that makes it easy for private developers to capture public benefits
Leave affordability conditions vague and temporary
Spend months or years in “consultations” that developers heavily influence
Call it out. Share it. Reject it. Demand better. Because we have seen the playbook, and we know exactly what’s going to happen - and what’s not going to happen.
Where the fuck is Rachel Gilmore?