By Nate Erskine Smith
February 8th, 2025
BURLINGTON, ON
Nate Erskine Smith
While the House of Comments isn’t meeting, the Prime Minister appears to be at his desk on occasion. Minister of Housing Nate Erskine Smith has made it very clear what he wants to do in the time that he has left:
Drive down the costs of home building, double down on our commitment to community housing, end homelessness, and treat housing as a home first and an investment second.
“I’ve been busy making transit and housing-related announcements across Ontario these last few weeks, and we’re set to travel across the country going forward. As a result, I’m a little behind on writing and sharing ideas.
“Of course, the US-Canada relationship and the real threat of tariffs have been, and will continue to be, the government’s primary focus. For example, at the Federation of Canadian Municipalities Big City Mayors caucus this past week, we spoke about how to best prepare for the worst on tariffs, including supply chain disruptions and pricing uncertainty, and potential stimulus for capital projects.
“I also shared my core priorities on the housing file with the big city mayors, which I laid out in this explainer video in greater detail.
We’ll be doing deeper dives on these specific priorities in the coming weeks:
Driving down the costs of home building: How can we best reduce taxes (including development charges), cut red tape and end exclusionary zoning, and drive innovation and economies of scale in home building?
Re-investing in social and community housing: How can we double the amount of nonmarket housing over the next decade? We used to build much more community housing in this country and other countries build much more today.
Ending homelessness: I did this deeper dive on a Housing First approach, the increased commitment from the feds to address homelessness through rapid housing and operational supports, and the growing challenges despite that substantial federal contribution.
Treating housing as a home first and investment second: We should incentivize new investment in building homes across the housing continuum. But in a competition for existing homes, investment dollars shouldn’t displace affordability. We should look at all available rules to prioritize people who are buying houses as a place to call home.
Canada-US relations and home construction: I didn’t touch on this in the above video, but about a month ago I did this explainer on tariffs, the trade deficit, border concerns, and why the Canada-US relationship should be built upon, not undermined. I’ll be doing an update given where we seem to be headed, potential impacts to my portfolio, and why we should continue to choose Canada.
If you’ve got other questions, we’ll work to answer those too by way of short video explainers or posts here. Just send us an email or post in the comments.
Thanks for following otherwise. And let’s stay strong, free, and united in the face of this serious threat to our economic and national interests from our long-standing ally.
If you have any questions about politics or any ideas on what I should be raising in Ottawa, you can reach me at info@beynate.ca
Doug Ford has intentionally turned the real estate sector into a favourably regulated, taxpayer subsidized set of monopolies, owned mostly by his already rich developer buddies.
To top that off, he has provided them with a risk free proposal application safe-guard monopoly appeal mechanism in the OLT. This really means that the City has its hands tied, as the developers always have a given right to appeal if the City refuses their proposal.
The result is that the house-building sector has been turned into a large financial instrument for investors, not what is needed – first time house buyers.
What I would hope to see, given the Trump predator invader factor, is a new economic policy framework by the province, preparing for the new future Canada and the Province faces for the next 4 uncertain years.
End the deep hole deficits and debt spent on subsidies to the developer rich in costly infrastructure and reduced development charges, and other free-bees. Despite all that tax inflation in Burlington, nothing much is being built in homes. It’s all sitting there inflating on paper for investors.
Stop putting all this taxpayer money in the only Plan Ford has – the Provincial Growth Plan – to enrich real estate, by continuing to try to build ever more houses, and needed roads, imaginary tunnels, pavement, and all the other stuff taxpayers have to pay. which we cannot provide the needs for.
In any case, the Ford plan has visibly failed for the last 6 or 8 years, and this is well known, in inflation and affordability, medical deficits in doctors, medical staff, hospitals, and emergency clinics. Further, there is a similar deficit in Education – teachers, schools, Universities.
I think it is visible – Ford is for Monopolies for the rich landowners and developers, and protecting them with regulatory controls in the OLT, to make sure they can’t lose, come what may.
Make this election for you, not his failure. Trump is a liar and will do what he wants – Canada.
Another politician using this issue to get some name recognition before the next fed election.Pathetic!
Nate,
I am impressed at such keenness from an afterthought of a cabinet minister who will most likely lose his position in early spring unless a coronated Carney can restore the NDP coalition or make a deal with the devil Bloc. Nothing would surprise me.
This is precisely why the paid for media and desperate politicians like Trudeau and Ford are intent on stoking manufacturing the next crisis to increase your “dependence” on “them”. I am really enjoying the theatre.
Nate, have you seen the ridiculous platform from 1 % Karina on gun control? What an embarrassment to Burlington and the country. I urge you to review it. It smacks of a hail Mary to fend off an almost certain loss to Emily Brown. Desperate to hang in there as an MP.
Nate how about making mortgage interest tax deductible for owner occupied primary residences. If you can’t support that then it’s doubtful that I or many can support you.
Real estate activity has for too long been “intentionally” made a far too large component of Canada’s GDP when the country is being economically devastated by ideological governance. A big part of the reason we are becoming a much poorer country to comparable economies and particularly to our friends in the USA.