Why is Singh complaining about 'luxury condos'? It's not 1987
The federal New Democrats recently announced a bit of a leadership shake-up: Anne McGrath, whose many past roles have included chief of staff to Jack Layton and principal secretary to Rachel Notley, is stepping down as party president to become principal secretary for Jagmeet Singh. The press release said the changes were about “building momentum for the next election,” which New Democrats could surely use: Over the last two years the Conservatives have surged to roughly 40 per cent in the polls; the Liberals have tanked to roughly 25 per cent; and the NDP is right where it was before, at 20 per cent or less.
Enjoy the latest local, national and international news.
Enjoy the latest local, national and international news.
Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.
Don't have an account? Create Account
This demographics underpinning this are unprecedented — the most recent Abacus Data poll has the Conservatives leading among 18-to-29-year-olds with 32 per cent of the vote — and absolutely damning to Singh, if not an existential threat to the party’s future.
No one disputes what’s driving the shift: Canada’s insane housing market has thrown a wrench into many millennial-and-younger voters’ plans for the future. And if the Conservatives don’t have all the answers, well, the Liberals have been in power for eight years. And according to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. (CMHC) statistics released this week we’re constructing seven-per-cent fewer homes nationwide in 2023 than we did in 2022.
Only very recently did the Liberals suddenly get serious on this file, deploying one of their only conspicuously competent ministers to the portfolio, withholding federal money for housing projects that succumb to NIMBY influences and holding press conferences whenever and wherever possible.
Trouble is, people notice the numbers associated with these announcements and roll their eyes. Last week, Justin Trudeau went to Guelph, Ont. and boasted of federal money dedicated to “fast-tracking about 750 new housing units in the next couple of years.” A two-bedroom condo in Guelph within walking distance of the GO train, which gets you to Toronto in a glacial 90 minutes, is currently on the market for $679,900. In Guelph. That city is many more than a few hundred extra units from sanity.
This newsletter tackles hot topics with boldness, verve and wit. (Subscriber-exclusive edition on Fridays)
By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc.
A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder.
The next issue of Platformed will soon be in your inbox.
We encountered an issue signing you up. Please try again
What Poilievre has tapped into here isn’t just the number-one issue of our time — when the Liberals are mooting limiting immigration, you know they’ve made a hell of a mess — but anger at the politicians at every level who sat back and let it happen. Show this moment in the abstract to a socialist political science professor, and he would tell you this was a perfect moment for an NDP breakthrough. Many younger, ideological leftists are practically on their knees begging Singh to bust out of the political centre and go full-on class war.
Maybe that’s what he was trying to do in a video released this week in which he tears a strip off a new housing development in Edmonton’s Griesbach neighbourhood. Instead he pretty much united the country in frustration.
“Only 13 per cent of the homes … will be affordable,” he says of the development.
“(Trudeau) is building luxury condos you can’t afford,” Singh tweeted along with the video. “With his plan … developers get rich, you get gouged.”
Federal money in Griesbach is funding two projects. One, by the City of Edmonton Non-Profit Housing Corp., will feature 85 rental units, with 43 designated for “affordable use” — “predominantly for recent immigrants, women fleeing violence with their children and low-income families,” per a city staff report. The other, by Métis Capital Housing Corporation, will (per CMHC) “consist of approximately 127 units for Métis and other Indigenous individuals and families, including 50 units dedicated to women and children fleeing violence.”
This is the development Singh goes after? What the bloody hell?
Even if the developments did include “luxury condos,” the term “luxury condo” is progressive language from the 1980s, when Prosecco-o’clock socialists tended to see new highrises as a sort of stain on proper urban living. Yuppies lived in condos. In the movie Wall Street, Gordon Gecko’s underlings lived in condos. It was terrible.
I was 11 years old when Wall Street was released. I’m 47 now. Nobody younger than me has any familiarity with this world view. They just want somewhere they can live where they might be able to build a bit of capital, as most of their parents did. As economist Mike Moffatt observed on X, for just about anyone under 40 and unaided by generational wealth, condos are starter homes: In London, Ont., he noted, 81 per cent of homes priced under $400,000 (of which there aren’t many!) are condos.
“Condos are entry level homes, affordable homes, and retirement/downsizing homes,” former Toronto chief planner Jennifer Keesmaat, whose 2018 mayoral campaign was run by Brian Topp and the NDP machine, wrote on X, responding to Singh’s video. “This is rhetoric meant to inflame and divide.”
All in all, a job very crappily done by Singh and his newly restaffed office. If the NDP aspire to anything more than extracting a few concessions here and there from the governing party in a minority Parliament — and I’m not really sure they do — they need more than a new principal secretary. They need a new leader, post-haste. Someone with a pulse.
National Post
cselley@postmedia.com
Postmedia is committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion and encourage all readers to share their views on our articles. Comments may take up to an hour for moderation before appearing on the site. We ask you to keep your comments relevant and respectful. We have enabled email notifications—you will now receive an email if you receive a reply to your comment, there is an update to a comment thread you follow or if a user you follow comments. Visit our Community Guidelines for more information and details on how to adjust your email settings.
Five ski pieces that are as stylish as they are practical.
Staples, Our Place and ALDO, to name a few
Don’t leave home without packing these items
From functionality to affordability, we’ve rounded up 7 of the best cast iron pans on the market
The eyes are leading the charge, with glitz and glamour on the horizon
login
who are we?
contact us
qosheapp
Toi Staff
Gideon Levy
Belen Fernandez
Mort Laitner
Rami G Khouri
Ali Fathollah-Nejad
Nikkei Editorial
visit website
