As the Federal Liberals get set to publish their 2017 budget, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM — 2,000 members representing 90% of Canada’s population) have urged a focus on social housing. The Feds downsized their participation in development and maintenance of affordable housing, starting in 1993. Maybe they’re back.
Alexander Street Community — more HERE
The FCM’s position paper, and backgrounder, is HERE.
The FCM recommended $12.66B over 8 years be devoted to social housing — old and new.
Thanks to Bill Curry in the Globe and Mail.
The Federation of Canadian Municipalities has asked Ottawa to devote $12.6-billion of the $20-billion already pledged for “social” infrastructure to social and affordable housing.
The request was initially met with skepticism late last year from federal officials, including the head of the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp., the federal housing authority. However, Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi said that the mayors received positive signals Friday morning on the request for $12.6-billion.
I was very, very, very happy to hear the Prime Minister say today that their investments in social housing, they think, will come in close to what the FCM is asking for. If that’s actually true, that will be an unprecedented investment in affordable housing across the country,” he said.
To every hammer, the solution looks like a nail. To every municipal body, the solution looks like provincial/federal money(your tax dollars). There are solutions involving municipal governance, solutions that are primarily ignored by elected councilors for the large part.
Re-invigourating federal participation in social and affordable housing is long overdue, as is it in transit and other necessary infrastructure (e.g. waste).
The city can only do so much without powers similar to senior government. One element it has used to great effect is land. Provincially-funded social housing was built on city-owned land on 14 different sites. That was a remarkable partnership that created desperately needed homes with central kitchens and medical services for the poor and homeless.
The Metro can participate more too, if it chose.
Perhaps the missing bigger debate is: does the federal government tax too much and do cities tax too little, i.e. does the federal government crowd out local jurisdictions need for far more money for transit, social welfare, housing, .. ?
Ditto with healthcare which is a provincial mandate but gets federal cash. Why is that ?
If the feds taxed less, we could afford to tax more locally.
The federal government taxes as a share of GDP have been falling for a long time. They have also ducked out of funding cost shared programs, leaving our social programs in tatters.
The feds used to fund 50% of healthcare spending with the provinces, giving them the ability to mandate national standards for health care. Funding has fallen to about 15%, and coverage in Canada is already rationed differently in each province.
Here’s the evidence on less federal taxation. If memory serves it was 20% of GDP at one time, but I couldn’t find older evidence.
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/canada/tax-revenue-percent-of-gdp-wb-data.html
I have a bigger issue with the constitutionally-mandated provincial control over municipalities. This was set in the absence of standards, like funding of urban services and infrastructure. The BC Libs treatment of TransLink and the Mayor’s Council indicates that the relationship is, shall we say, imperfect to say the least.
As Keith has shown above, this seems to be a part of the larger federal dissolution of powers to the little fiefdoms called “provinces.” This cannot be a good thing over the long run.