Affordable Housing

Householder Fall 2025

The new Parliament met from May 26 to June 20, 2025. In that time the new Liberal minority government presented a Throne speech and introduced eight Bills.

The Throne Speech is supposed to lay out the government’s priorities in a new Session of Parliament. But it was notable not so much for what was in it as for what was missing.

During the election campaign, of course, people were talking about their concerns with respect to President Donald Trump, his tariff threats and anti-immigrant actions. While people said Canada should absolutely take action together in dealing with the United States, there were also so many other top priority issues that the government ignored in their throne speech.

There was no mention of renters. In the midst of a housing crisis - there was no discussion of building the social housing or co-op housing that is so desperately needed. What’s even more concerning is the fact that, when asked if housing process need to go down, the Minister of Housing - Gregor Robinson said “No.”(link: https://www.jennykwanndp.ca/ctv_new_housing_minister_says_he_ll_leverage_his_past_as_vancouver_mayor_in_new_role?recruiter_id=111).

There was no mention of funding for public transit, nor any mention of desperately needed support for mental health or action to help people secure a family doctor. There was no mention of action to mitigate and fight wildfires or provide relief for affected people. No mention of foreign interference. No mention of peace and resolving conflict. No mention of the devastating crisis in Gaza. Seniors and their concerns were not mentioned in the throne speech.

Women were not mentioned in the throne speech. Issues surrounding gender equality and equality for people with disabilities were not mentioned in the throne speech.

You can see my response to the throne speech at this link: https://www.ourcommons.ca/DocumentViewer/en/45-1/house/sitting-6/hansard#Int-13081121

Despite not having party status, I was able to successfully move a sub-amendment to the Throne speech by ensuring that the rights of Indigenous Peoples are respected. New Democrats will keep pressing the government – and all opposition parties – to live up to this promise.

NDP Media Release: The feds must protect renters from financial landlords now

“Building on a recent media article about a new study by Martine August and Cloe St-Hilaire from the University of Waterloo’s Planning Department, the research reveals that financial landlords — including real estate investment trusts (REITs), publicly traded property firms, and asset managers — file eviction applications at significantly higher rates than any other type of landlord. These corporate entities are evicting nearly 1 in 9 tenants each year, highlighting how legislative loopholes have contributed to a growing housing crisis.

Housing is a human right, not a luxury for investors to make quick profits. We cannot allow large financial firms, similar to the ones that Prime Minister Carney used to work for, to continue treating people’s homes as commodities to be bought and sold for maximum profit. The alarming rise in evictions is a direct consequence of the financialization of our housing market — and it’s time for that to end.

The Housing Minister, Gregor Robertson, must bring in legislation immediately that ensures:

• No more corporate takeovers: We must place a moratorium on the purchase of residential properties by big financial landlords. We can’t allow real estate companies to keep pushing working families and low-income Canadians out of their homes.
• Empower communities: We need to create a national acquisition fund to help non-profit organizations, housing co-ops, and community land trusts purchase rental buildings — so we can keep homes affordable for generations to come.
• Control rents: Bring back national vacancy control. No more speculators jacking up rent prices between tenants. Rent prices need to stay fair, stable, and predictable.

We need federal policies enacted immediately that protect renters across the country while new affordable housing is waiting to be built under Canada Homes.”

CHCH News: More tenants upset with living conditions of Hamilton apartment building

Looking through the Lankin Investments website, the Pulis connection that ties it all together can be found and connected to the company’s founder and CEO Kyle Pulis.  According to his own bio, he successfully has over $2 billion in assets under his management.

CHCH News tried to reach out to the company to get a hold of him, but was told by one of its employees that it would be difficult.

And inquiries to the federal housing minister, would be answered by Monday.

“These financialized landlords, what are they in for?” says NDP Housing Critic Jenny Kwan.

They’re in it for making profits, they don’t care about their tenants and in fact, many of them, what they want to do is let the buildings run down and let the tenants out because once they force the tenants out, they can jack up their rents, because that’s how they increase their profit even greater,”

Click link to watch the tv news:
https://www.chch.com/chch-news/more-tenants-upset-with-living-conditions-of-hamilton-apartment-building/

Government News Release: Landlords and property managers: agreeing with competitors on rental prices is illegal

HANSARD: Introduce Private Member's Bill to amend the National Housing Strategy Act

OPEN LETTER: To Prime Minister and Housing Minister on Affordable Housing Commitment Details

CTV: New housing minister says he’ll ‘leverage’ his past as Vancouver mayor in new role

The Canadian Press asked Robertson if he felt home prices need to go down to restore affordability.

“No, I think that we need to deliver more supply, make sure the market is stable,” he said.

When asked the same question Tuesday, Carney said that while there are things Ottawa can do now to help with affordability — such as cutting the GST on new builds for first-time buyers — the long-term solution is to boost supply.

Click link to read the news story - https://www.ctvnews.ca/vancouver/article/new-housing-minister-says-he-lacked-tools-to-tackle-homelessness-as-vancouver-mayor/

OPEN LETTER: Opposing Mayor Sim’s motion to Temporarily Pausing Net-New Supportive Housing Investments in Vancouver

I recall my time at City Council, while I was the lone opposition member in a 10 to 1 council and there werem any policy decisions where we had disagreement, when it came to approvals for both social and supportive housing in the City, we always acted in unison in support of those developments in our community. Indeed, “Vancouver has long taken a leadership role in providing supportive housing”, and it has done this regardless of whether or not other municipalities have fallen short in also providing social and supportive housing.

While I also agree that the City cannot be a lone actor in bringing about sufficient dignified social and supportive housing, health care supports, including the full spectrum of mental health, harm reduction, addictions supports and recovery care needed to serve residents living in the Downtown Eastside and beyond, instead of advancing collaboration and partnerships, this motion does the opposite.

Worse still, this short-sighted vision peddles the "Not In My Back Yard" sentiment as a solution to challenges in the community. It is sending the wrong message that the development of supportive housing is bad for neighbourhoods.

At a time where there is so much discord, fear and uncertainty in our community, elected officials across all municipalities and levels of government need to come together, not to sow division but to unite in collaborating and delivering real solutions that are evidence-based.

 

 

Toronto Star NEWS: Justin Trudeau claims Pierre Poilievre built just six affordable homes when he was housing minister. Here’s what actually happened

So did Poilievre really build just six affordable housing units in that time?

No.

The Prime Minister’s Office confirmed to the Star that the number came from an answer to an order paper question tabled by NDP MP Jenny Kwan in December.

(MPs are able to pose questions to the government that result in a formal response, often in the form of written answers.)

Kwan had asked for a breakdown of the federal funding that was provided to support the construction of non-profit, community, co-operative and purpose-built rental housing — along with how many of those units were built — while Harper’s Conservatives were in power.

In its response to Kwan’s question, CMHC noted that there were limitations to some of the data it can provide.

During the 2015-2016 fiscal year included in the agency’s breakdown — the time frame relevant to Poilievre’s responsibility for the file — the document notes that across Canada, six non-profit or community housing units were built, all in Quebec.

Hill Times: Why Canada must protect the existing affordable housing stock

OPINION | BY NDP MP JENNY KWAN | January 31, 2024
 
Affordable housing across Canada is being lost at a seriously alarming rate; not to alien abduction, as the leader of the official opposition sarcastically wondered, but to housing profiteers who care most about their bottom line. These investor-landlords are looking to maximize their profits by buying older rental apartments and often displacing long-time tenants by renovicting or demo-evicting them to jack up rents.

Housing expert Steve Pomeroy has said that Canada lost more than 550,000 units of affordable housing between 2011 and 2021, which represents a loss of 11 units for each new affordable housing unit built. In cities like Vancouver and Toronto, the rate is even more drastic. Worse yet, Winnipeg and Hamilton, Ont., are losing 29 units of affordable housing for each new one. When Stephen Harper’s Conservatives were in power (with Pierre Poilievre at the table), 800,000 affordable homes were lost as corporate landlords bought in bulk while renovicting or demo-evicting low-income tenants, and the Affordable Housing Initiative was axed. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberals have lost another 276,000 affordable homes to developers.