Achi news desk-
As politicians duke it out over the terms of federal housing money in Ontario, behind the scenes some are hoping a deal can be made.
Tensions between the Trudeau and Ford governments on the housing file have been high in recent weeks, with arguments over affordable housing, quadruplexes and municipal oversight.
Most recently, Ottawa dangled a $6 billion carrot in front of cities and states across the country, telling them that if they met a number of conditions — including properly permitting four-unit buildings — they could get a bite.
The condition is one that the Premier of Ontario, Doug Ford, has repeatedly dismissed, talking about the backlash that politicians who introduce too much density to the suburbs would face.
As the row between the two levels of government continues, however, housing advocates say it’s distracting from the real issues.
“I don’t care who does the work. We need to get all three levels of government working together,” Tim Richter, president and CEO of the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness, told Global News.
“The longer they keep fighting each other over who does what, or spend enough or not spend enough, that means we don’t get houses built. “
The affordable housing debate
Cracks in the relationship between the two governments began to show when federal Housing Minister Sean Freaser wrote to his Ontario counterpart, Paul Calandra, telling him that certain affordable housing funds would be suspended.
Fraser told Calandra there was an “urgent need” for Ontario to review its outline of how it planned to spend federal money on affordable housing. Under the National Housing Strategy Action Plan, initially signed in 2018, the province must demonstrate how it will spend federal dollars to expand affordable housing.
Ontario’s plan to do so, according to Fraser’s letter, was a “disappointment” and would result in the province losing $357 million in federal funds.
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Calandra quickly responded, accusing the federal government of threatening “our most vulnerable” by withholding the money.
The disagreement centered on how Ontario was spending its money and whether or not it was building enough new housing.
The federal government said the province failed to build 94 percent of its target of 19,600 new affordable units. Ontario said 11,000-plus old units must be renovated first to avoid existing affordable housing coming offline and asked to count them toward its target.
“Ontario is seriously lagging behind all other provinces and territories,” Fraser wrote in his letter.
In his reply, Calandra asked the federal minister to “carefully consider” the unique situation of the province. The provincial housing minister then wrote to service managers, warning them that their funding could drop dramatically from April 1 with the federal government threatening to freeze funding.
Calandra’s office told Global News on Tuesday, April 2, that the federal government has “decided not to accept” its offer under the deal.
“As it stands, their decision to put politics first threatens to harm tens of thousands of low-income Ontario families who depend on this funding,” the housing minister’s office said.
When asked Friday if funding had been withheld, Calandra’s office said they had no new information to release.
At the same time that Calandra and Fraser were exchanging blows on the affordable housing file, the federal government announced a new stream of money. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Tuesday he was opening a new $6 billion pot of federal housing money for municipalities and states across the country that met certain conditions.
The fund is expected to provide $1 billion to municipalities across the country immediately, with the remaining $5 billion subject to negotiations with the states and territories, similar to negotiations over new health care funding, pharmaceutical care or childcare deals.
In announcing the funding, the federal government said it would come with binding conditions that lower levels of government must adhere to in order to qualify for the cash.
One of the conditions set by the Prime Minister’s Office is that states must “require municipalities” to accept four units as a right and allow more “missing middle” housing, including duplexes, triplexes, townhouses and apartments multi unit.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford has railed against allowing the four-unit buildings or four-storey homes across the province, saying he won’t tell cities what to do and warning they would be a “huge mistake.”
In an announcement in March, Ford said the policy was “off the table” for his government, speculating about the potential backlash to larger buildings in suburban neighborhoods.
“I can assure you 1,000 percent, that you go into communities and start putting four-story, six-story, eight-story buildings deep into communities, there will be a lot of yelling and screaming,” Ford said on March 21.
Behind the scenes, a senior provincial source said the government remains confident that the talks with the federal government – while billed as publicly binding – will be a discussion. They pointed to the childcare deal brokered between the federal government and Queen’s Park, which saw Ontario wait much longer than other parts of the country and receive its own unique concessions.
The provincial source also cited the City of Ottawa, which received some money from the federal housing accelerator financing fund without automatically allowing quadruplexes, a condition that had been billed as a key driver for the cash. The source said that while Ontario won’t tell cities or towns to properly allow quadrilaterals, it won’t stop them either.
A federal source agreed that conversations and negotiations still needed to be held but emphasized that if states did not meet the federal conditions, they would not get the money.
