Ottawa walking tightrope between affordability and preserving homeowner wealth of older Canadians
“It’s not my goal to bring down housing prices. My goal is to build more supply at prices that people can afford,” he said in an interview.
“Some of the measures that we put in place that will drive that supply could have downward pressure on the price of homes in different markets. But it’s important to understand that there are a lot of factors that go into that, many of which are outside of the influence of government.”
Fraser and Trudeau have both previously said they aren’t trying to sink prices — raising questions about how, exactly, homes will become more affordable. The benchmark price of a home in Canada is up 77 per cent in the past 10 years; for apartments, it’s 90 per cent, according to Canadian Real Estate Association data.
Fraser said he believes it’s possible to add more multi-unit buildings without dragging down the broader market. “I don’t know that an extra apartment building in downtown Toronto is going to eat away at the price of a single-family home in Oakville,” he said, referencing a suburb of Canada’s largest city.
Fraser has been releasing portions of the strategy since he was appointed housing minister about a year ago, culminating in a sweeping pre-budget announcement in April involving billions of public dollars and an ambitious pledge that would see 3.9 million homes built by 2031.
The announcement has failed to turn the tides for the Liberal government in opinion polls. “The motivation of the housing plan was not to get a short-term bump in the polls. It was to solve the housing crisis,” Fraser said.
Fraser said he looks forward to putting “competing visions for Canada” on the table during an election campaign. “Rhetoric will get you a lot of likes on Facebook or Twitter but it’s not actually going to help solve a big problem.”
—With assistance from Jay Zhao-Murray and Erik Hertzberg.