Transcript:
At one time, the Canadian government was a world leader in helping build housing for working people.
Between 1964 and 1974, it built 200,000 units of non-market social housing. That was housing in which renters were not squeezed endlessly for profit.
But when Brian Mulroney’s Conservatives came to power, they immediately began cuts to housing programs.
Liberals Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin kept cutting, eventually withdrawing all federal support for social housing. Homelessness in Canada exploded.
Under Stephen Harper’s Conservatives, there was a brief increase in funding to housing—even an austerity prime minister had to spend in response to the financial crash.
Then, the cuts continued.
Liberal Justin Trudeau promised a shift, but has produced more press releases than housing units. Pretty foliage lining the status quo.
Today, Canada has the least non-market housing of any Western nation. Our housing system is among the most dominated by the private market.
This won’t change until we dismantle the Liberal-Tory consensus to leave housing to the whims of landlords and developers and start building again.
“We need media that enlarges the sense of what’s possible.”
Naomi Klein, journalist and author
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Question: What kind of a tax increase would be necessary to restore an adequate level of co-op housing?
And look at the shameful housing shortage in the NWT and Nunavut!!!