Greenbelt controversy putting pressure on Ford government, knocking it off message, experts say

CBC
Fri, September 1, 2023

A sign welcomes drivers to the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve, the largest parcel of land the Ford government removed from the Greenbelt last December. 

(Patrick Morrell/CBC News - image credit)

It's been a rough couple weeks for Premier Doug Ford's government.

Two independent, legislative watchdogs — in successive reports released just weeks apart from each other — found major flaws with the province's decision to remove land from the Greenbelt last December to build housing.

On Wednesday, Integrity Commissioner J. David Wake found that Housing Minister Steve Clark chose to "stick his head in the sand" rather than oversee the process of selecting which sites would be removed from the Greenbelt — a vast 810,000-hectare area of protected farmland, forest and wetland stretching from Niagara Falls to Peterborough meant to be permanently off-limits to development.

Instead, Clark left it to his chief of staff at the time, Ryan Amato, whose actions alerted some developers to a potential policy change and resulted in their private interests being improperly advanced, the integrity commissioner found.

That report came just two weeks after Ontario Auditor General Bonie Lysyk's report first revealed how a small group of well-connected developers suggested to Amato many of the sites that would ultimately be removed, providing the landowners with a potential windfall upwards of $8 billion.

Political watchers who spoke to CBC Toronto say the impact of the Greenbelt controversy is putting pressure on the Ford government, and knocking it off its preferred course at a crucial time.

PCs 'caught in a news cycle,' expert says

Mitch Heimpel, director of campaigns and government relations with public affairs firm Enterprise Canada, said the government has been "caught in a news cycle" for the past month that is preventing it from getting its message out.

He said Ford's "big announcement" at the Association of Municipalities of Ontario conference earlier this month "largely got eaten" by stories related to the Greenbelt controversy. The premier announced there the province would extend "strong mayor" powers to 21 smaller cities and launch a $1.2 billion fund to reward municipalities that meet home-building targets.

At recent events, reporters have asked both Ford and Clark flurries of questions about Greenbelt-related issues, no matter the substance of the announcement.

"It's making it hard for them to get positive news out," Heimpel said.

.Minister of Housing Steve Clark speaks during a news conference at Queen’s Park, in Toronto, on Aug. 31, 2023. Clark is facing calls to step down over his handling of the process that led to protected Greenbelt lands being selected for housing development. (Alex Lupul/CBC)

All three Opposition party leaders have repeatedly called over the past few weeks for the resignation of Clark, who has apologized for the "very real flaws" in the process and for failing to oversee his former chief of staff. Ford has said Clark will keep his job and the government will continue to move forward with its agenda to build 1.5 million homes by 2031.

Heimpel said replacing Clark right now would come with a cost.

On the one hand, Heimpel said, it would demonstrate accountability. But it would also slow down the government while a new minister gets up to speed on the many initiatives underway to spur housing construction and change planning rules across the province.

"That could really hamstring the government's agenda in the fall if they were to change horses now," he said.

More shoes could drop, says professor

Christopher Cochrane, associate professor of political science at the University of Toronto Scarborough, said the integrity commissioner's report settled some issues, like establishing that Clark broke ethics rules, while leaving others unresolved.

Those unresolved issues could keep the controversy alive.

"There are unregistered lobbyists who had contracts with companies that would be in contravention of the [Lobbyists Registration Act]. There are mixed reports about whether, in fact, the chief of staff of the housing minister had been taking orders from others," Cochrane said. "There's certainly plenty of opportunity here for a sequel."

That sequel may even come in the form of another integrity commissioner's report from Wake himself.

NDP Leader Marit Stiles, who filed the initial complaint that led to Wednesday's integrity commissioner's report into Clarke, has also requested the commissioner look at Ford's daughter's wedding events, which some developers attended.

The integrity commissioner's office told CBC Toronto Thursday it is still considering whether to launch an inquiry into Ford. Work on that was paused during the Clark probe.

Aerial (drone) views of lush farmland in the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve in Pickering, Ont., the largest parcel of land removed from the Greenbelt last December.
 (Patrick Morrell/CBC News)

Another big question is what the RCMP will do. The national police agency is assessing whether or not to conduct an investigation of its own into the Greenbelt land swap after receiving a referral from the Ontario Provincial Police.

Cochrane said it's also possible that the legislature could censure Clark in some way, as the integrity commissioner recommended. Members of Provincial Parliament aren't sitting now but will return on Sept. 25.

Given that the Progressive Conservatives have a majority government, however, it would require members of his own party to vote in favour of any punishment.

"It's ultimately up to the premier to hire and fire the ministers," Cochrane said. "It's the premier's call."

What the government can do pull itself out

The government has already taken some action following the reports.

First, it has pledged to implement 14 of the auditor general's 15 recommendations (the 15th is to reverse the Greenbelt decision, which it has declined to do), and struck a working group to implement them.

Second, it has begun the process of returning two properties in Ajax, Ont., back to the Greenbelt after their landowner listed them for sale. The province says it is willing to reinstate environmental protections on land removed from the Greenbelt if it believes landowners won't be able to meet the government's directive that developers show significant progress on approvals by the end of this year, with construction to begin in 2025.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford delivers remarks at Lakeshore Collegiate Institute in Toronto, on Thursday, Aug. 31, 2023.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford stood by Housing Minister Steve Clark and doubled down on a pledge to build more homes in Ontario amid a flurry of questions about the Greenbelt. (Spencer Colby/The Canadian Press)

Going forward, Heimpel said, the government should be able to continue advancing its policies given their control of the legislature.

"They're going to be able to get things done," he said. "The question is, are they going to be able to get their message out about the things they're accomplishing? That's going to be harder because of these reports."

Heimpel said the government will have to "demonstrate results" by getting "shovels in the ground" and "get[ting] those houses built."

"People have to see progress on the housing crisis. That is ultimately, I think, the measure by which the premier thinks he'll be judged," he said.

Ultimately, it's Ontario voters who will get the final say at the ballot box, although they likely won't have that chance for another three years.

Ontario housing minister apologizes for his role in Greenbelt land swap, keeps job




TORONTO — Ontario's housing minister offered an apology Thursday for the way the government removed land earmarked for development from the protected Greenbelt, a process two legislative watchdogs have said was hasty and flawed.

But Steve Clark will stay on in his job – despite repeated calls by critics for his resignation – after Premier Doug Ford backed the housing minister and defended the province’s Greenbelt plan.

"I want to make it very clear to Ontarians that I'm sorry that we didn't do a better job and that I personally didn't do a better job in terms of the oversight," Clark said at a news conference.

The apology came a day after a scathing report from the province's integrity commissioner, who found Clark violated ethics rules during a process that was marked by "unnecessary hastiness and deception."

Integrity Commissioner J. David Wake found Clark's chief of staff — who resigned last week — was the driving force behind the land swap that benefited certain land developers, and that the minister failed to oversee his staff.

Clark said he accepted responsibility for what happened but did not specify what new measures he would take to improve the situation, other than that the "process" would be different going forward.

"I apologize to Ontarians that I did not provide more oversight to my chief of staff — my former chief of staff — and for this process," he said.

Ontario created the Greenbelt in 2005 to protect agricultural and environmentally sensitive lands in the Greater Golden Horseshoe area from development.

Last year, the province took 7,400 acres of land out of the Greenbelt to build 50,000 homes and replaced it with about 9,400 acres elsewhere.

The move sparked a public outcry and calls for Clark's resignation.

Ford rebuked those calls earlier Thursday when he doubled down on both his Greenbelt plan and support for Clark, who he said will remain part of the team as the government tries to fulfil its goal of building 1.5 million homes over 10 years.

"Minister Clark has a tough job and his goal is to continue building homes," Ford said.

"I saw the report, I read a good chunk of it last night, and, admittedly, the process could have been a lot better – and I agree."

The premier nonetheless said he had "confidence" in Clark.

The integrity commissioner had recommended to the legislature that Clark be reprimanded.

Ford did not say what reprimand Clark might face.

"That's going to go to the legislature and we'll see when we get back into the house in September," he said. The legislature is set to resume on Sept. 25.

The integrity commissioner, like the auditor general in a separate investigation, found the housing minister's chief of staff selected 14 of the 15 sites that were removed from the Greenbelt. He found that neither Ford nor Clark knew what Ryan Amato was up to.

"It may seem incredible that Minister Clark would have chosen to stick his head in the sand on such an important initiative being undertaken by his ministry but I believe that was exactly what he did," Wake wrote.

Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk said in her own recent report that developers who had access to Amato at a developer conference wound up with 92 per cent of the land. The owners of the sites removed from the Greenbelt stand to see their land rise in value by at least $8.3 billion, she found.

Ford said Thursday that he was ultimately responsible for the Greenbelt process.

"The buck stops with me," the premier said, although he didn't explain what that meant or how he or Clark would take responsibility.

The opposition parties said the comments from Ford and Clark fell short.

"The buck's not stopping anywhere," said Interim Liberal Leader John Fraser.

Fraser called for a legislative committee investigation into the Greenbelt land swap.

He said the Liberals have written to the chair of the Standing Committee on Heritage, Infrastructure and Cultural Policy to begin that work. Fraser said he wants Ford to waive cabinet privileges for legislators so they can participate.

New Democrat Leader Marit Stiles said Ontarians deserve better than "fake apologies."

"His words are meaningless without any action to back them up," she wrote in a statement. "Ontarians have lost all trust in this minister and he needs to go."

Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner said the Greenbelt swap is not about housing.

"It's about a government that is denying ordinary Ontarians access to the homes they need because wealthy elite insiders came calling," he said.

All three opposition leaders have demanded Clark resign from his post, as have all the chiefs of Ontario First Nations, who said they were not consulted on the development of lands on their traditional territory.

Ford and Clark have been at the helm of the government's pledge to build 1.5 million homes over 10 years. They have repeatedly said that the 50,000 homes slated for development on land removed from the Greenbelt are needed to achieve that goal.

But the province's housing task force and three regions where the land was removed have said the Greenbelt land was not needed to achieve that target.

The RCMP is reviewing information to determine whether it should investigate the Greenbelt land swap. Ford has said he is confident nothing criminal took place.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 31, 2023.

Liam Casey and William Eltherington, The Canadian Press

Liberals look to tackle international student rackets as part of housing crisis

Laura Osman, The Canadian Press

Liberal cabinet ministers are suggesting the federal government is ready to tackle long-standing problems related to the international student program, including cases of fraud and exploitation by shady educational institutions.

But in a slight twist, they are doing so as part of efforts to ease the housing crisis as the government faces enormous pressure to help increase the supply of affordable homes.

The federal cabinet's three-day retreat in Charlottetown focused on housing as ministers hashed out their agenda for the fall sitting of Parliament.

International students became a focal point at the retreat when the Housing Minister Sean Fraser, who was recently shuffled from the immigration file, suggested ballooning foreign student enrolments are putting "unprecedented levels of demand" on the housing market.

Fraser said if colleges and universities are going to bring record numbers of foreign students to Canada, they need to play a part in housing them.

Public colleges and universities have come to rely on the income from international student fees. So, too, have private colleges that sprang up in strip malls and other venues. While they recruit attract foreign students, in some cases the institutions offer a dubious education in return. 

Fraser suggested the government could begin to sort out which schools are offering a genuine education and which are looking to exploit vulnerable students. 

"Separating the wheat from the chaff is going to be a big focus of the work that I try to do with (Immigration Minister Marc Miller) to identify a solution to this challenge," he said. 

Another option: a cap on the number of student visas.

Several experts say they are concerned about the ripple effects of such policies.

There are things the government can do to decrease demand for student visas, said Alex Usher, president of the Higher Education Strategy Associates consulting firm.

"The government seems to be contemplating something much stupider," he said in an interview. "Much stupider and much more complicated."

Curbing the number of visas would leave the Immigration Department to determine which educational institutions should be trusted to receive coveted tuition, he said, which is far outside its jurisdiction. 

"Quickly the discussion becomes, not 'How do we reduce pressure on housing?' It becomes 'How do we ration spots?' And so all sorts of other agendas start coming into play," he said, which would create financial winners and losers. 

The Immigration Department counted 800,000 active study permits at the end of 2022, a 170 per cent increase over the last decade. 

A 2020 report by the Higher Education Strategy Associates fount that international student tuition made up 13 per cent of the post-secondary system's income in 2019, up from just four per cent in 2007.

Mike Moffatt, senior policy director at the Smart Prosperity Institute, supports the idea of scaling back student visas but what's he's heard so far sounds "overly complex and doomed to fail."

Moffatt is one of two housing experts who was invited to the cabinet retreat to offer possible solutions to the pressing problem, and suggested the federal government more or less stay in its lane by tamping down demand for student visas.

For the last several years the federal government has been working to attract international students, last year launching a pilot project to remove the cap on the number of hours they are allowed to work off-campus. 

Moffatt suggests reversing that trend by instituting stiffer financial criteria to apply for a visa, and rolling back some of the reforms that make those student permits more attractive.  

In a statement, the Immigration Department said the government will need to have "difficult conversations" with provinces, who have sole jurisdiction over education, about threats to the integrity of the system and outline the "perverse incentives" created for institutions. 

"Abuses in the system exist and must be tackled in smart and logical ways," the department said in the statement.

Several universities have already pushed back on the idea of a cap. 

"The university, in discussions with (the Immigration Department), has been clear that we do not support a cap on international students," University of British Columbia spokesperson Matthew Ramsey said in a statement in response to the minister's comments. 

UBC's Vancouver campus has an international student enrolment of 28.6 per cent. 

The university said investments in student housing are a way to ease the demand for rentals, including its own plan to build 4,800 beds over the next 10 to 15 years.

NDP immigration critic Jenny Kwan said that's where her party would like to see the government focus, by sharing the cost to build affordable student housing. 

Kwan said visas should be allocated to institutions that have a "credible and affordable" student housing plan. 

She also asid that capping enrolments would amount to blaming the students — echoing comments earlier this week from Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre.

Vancouver Immigration lawyer Will Tao said he's skeptical of Fraser's suggestion that student exploitation and housing are linked, and wants to see more data about international students and the housing market.

"I think they're trying to sort of get to two birds with one stone politically," Tao said.

"I think international students are kind of a scapegoat. It's the easiest thing to blame. It's the ones with the least pushback." 

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 23, 2023.

 

Is flood pollution causing turtle strandings? Researchers look for answers in their cell response

by Colin Hutchins, Griffith University

Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain

Last year was a grim season for sea turtles in Queensland's Wide Bay-Burnett region with more than 10 times the usual number of sick and dying animals, including over 100 turtles, pulled from the water.

The Australian Rivers Institute Toxicology Research Group (ARI-TOX) is investigating the potential role that chemical pollution had on the elevated green turtle strandings on the Fraser Coast following the major flooding events in early 2022.

"At this stage, we don't know if these strandings were related to disease, parasites, changes to quantity and quality of food sources, chemical pollutants, or a combination of multiple factors," said ARI-TOX marine ecologist and eco-toxicologist Dr. Jason van de Merwe.

"During large flooding events, chemical pollutants, such as pesticides and industrial chemicals, are often washed into coastal areas, where they can then accumulate in the resident sea turtles.

"Many of these chemicals have known effects on humans and other animals, so we are looking into if and how they're contributing to the observed elevated strandings of green turtles."

Researchers at ARI-TOX collaborated with the Queensland Department of Environment and Science to capture green turtles foraging in the waters of Hervey Bay adjacent to pollution sources in river mouths and urban outflows, while also assessing turtles in the eastern bay areas, further away from potential pollution sources.

The general health and demographics of the green turtle population were recorded during these sampling events, including size and age, indicators of health and body condition, and breeding status.

Blood samples were also collected from each turtle for investigations into health and toxicology, the latter to be performed by ARI-TOX researchers.

"Full credit must be given to the Australian Government and the Queensland Department of Environment and Science for initiating such a swift and comprehensive investigation into the potential impacts of the 2022 floods on the health of marine wildlife," Dr. van de Merwe said.

"They did a great job in assembling a multi-disciplinary team of sea turtle experts, wildlife veterinarians, pathologists and toxicologists. As toxicologists, our role in this project is to determine the amount and types of metals and organic contaminants found in these sea turtles, and investigate whether there are any links to the health and demographic data collected.

"We measure metals using well established analytical techniques, however, due to the vast array of organic pollutants that are found in the marine environment, we measure the toxicity of the specific mixture of organic contaminants extracted from each individual turtle sampled, using a cell-based test.

"To test the combination of contaminants that the turtles accumulate, we concentrate the mixture of organic contaminants found in a sea turtle blood sample, perform a series of dilutions of this concentrate, and, using a novel sea turtle specific cell-based toxicity assay, expose sea turtle cell cultures from ARITOX's Marine Wildlife Cell Bank to this concentration gradient.

"These assays will allow us to understand if the level of pollutants currently found inside the turtles is toxic to their cells, and if not, how much it has to increase to cause a toxic response."

In a separate component of the project investigating the impacts of flooding on marine wildlife, the ARI-TOX team are also collaborating with Sea World and other wildlife hospitals to measure the chemical contamination of sea turtles, dolphins and dugongs that are currently being stranded in South East Queensland.

"The goal of this aspect of research is to again determine what the potential role of chemical pollution is in causing the elevated levels of marine wildlife strandings we have been seeing in the region in recent years," Dr. van de Merwe said.

Provided by Griffith University Three out of four turtle populations risk cadmium contamination

  

Canadians have highly positive views of wolves, survey finds

by Stephanie Rutherford, The Conversation

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

Who is afraid of the big bad wolf? Turns out, fewer Canadians than you might think. But that was not always the case.

Aug. 13 marks International Wolf Day. But 100 years ago, it is hard to imagine there would have been any ability to even conceive of such a day, at least on the part of settlers. Celebrating wolves would have seemed ridiculous, even dangerous.

Wolves have historically been viewed with fear by most Canadians. So much so that provincial bounties were established to pay people to kill wolves, and many would not have thought twice about shooting a wolf if they had encountered one on their farm or in the wild.

This was in stark opposition to how many Indigenous nations thought and continue to think about wolves, as kin, brother and a hunter whose skill should be emulated.

So, how did Canadians go from shooting wolves to having a day that honors them? A lot has changed in the intervening years. But do people really want to celebrate wolves? Do they have positive feelings about them and think they deserve protection? That is what we were interested in finding out.

Canadians have generally positive attitudes toward wolves

In March 2023, partnering with conservation researcher Valli-Laurente Fraser-Celin and The Fur-Bearers, a Canadian charitable organization working to protect fur-bearing animals, we developed a survey that was administered by polling firm Research Co. and completed by 1,000 people. We asked Canadians about their knowledge of, and attitudes about, wolves and what circumstances might prompt them to act for their protection.

What we found is that most Canadians might find the idea of celebrating wolves quite appealing. Across Canada, 70 percent of survey participants had moderately or very positive attitudes toward wolves. Moreover, 77 percent considered them to be an iconic species and 83 percent thought of them as important ecosystem members.

Interestingly, these feelings are remarkably even across gender, income, party preference in the 2021 federal election, and province or territory of residence. It seems we are a country of wolf lovers.

This is perhaps unsurprising given that across Canada, wolves have remained abundant, occupying nearly 80 percent of their historic range. This differs from the United States where wolves were almost entirely eradicated.

Indeed, when Canadians celebrate International Wolf Day, we can proudly claim to be home to approximately 60,000 of the 200,000 to 250,000 gray wolves left in the world.

Clip from BBC Earth showcasing the bonds of wolf families.

These positive feelings may also be influenced by the works of writers like Farley Mowat who encouraged readers in Never Cry Wolf to see wolves as noble, affectionate and playful individuals who live in families much like our own. And the audience for this view only grew when the novel was adapted into a film of the same name.

When we broke positive attitudes down by community type, the results were even more intriguing. Previous research and conventional wisdom suggests that rural dwellers do not like wolves. This would seem to make sense; rural people are more likely to be ranchers, farmers and hunters whose interactions with wolves can be negative.

However, we found that people in rural and remote communities had the most positive views at 74 percent, compared to 64 percent of suburban residents. It may be that familiarity with wolves has bred a degree of tolerance. In Canada, rural and remote dwellers are more likely to see or hear a wolf near their home and are 22 percent more willing to accept having wolves live within five kilometers of their home.

It seems that in Canada, wolves are more welcomed in the places they are also more likely to thrive: sparsely populated wild places.

Livestock loss remains a stumbling block

While people expressed fondness for wolves, they do not always like what they do. A clear majority of our survey respondents—60 percent—felt wolves were a primary threat to livestock.

Wolves do prey on livestock, and those losses are keenly felt, both economically and emotionally. But livestock are not under intense threat from wolves across Canada, even if there are some parts of the country, like Alberta, that experience higher rates of depredation.

Evidence shows that wolves will prey on livestock, especially if they are unprotected. Moreover, if wolves do not have wild prey to eat, they will turn to domesticated animals. Managing wolf predation is linked to making sure that other wild prey like moose, caribou and deer have space to flourish. In this way, wolf protection is tied to broader conservation aims that may also work to alleviate the livestock losses felt by ranchers and farmers.

Fostering wolf protection

Our survey also asked participants what would motivate them to act to protect wolves. Put differently, how can we mobilize affection for wolves?

Forty-two percent of people surveyed reported that they would act if wolf populations decreased. Forty-one percent reported they would act if they learned more about the ecosystem benefits that wolves provide, while a further 41 percent said they would act if they learned that a wolf had been killed illegally. Thirty-three percent reported that they would act if they saw a news report that wolf habitats were threatened.

These answers point to a desire for the preservation of wolf habitats and populations, so they can continue their role as keystone predators. This requires ongoing dialog and a focus on broader conservation efforts to make sure that next year on International Wolf Day, they continue to thrive.

Provided by The Conversation 

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Austrian regions allow controversial wolf hunting

Gray wolf recovery: Conservationists discuss the challenges of success

by American Institute of Biological Sciences

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

Over the past 30 years, efforts to recover gray wolf populations in the United States have been broadly successful, with many regions now sporting robust populations of the carnivore. Writing in BioScience, wolf experts David E. Ausband and L. David Mech describe the conservation landscape and also the obstacles that wolves face as their populations expand into their historical ranges.

"Remarkable wolf conservation success yields remarkable challenges," say the authors, as 6,000 wolves now occupy habitat across 11 states. These growing populations now face significant threats as they attempt to colonize human-dominated areas, among them "fragmented habitats and barriers to dispersal, as well as increased encounters with humans, pets, and livestock."

In response to those concerned about wolves' potential impacts to prey populations and domestic livestock production, many jurisdictions have ramped up wolf efforts. For instance, in Wisconsin, "the legislature requires a public hunting or trapping season whenever wolves are delisted from the US Fish and Wildlife Service's (USFWS) list of Endangered species."

In contrast, wolves are seen as desirable in other areas, such as Colorado, where voters recently passed a ballot initiative to reintroduce them in the state. The authors caution that such pro-reintroduction initiatives, which may seem initially promising for wolves, could have the unintended consequence of setting precedent for laws barring reintroduction and thus complicate management. An uncertain regulatory regime, say Ausband and Mech, could cause major fluctuations in wolf populations, with dire consequences for conservation efforts.

The answer to this quandary, the authors suggest, is thoughtful management that carefully considers the needs of diverse stakeholders.

"Future wolf conservation in the United States will be affected by the ability of managers to predict colonization and dispersal dynamics, to reduce hybridization and disease transmission, to mitigate and deter wolf–livestock conflicts, to harvest wolves sustainably while satisfying diverse stakeholders, to avert a reduction in tolerance for wolves due to a disinterest in nature, and to engage diverse stakeholders in wolf conservation to avoid management by ballot initiative or legislative and judicial decrees."

Only through such science-informed management, argue Ausband and Mech, can the present success of wolf conservation be built on in the future.

More information: David E Ausband et al, The challenges of success: Future wolf conservation and management in the United States, BioScience (2023). DOI: 10.1093/biosci/biad053. academic.oup.com/bioscience/ar … .1093/biosci/biad053

Journal information: BioScience 

Provided by American Institute of Biological ScienceAnother Western state says it won't send wolves to Colorado, citing 'enormous price' of managing the species

 

A robot with expandable appendages could explore Martian caves and cliffs

by Andy Tomaswick, Universe Today

Credit: Universe Today

Plenty of areas in the solar system are interesting for scientific purposes but hard to access by traditional rovers. Some of the most prominent are the caves and cliffs of Mars—where exposed strata could hold clues to whether life ever existed on the Red Planet. So far, none of the missions sent there has been able to explore those difficult-to-reach places. But a mission concept from a team at Stanford hopes to change that.

The concept, known as ReachBot, is a robot that can support itself using multiple articulated appendages to navigate terrain that would be difficult to reach using other navigational techniques. In addition to being able to traverse complex ground patterns, it could also, in theory, at least scale sheer cliff faces.

It was initially pitched as a NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts project, where it was awarded a Phase I grant back in 2021. The authors describe the idea as a fusion of two separate technologies developed for different purposes: mobile manipulation robots and deployable space structures.

Mobile manipulation robots are relatively common in space exploration. Platforms like Robonaut and LEMUR utilize robotics technology to perform tasks like maintaining the ISS and inspecting other space habitats—however, much of their mobility is limited. Efforts like Lemur pride themselves on being able to navigate tricky terrain, but even it would have difficulty scaling a cliff face.

Deployable structures, on the other hand, are more commonly used in satellites. They decrease the space necessary to pack things like solar panels and antennas into a rocket fairing, and they do so by only deploying once they reach space. Typically they use some kind of thermal or electrical smart material, but there is a lot of ongoing research in this area.

Video showing some of the ReachBot’s capabilities. Credit: NASA Space Tech YouTube Channel

ReachBot takes the best of both worlds by using the deployable structure as manipulated appendages. This allows it to extend one of its appendages to a new position, secure it in place using an end-effector that can adhere to the surface, and reposition itself by rotating its joints.

If you've ever gone rock climbing, you've heard the adage of "three points of contact." ReachBot uses a similar technique—by only moving one appendage at a time, it can maintain its position while setting itself up to move, albeit slowly, toward its intended target.

That intended target could be in the middle of a cliff or the middle of a cave, both of which are exciting areas for sample collection. If ReachBot has to ascend a cliff, it simply extends one of its appendages past the others, secures it, and then pulls itself up. Alternatively, in a cave with a rough floor, it can suspend itself off of different features, including the ceiling.

Fraser explains how we could explore lava tubes on the moon and Mars.

In addition, ReachBot can use its other appendages to secure itself and apply force to the surface. That surface pressure is critical for operations like drilling and is made much more difficult if the system can't cross-brace itself.

The detailed report laid out by the Stanford team showed progress in several areas, including coming up with a controller, researching different end-effector solutions, and coming up with a mission architecture. They also had plenty of plans for future efforts, including testing a prototype in a real-world environment similar to one the robot might encounter on Mars.

For now, the lab is continuing development on it after the completion of the Phase I project. It seems well placed for a Phase II, but nothing has come of it so far. ReachBots also have plenty of use cases for terrestrial applications, so somebody will undoubtedly come along and keep the technology moving along its development path.

More information: ReachBot: a Small Robot for Large Mobile Manipulation Tasks in Martian Cave Environments: www.nasa.gov/sites/default/fil … _reachbot_tagged.pdf

Provided by Universe Today Cylindrical autonomous drilling bot could reach buried Martian water

Canada's social housing stock lags peer countries. Liberals called on to bridge gap

The Canadian Press
Thu, August 17, 2023


OTTAWA — If a single mother with a newborn baby starts looking for city-subsidized housing in Canada's largest urban centre today, she might see her child enter high school before they find a new home.

Average wait times for subsidized housing in Toronto span from eight to 15 years depending on the unit, according to 2022 data from the city.

The shortage of homes is so severe that the city has been encouraging people to consider subsidized housing "as a long-term housing plan, not an immediate solution to housing needs."

Toronto is far from the only city facing such a shortage. The long wait times are a symptom of the disconnect between supply and demand right across the country.

Non-profit and social housing is usually administered by charities and municipalities that aim to offer affordable rent for low-income earners struggling to pay market prices.

Housing expert Carolyn Whitzman said the shortage of non-profit housing can be traced back to the 1990s, when the federal government stopped investing in housing.

"There was this vague notion that the private sector would somehow provide low-income housing, but that's never been true. And it certainly hasn't been true in Canada," Whitzman said.

Many experts qualify the 1990s as a period of fiscal austerity, when subsequent federal governments tried to rein in deficits through program spending controls, freezes and cuts.

Earlier this week, Housing Minister Sean Fraser told reporters housing should not have been among the cuts.

"For the better part of the last half-century, federal governments — of different partisan stripes, by the way, Liberal and Conservatives — have stepped away from forwarding affordable housing in this country," he said in Burnaby, B.C.

"That should never have happened, but it did."

Today's Liberal government is trying to make up for past choices. But experts and advocates say the dollars currently earmarked for affordable housing pale in comparison to the need.

Earlier this year, Scotiabank economist Rebekah Young published a report calling for a doubling of the social-housing stock.

While that may sound ambitious, Young noted that doubling the stock would only bring Canada to the OECD peer average.

More than 10 per cent of the population — or 1.5 million people — were in "core housing need," according to 2021 census data. Meanwhile, social housing represents just 3.5 per cent of the country's total housing stock, or 655,000 homes.

A person is considered to be in core housing need when they have to spend more than 30 per cent of their before-tax income on housing that meets a minimum standard.

"The moral case to urgently build out Canada's anemic stock of social housing has never been stronger. The economic case is equally compelling," Young's report said.

It added that while governments are trying to address the needs of low-income households with various transfers, the cost of those benefits and programs will continue to climb if the underlying housing issue isn't addressed.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government is trying to address that through its national housing strategy, which has been lauded as the federal government's return to the housing space.

Launched in 2017, the strategy pledged more than $80 billion over 10 years toward programs administered by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, many of which focus on increasing the supply of affordable housing.

By 2028, the strategy promises to cut homelessness in half, lift more than half a million families from housing need and build up to 160,000 homes.

But its success has been mixed.

Some of the strategy's failures were brought to light in a report from the federal auditor general last fall. It found that despite the pledge to reduce homelessness by 50 per cent, Ottawa doesn't actually know how many homeless people there are in the country.

The effort to get more affordable housing built quickly has also not gone as planned.

A document put together by the CMHC last fall in response to a written question from a member of Parliament shows the majority of approved units had not yet been constructed, despite the program's initial aim of getting most homes built within 12 months.

The CEO of the Canadian Housing and Renewal Association, a non-profit group working to advance social housing, said the national housing strategy was an important step.

"That said, a lot has changed in the past five years," Ray Sullivan said.

"Construction costs are much higher, interest rates are much higher, the need is much higher. So it really isn't an urgency to go back to the table and update it for 2023."

Sullivan said one issue is that the rapid housing initiative has been rolled out on a year-by-year basis, offering little stability for affordable housing providers.

And given that interest rates and costs have risen, the money initially invested is simply not enough, he said.

For non-profit organizations in the affordable housing space, government funding can make or break a project.

Jeff Neven, the CEO of a Christian affordable housing charity, said that's definitely the case for his organization. The charity, Indwell,offers what's considered to be deeply affordable rent to people recovering from mental health and addiction issues in southwestern Ontario.

To be able to offer rent of about $550, Neven said Indwell can't take on much financing debt to build more homes. That's why government funding has historically helped with most of the construction costs.

But Neven said the national housing strategy has gotten less generous, making it impossible to keep building.

"We probably have 25 projects right now that can't go forward without federal funding, and there's no pathway currently with the current programs to go forward," Neven said.

The Conservatives have not articulated a policy position specific to non-profit housing.

The NDP, on the other hand, has been particularly vocal about the lack of affordable housing, calling on the federal government to spend more money.

Housing measures were also included in the confidence-and-supply agreement between the Liberals and NDP, in which New Democrats agreed to support the minority government on key votes through 2025 in exchange for movement on shared priorities.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh has been touring the country to talk about housing and has proposed creating a housing acquisition fund that would help non-profits acquire affordable homes.

It's a proposal housing advocates and policy thinkers have endorsed.

This week, the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness, the Smart Prosperity Institute and REALPAC, a national real estate industry group, collaborated to release a report with recommendations on how to end the national rental crisis.

Itcalls for the creation of an acquisition fund that would facilitate office-to-residential conversions and help non-profit housing providers purchase existing rental housing projects and hotels.

Ultimately, many of the policy proposals require much larger investments from the federal government.

Although the Liberals have been hinting that they'll have more to say on housing over the next year, Sullivan said he's concerned there won't be enough money to bridge the gap.

"My worry that the government is not prepared to put up significant funds to actually make it happen," Sullivan said.

Over the last year, the federal government has signalled that it's trying to limit its expenditures so as not to fuel inflation.

Its 2023 federal budget was narrowly focused on investments in the green economy and health care, with very few new policies on housing.

Mike Moffatt, a housing expert and economist who serves as senior director of policy and innovation at the Smart Prosperity Institute, said the government has to decide what kind of spending is worth the criticism.

"At some point, they have to make a decision," he said.

"What would we rather be criticized for: spending too much money or allowing the housing crisis to continue?"

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 17, 2023.

Nojoud Al Mallees, The Canadian Press

CANADA

BRINGING ON AUSTERITY
Treasury Board demands cabinet ministers cut spending by $15 billion in new Oct. 2 deadline
By Quinn Patrick
-August 15, 2023




In an effort to save just over $15 billion in federal spending, newly appointed Treasury Board President Anita Anand has given cabinet ministers until Oct. 2 to make cuts to current spending plans.

Anand wrote a letter to federal cabinet ministers, many of who were assigned new portfolios in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s recent cabinet shuffle, telling them to make the cuts necessary to meet the Liberal’s 2023 budget promises.

“I am seeking your support to develop proposals to achieve these targets,” wrote Anand. “In particular, organizations should review their programming to identify where there might be duplication, programs with lower value for money, or programs that do not address top priorities of the government.”

In March of this year, the Liberals announced a budget goal of saving $7.1 billion over the next 5 years by cutting spending on things like consulting, travel and professional services by 15%.

The letter also included a 3% cut in spending from departments and agencies by 2026-27, the cut estimates a savings of $7 billion over the next 4 years. The planned cuts are hoping to see combined savings of $1.3 billion from Crown corporations.

Once the proposals are submitted, they will be reviewed by public servants from the Treasury Board.

Of the estimated $15.4 billion in savings, only $500 million will be saved this fiscal year, indicated the budget letter. Details regarding the $500 million are expected to be included in future Parliament spending reports and more details about the 5 year plan will be presented in 2024 budget reports.

The 2023 budget said its goal is not to reduce overall annual spending in Ottawa but rather to return the amount, “back to a pre-pandemic path.”

In the 2022-23 fiscal year, total government expenses were $470.4 billion and that number is estimated to climb to $555.7 billion by the 2027-28 fiscal year.

Outside of the historical spending made in relation to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Liberal government’s current annual spending remains higher than what they had projected it to be prior to the pandemic occurring. In 2019, the budget was estimated to be a total of $402.2 billion for the year of 2023-24 however this year the budget was projected to be $490.5 billion.

In her fall 2022 economic statement, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland had said that the books would return to balance by 2027-28 with a surplus of $4.5 billion dollars. The latest projections however are not congruent with Freelands 2022 economic statement. The federal deficit currently sits at $40.1 billion and is expected to decline to $14 billion by 2027-28.

The new budget letter by Anand doesn’t have outright plans to cut jobs in the government sector however, it will involve some redeployment and could potentially result in some job losses.

THE SAME OLD BS
“This is about smarter, not smaller, government,” said Monica Granados, a spokesperson for Anand.


RIGHT WING THINK TANK OFFSHOOT OF THE FRASER INSTITUTE
A recent Ipsos poll by the Montreal Economic Institute (MEI) found that most Canadians believe that the Trudeau’s government is spending too much, resulting in too high of taxes.

HOW WAS THE Q? ASKED

“Not only do Canadians find that the Trudeau government spends too much, but they also find that it spends unwisely,” said Renaud Brossard, senior director of communications for MEI.

“This seems to indicate a disconnect between the Department of Finance and the people whose money is entrusted in its care.”

55% of people respondents in the nationwide poll said that they believe Ottawa is overspending.

“The message Canadians are sending Ottawa is unequivocal,” said Brossard. “They are asking Ottawa to cut its spending, review its priorities, and reduce their tax burden.”

    BLAMING MIGRANTS FOR CAPITALI$T CRISIS

Most Canadians See Immigration Increase as Negative for Housing Costs

Two in three say the surge is worsening housing costs

Support may be eroding for Trudeau’s high immigration targets


Buildings under construction in Montreal on May 31, 2023.

Photographer: Graham Hughes/Bloomberg

By Randy Thanthong-Knight
August 8, 2023

Most Canadians view Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s plan to raise immigration targets as adversely affecting the cost of housing, signaling a shift in public attitudes in the typically newcomer-friendly country.

Polling by Nanos Research Group for Bloomberg News shows about two out of three respondents believe increasing the annual target for permanent residents to half a million by 2025 will have a negative impact on the cost of housing. Only one in five believe it will have a positive impact.

The survey suggests Canadians’ opinions are changing at a time when Trudeau’s government is being criticized for exacerbating housing shortages by boosting the number of immigrants. Concerns about inflation and the rising cost of housing have been increasing over the last year, said Nik Nanos, chief data scientist and founder of Nanos Research Group.


“Although Canadians traditionally support immigration, increasing the number of new Canadians while there is stress on the housing market has dampened enthusiasm,” he said.

Five months ago, another poll showed 52% of participants said the government’s immigration push would have a positive impact on the economy. These views were likely connected to jobs and the unemployment rate, Nanos said.

“The research puts a spotlight on the housing pain point and the collision of increasing the number of new Canadians when housing is seen as being increasingly unaffordable.”

Immigration Increase Seen Worsening Housing Costs

Two in three Canadians say the surge has an adverse affect on housing

Sources: Nanos Research Group, Bloomberg

Question: The Government of Canada is planning to increase the annual target of immigrants as permanent residents from 465,000 in 2023 to 500,000 by 2025. Do you think this increase will have a positive, somewhat positive, somewhat negative, negative or no impact on the cost of housing?

While advanced economies globally are confronting similar challenges from decreasing birth rates and aging workforces, wider support among Canadians for immigration had for years given Trudeau leeway to steadily boost permanent resident targets to stave off long-term economic decline.

Under the current plan, the government aims to welcome 465,000 permanent residents in 2023, up from a record 431,000 last year. By 2025, the annual target will reach 500,000, with foreign students, temporary workers and refugees making up another group that’s expected to be even larger.

A worsening imbalance between housing supply and demand, combined with rising cost of living and higher interest rates, has already priced out many Canadian residents, including younger generations and recent immigrants. It has also prompted calls from economists for the government to revise its immigration policy.

But the government is so far sticking with its current plan. Last week in an interview with Bloomberg News, Immigration Minister Marc Miller said he would either keep or raise the annual targets because of the diminishing number of working-age people relative to the number of retirees and the risk it poses to public service funding.


The latest Nanos survey of 1,081 people was conducted by phone and online between July 30 and Aug. 3. It’s considered accurate within 3 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

New condo prices in Toronto drop for the first time in a decade: Urbanation

Iva Poshnjari, BNN Bloomberg

The price of a new condominium in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) has fallen for the first time in a decade, according to a report from Ubranation Inc.

The average price of a new condo in the region fell 2.2 per cent year-over-year to $1,411 per square foot, the figures revealed. This marks the first annual price drop in 10 years for new condos, the report said.

There were also fewer buyers interested in purchasing a new condo, it revealed.

New condo sales in the GTA fell 35 per cent on an annual basis to 4,610 units sold, and reached a decade low of 28 per cent below the average second-quarter figures, the report detailed.

On a quarterly basis, new condo sales did jump 118 per cent, however, the data revealed sales for the first half of this year were down 59 per cent compared to the first half of 2022.

As for bringing more housing supply online, developers launched 27 presale projects in the second quarter of 2023 with a total of 7,349 units, however this marked a 27 per cent decline from the same period last year, the report revealed. While there were fewer presale units constructed in Q2 of 2023, the figures were in line with the 10-year average of 7,276 units, the data showed.

The softness is being attributed to buyers being hesitant to enter the market following of the Bank of Canada’s latest round of rate increases. 

Buyers showed the most interest in the GTA, where lower priced projects in the 905 region reached a record high portion of sales at 60 per cent, while new condo sales in the city of Toronto hit a record low of 14 per cent, the report said.

“As the population expands at a record pace, the GTA’s 12-month running total for new condo sales has dropped to its lowest level since 2009,” Shuan Hildebrand, president of Urbanation, said in a press release.

Demand for lower priced projects is being reflected in the average sold price of new launches, which fell to a seven-quarter low at $1,236 per-square-foot, according to the data. That figure is down eight per cent annually and 13 per cent lower than the average of $1,426 per-square-foot of projects launched in the first quarter of last year.

Despite the price drop, condo sales remain under pressure, the report said.  

"This will soon begin to impact construction and eventually cause serious supply shortages in a few years, the extent of which will depend on how long the current slowdown in presale activity persists,” he said. 

Canada sticks with immigration target despite housing crunch

Randy Thanthong-Knight, Bloomberg News

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government won’t lower its immigration targets despite growing criticism that drastic population growth worsens existing housing shortages.

In one of his first interviews a week into his new cabinet role, Immigration Minister Marc Miller said the government will have to either keep — or raise — its annual targets for permanent residents of about half a million. That’s because of the diminishing number of working-age people relative to the number of retirees and the risk it poses to public service funding, he said.

“I don’t see a world in which we lower it, the need is too great,” said Miller, who’s expected to announce new targets on Nov. 1. “Whether we revise them upwards or not is something that I have to look at. But certainly I don’t think we’re in any position of wanting to lower them by any stretch of the imagination.”

Globally, advanced economies are confronting similar challenges from decreasing birth rates and aging workforces, and many are competing for skilled workers. But while immigration for some countries is a divisive issue that can polarize voters and even topple a government, Canada has comfortably relied on public support to open its doors more widely for working-age newcomers.

Miller’s comments suggest the government is still counting on that backing to grow its population rapidly to stave off long-term economic decline. Trudeau’s government has consistently raised its target for permanent residents. Last year, foreign students, temporary workers and refugees made up another group that’s even larger, bringing total arrivals to a record one million.

In the short term, however, that massive growth has strained major urban centers and exacerbated housing shortages. In the 12 months to March, 4 to 5 international migrants arrived in Canada for every newly started unit of housing construction. That’s the highest ratio of new Canadians to new homes on record in data going back to 1977.

Many Canadians now criticize the government for not only doing too little to boost supply, but also making it worse by adding too much demand from immigration. But Miller pushed back against that view.

“We have to get away from this notion that immigrants are the major cause of housing pressures and the increase in home prices,” he said. “We tend not to think in longer historical arcs or in generational terms, but if people want dental care, health care and affordable housing that they expect, the best way to do that is to get that skilled labor in this country.”

On Wednesday, National Bank Financial’s Chief Economist Stefane Marion called on the government to revise its immigration policy until housing construction catches up with demand. Marion said the government’s decision to open the “immigration floodgates” led to a “record imbalance” between housing supply and demand, and homebuilders can’t keep up with the influx.

A recent survey by Ottawa-based Abacus Data showed 61 per cent of respondents believed Canada’s immigration target is too high, and 63 per cent of them said the number of immigrants coming to the country was having a negative impact on housing.

“What’s driving this is really rational concerns, not xenophobia,” said David Coletto, Abacus Data’s chief executive officer. “From many people’s perspective, the growth that Canada experienced hasn’t been matched with an increase in infrastructure. It’s putting a strain on public opinion toward immigration more broadly. We’d be foolish to assume that Canada’s immune to the same forces that have affected other countries.”

In another survey published in July, 39 per cent of respondents said they would be more likely to vote for a political party that promised to reduce immigration numbers. That compared with 24 per cent who said they’d be less likely to do so and 30 per cent who said it’d have no impact. This suggests there may be an appetite for campaigning on reducing immigration, according to Coletto.

Last week in an extensive cabinet shuffle, Trudeau shored up his economic bench and laid some groundwork for future elections as his government faces attacks over the rising cost of living. Sean Fraser was moved from immigration to housing and infrastructure. Miller — who as Crown-Indigenous relations minister quieted some the loudest criticisms of Trudeau on reconciliation — took the reins at immigration. 

“Politicians look in electoral cycles. But in my role, we have to look in generational cycles,” Miller said. “Canada needs to address that in a smart way, and that means attracting a younger segment of the population to make sure that people can retire with same expectations and benefits that their parents had. That’s the stark reality of it.”

- With assistance from Erik Hertzberg.

Soaring housing costs could spell 'disastrous'

political consequences for Trudeau

Laura Dhillon Kane, Brian Platt and Erik Hertzberg, Bloomberg New

The soaring cost of Canada’s housing has become a major political problem for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as his chief rival zeros in on generational grievances over affordability. 

Trudeau has played defense on the issue this summer, appointing a new housing minister last week and shifting some of the blame to other levels of government on Monday. But with his party already sinking in recent polls, housing has become a serious vulnerability for Trudeau.

“Failure to be seen as doing enough on housing could be politically disastrous for the Liberals,” said David Coletto, chief executive officer of polling firm Abacus Data.

The issue is particularly important for Canadians under 40 years old — a critically important demographic that Trudeau’s party couldn’t have won the last two elections without, Coletto said. His firm’s most recent poll put Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives 10 points ahead of the Liberals.

The benchmark price for a Canadian home has more than doubled over the past decade, reaching $760,600 (US$572,470) in June. Trudeau’s government, which took power in 2015, has also steadily raised its annual immigration targets, with more than one million people arriving last year, straining an already tight housing supply.

Poilievre has hammered Trudeau on the issue, focusing on the anger of younger generations. Canada’s housing affordability is among the worst in the world, he told reporters Tuesday outside the Parliament building in Ottawa.

“Rent has doubled,” he said. “Mortgage payments, doubled. Needed down payments, doubled. All after eight years of Justin Trudeau.”

To be sure, skyrocketing housing costs have many causes beyond Trudeau’s control. Provinces and cities — responsible for land-use planning, zoning and permitting — bear some of the blame, as do real estate investors, foreign buyers, years of rock-bottom interest rates and other factors. 

Still, Canada’s ambitious immigration targets have outpaced home building, aggravating the imbalance between demand and supply. In the 12 months to March, 4 to 5 international migrants arrived in Canada for every newly started unit of housing construction. That’s the highest ratio of new Canadians to new homes on record in data going back to 1977.

Poilievre, however, repeatedly sidestepped reporters’ questions on Tuesday about whether he would reduce immigration targets. 

Former Liberal lawmaker Adam Vaughan, who helped craft Trudeau’s $82 billion national housing strategy released in 2017, argued the country is better off today than it would have been without his party’s policies. If it had done nothing, federal spending for social housing this year would have been just $1 billion, he said.

However, more needs to be done, and time would be better spent focusing on solutions across levels of government than laying blame, he said. Trudeau’s comment on Monday that housing isn’t a primary federal responsibility was “problematic,” Vaughan said.

“It is a responsibility of the federal government, if not literally then it is politically, and I would argue that it is morally,” said Vaughan, who now works at public relations firm Navigator.

The federal government has a range of tools it could use to address the housing shortage without swelling its debt, said Mike Moffatt, senior policy and innovation director at the Smart Prosperity Institute.

Those measures include targeting immigration policy toward construction workers, electricians and others who could boost housing supply and slowing down international student visa approvals until provinces require universities to build more housing for them.

If the government is going to act, “they better do so quickly because time’s not on their side, and there’s a chance that one of the opposition parties could really start to own this issue,” Moffatt said.

Marci Surkes, who formerly worked as Trudeau’s policy director, said she suspects the government is working on a housing plan as a central plank of its fall budget update. 

“This should be ground that the Liberal Party should be occupying and owning,” said Surkes, who now works as an adviser to the Compass Rose Group. “They should have been making progress that was feeling more tangible at this point. And yet the circumstances being what they are economically, whatever progress has been made to date certainly doesn’t feel like enough.”

New Democratic Party Leader Jagmeet Singh, whose party has agreed to prop up the Liberal minority government in Parliament, said on Tuesday that Trudeau’s “finger-pointing” isn’t going to solve the housing issue, even though all orders of government hold some responsibility.

“We can’t ignore significant levers that the federal government has,” he said. “The levers are so significant that I would say the federal government has incredible powers to actually solve this problem if they choose to do so.”

New housing minister says closing door on newcomers is no solution to housing crunch

Nojoud Al Mallees, The Canadian Press

Canada's new housing and infrastructure minister says closing the door to newcomers is not the solution to the country's housing woes, and has instead endorsed building more homes to accommodate higher immigration flows. 

Sean Fraser, who previously served as immigration minister, was sworn in Wednesday morning as part of a Liberal government cabinet shuffle aimed at showcasing a fresh team ahead of the next federal election. 

He comes into the role at a time when strong population growth through immigration is adding pressure to housing demand at a time when the country is struggling with an affordability crisis. 

"The answer is, at least in part, to continue to build more stock," Fraser told reporters after being sworn in.  

"But I would urge caution to anyone who believes the answer to our housing challenges is to close the door on newcomers."

Instead, the minister said immigration would be part of the solution to the housing challenge.

"When I talked to developers, in my capacity as a minister of immigration before today, one of the chief obstacles to completing the projects that they want to get done is having access to the labour force to build the houses that they need," he said. 

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's decision to hand over the federal housing file to the Nova Scotia MP has been praised by experts who say that the Liberals need a strong communicator in charge as Canadians deal with an affordability crunch. 

As part of the shakeup, the housing file has been merged with infrastructure and communities. Fraser said the goal is to look at housing and infrastructure projects together, rather than in isolation. 

"If we encourage cities and communities to build more housing where infrastructure already exists or where it's planned to be, we're going to be able to leverage more progress for every public dollar that's invested," he said. 

Ahmed Hussen, who became housing minister in 2021, has faced criticism for his handling of the file as the housing crisis worsened across the country. 

Hussen is staying in cabinet as minister of international development. 

"The selection of Sean, I think, is a recognition that the job requires fundamentally an energy and urgency and a passion in order to be able to effectively compete with the message that (Conservative Leader) Pierre Poilievre has put forward," said Tyler Meredith, a former head of economic strategy and planning for Trudeau’s government.

Meredith said the choice to shift Fraser from immigration to housing also signals the federal government knows the two files are linked. 

"If they lose the argument on housing, they will lose the argument on immigration, and they will then lose what is frankly, some of the some of the most effective pieces of their economic strategy," Meredith said.

Canada's population grew by more than one million people in 2022, a pace that experts say is adding pressure to housing demand. That, in turn, pushes up prices even further. 

A recent analysis by BMO found that for every one per cent of population growth, housing prices typically increase by three per cent. 

The Liberals have been taking a lot of heat from Poilievre  for the state of the housing market. He's blamed Trudeau's government for the crisis, as well as municipal "gatekeepers" for standing in  the way of new developments. 

Poilievre has focused on the need to build more housing and has not weighed in on whether Canada needs to change the number of people it lets into the country. 

The Conservative leader has also been particularly focused on speaking to young people struggling with affordability, commonly referring to the "35-year-olds still living in their parents' basements" in the House of Commons.

Fraser, 39, acknowledged during the news conference that housing affordability is a major challenge facing younger Canadians in particular. 

"It's a real challenge for people my age and younger who are trying to get into the market, but it's also a challenge for low-income families," Fraser said. 

"There's no simple solutions, but if we continue to advance measures that help build more stock, that help make sure it's easier for people to get into the market and make sure we're offering protections for low-income families, particularly in vulnerable renting situations, we're going to be able to make a meaningful difference."

The housing crisis that once was associated with Vancouver and Toronto is now affecting all corners of the country, and experts say a shortage of homes is at its root. 

The Canada Mortgage Housing Corporation has warned the country needs to build 3.5 million additional homes — on top of the current pace of building — to restore affordability by 2030.

Carolyn Whitzman, a housing policy expert and adjunct professor at the University of Ottawa, said the decision to combine housing and infrastructure is a good move. 

"Housing is infrastructure. It's essential, as essential as water and sewers and hospitals and schools, for the functioning of a society," she said. 

Whitzman also called Fraser a "fairly effective communicator" and noted his experience as immigration minister may also help inform his role in the housing file.

Canadian population growth to drive home prices higher and faster: Report

Iva Poshnjari, BNN Bloomberg

The expected rise in Canada’s population is likely to make the country’s limited housing supply worse – and ultimately lead to even higher home prices, a report by Zoocasa forecasted.  

The influx of immigration to Canada, alongside internal population growth and a shortage of housing, will drive shelter costs up, the report released on Wednesday said.  

“The more people who live in Canada, the more homes are needed, which will exacerbate the already limited supply of homes," it stated.  

The data showed that 2022 was a record-breaking year for the country’s housing market and immigration numbers.

“The government welcomed the largest number of immigrants in a single year (2022), according to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, and at the same time, the national average home price soared to a monthly high of $804,900 – a 31 per cent increase from 2021,” it said.

So far, 2023 has not shown a similar trend.

One possible reason for this could be the aggressive interest rate hikes the Bank of Canada has pursued, the report said. The average home price dropped in 2023 by 5.5 per cent from the year prior, despite immigration reaching a new record of 3.9 per cent growth, it detailed.

The decline is likely to only be temporary, it said.

The report pointed to home price declines throughout the 2008-2009 financial crisis as a point of reference.

“The largest drop in the national average home price in the past 18 years was in 2009, when the price went from $320,500 in January 2008 to $296,300 in January 2009 – a 7.6 per cent decline due to the Great Recession which began in Canada in 2008. It only took a year for prices to recover and from 2010 until 2018 prices continuously climbed,” the data showed.

While overall population growth aids economic activity, the problem of where to house more people still remains.

“Population growth helps to stimulate the economy by filling labour shortages, but a side-effect of this growth is that home prices will likely be driven up higher,” the report said.

The report identified major metropolitan areas throughout Canada, such as Toronto or Vancouver, as key regions where home prices will be pushed upward due to the growth.  

“Home price growth and population growth have simultaneously trended upwards and this is likely to continue at an even faster rate in the future,” it forecasted.

Justin Trudeau is shifting some of the blame 

for eye-popping housing costs in Canada

Laura Dhillon Kane and Erik Hertzberg, Bloomberg News

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau heaped some of the blame for skyrocketing housing costs on high interest rates and inaction by other levels of government, signaling a more defensive tone on an issue where his main political rival has hit him hard.

Trudeau touted a federal investment in a housing project in Hamilton, Ontario, on Monday, telling reporters that his government is focused on making housing affordable and bolstering the supply of homes for lower and middle-income Canadians.

But he repeatedly pointed to provinces and municipalities — which control land-use planning, zoning and permitting — as crucial in solving the issue. He also said the previous Conservative government — in which now-leader Pierre Poilievre was a cabinet minister — failed to address the issue for 10 years.

“I’ll be blunt: Housing isn’t a primary federal responsibility,” Trudeau said. “It’s not something that we have direct carriage of, but it is something that we can and must help with.”

The rhetoric is a shift for Trudeau, whose government jumped into the housing arena when it was first elected in 2015. He has since rolled out an $82 billion (US$62 billion) national housing strategy and made sweeping promises, including doubling the pace of housing starts over the next decade.

\

But his efforts haven’t made a meaningful dent in housing costs, with the benchmark house price reaching $749,100 (US$567,930) in June, up 2 per cent from a month earlier. At the same time, he has set record-high immigration targets, welcoming more than a million people last year and straining already crunched housing supply.

The remarks show the government “is giving up on solving the housing crisis it created,” said John Pasalis, president of Toronto-based real estate brokerage company Realosophy Realty.

“Our federal government is supercharging the demand for housing by rapidly increasing Canada’s population growth rate without any regard for where people will live and is now blaming the provinces and cities for not doing the impossible – tripling the number of homes they build each year,” Pasalis said.

Poilievre has seized upon anger about the cost of housing, especially among young Canadians, and recent polls have put his Conservatives as much as 10 points ahead of Trudeau’s Liberals. An election could be held any time in the next two years.

Trudeau recently shuffled his cabinet to more strongly emphasize economic issues, especially housing. He selected Sean Fraser as housing and infrastructure minister to deliver the message that it understands Canadians’ struggles on housing and is doing everything it can to help.

Trudeau also said on Monday that he hopes inflation continues to fall so that interest rates will also decline, which would ease mortgage costs for Canadians.

Asked about workers demanding higher wages amid high inflation, most recently in the strike at British Columbia ports, Trudeau said he wants to avoid a wage-price spiral. 

“We want to keep inflation down so we can have interest rates start coming down again to help people be able to afford their own homes,” he said.

The Bank of Canada raised rates for a second straight meeting on July 12 to 5 per cent, the highest level in 22 years. Headline inflation has come down to 2.8 per cent in Canada, but mortgage interest costs are up 30 per cent from last June. Without mortgage costs, inflation would have been at 2 per cent.

Trudeau said during the 2021 campaign that he doesn’t “think about monetary policy,” underscoring his deference to Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem and his policymakers. While the prime minister’s comments on Monday didn’t criticize the central bank, they did mark a shift in that he publicly expressed a desire to see lower rates.

Fraser also seems to be pointing to interest rates as a source of the affordability challenge in Canada. In an interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., he said inflation – primarily caused by global factors – has triggered higher rates that have pushed some families with variable-rate mortgages to the limit.

'Skyrocketing population growth' drove economic expansion across Canada: Report

Daniel Johnson , BNN Bloomberg

Last time population growth was this strong was before Maple Leafs last won Stanley cup (1967)

Desjardins 7:40

A new report from Desjardins economists says population gains have supported growth in each Canadian province this year – while warning that a downturn still could occur in 2024. 

Desjardins released its report on provincial outlooks on Tuesday, which revised growth expectations higher in both Ontario and British Columbia after rebounds in each respective market. The economists behind the report noted that oil-producing regions are expected to perform better relative to non-oil-producing provinces, including B.C. and Ontario, throughout the year and into 2024.

Marc Desormeaux, a principal economist at Desjardins and one of the authors of the report, said in an interview with BNN Bloomberg Tuesday that there are three main takeaways from the findings.

“The first is that in this environment of a slowing Canadian economy, we think that the commodity-producing provinces will fare the best in terms of economic growth,” he said. “The second thing is that we've revised our projections significantly higher for Ontario and B.C., in large part because of the strength of the housing market to begin 2023.”

Thirdly, Desormeaux said “very, very strong” population growth is “supporting economic growth across Canada.”

The report also stated that amid labour shortages, “skyrocketing population growth has supported the economic expansion in all provinces so far this year.” Despite that countrywide expansion, the authors noted that all regions should feel the impact of higher interest rates over the next few months. 

“In our view, while these developments help the 2023 growth arithmetic, they delay the downturn rather than preclude it,” the report said.

“Monetary policy works with a lag, and all regions should increasingly feel the dampening impacts of sharply higher interest rates in the coming months.” 

Retail sales in Ontario and B.C. have fallen behind other regions, the report’s authors said, adding that the largest real estate markets in both provinces have “retreated in June” following another interest rate hike from the Bank of Canada. 

“As we approach 2024, housing‑exposed provinces should see the more significant slowdowns we’ve long been expecting,” the report said. 

By contrast, Alberta and Saskatchewan “remain less vulnerable” and stand to benefit from commodity prices and increased production, the report said. 

The report also noted that net international immigration trends should continue, assuming federal policy continues to focus on attracting newcomers and that immigration has benefited provincial growth across the country in 2023.

“Persistently strong population growth will play a role in stimulating demand for goods and services,” the report said. 

Immigration figures will also impact growth on a provincial basis, the report said, as Ontario and B.C. are experiencing record numbers of new non-permanent residents. However, this trend could change if admissions for temporary foreign workers decline due to an economic slowdown.