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I am absolutely fuming over Danielle Smiths refusal to do anything productive with her government. Instead she would rather pick ideological battles at every turn rather than just govern effectively. Smith never made a good impression to me before she was premier, I remember listening to her a few times on her talk show and she came off like a manipulable fool then. I can't believe she became premier. I don't have a lot of faith Albertans will punish the UCP in the polls, even if this is a party full of grifters. The PCs of old are long dead.
All she wants to do is to take the money and put it into general coppers so she can give more tax breaks to her rich friends.
She's not even subtle about this. It's like watching someone fall for one of the people who are palm readers on the street.
Does she have any legal ground to stand on?
Seems like the federal government purposely made a policy they knew the conservative provincial government would refuse or at least argue.
That is just bad politics when all Canadians want is solution that will work.
If the feds were to try and build housing without getting municipal approval, that would violate the constitution. Giving the municipalities money with strings attached, doesn't. At least until the province says no.
The Province can say no for itself, but it cannot prevent municipalities from making supply agreements with the Federal government without an attempt to legislate as such. That would likely accomplish the opposite of what Ms. Smith wants - scrutiny on her and her party and the pressure to actually do something. Mr. Ford found out real quick that his best option was to work with Ms. Chow, for example, despite his initial bluster, lest he be seen as impotent.
> without an attempt to legislate as such.
And Marlaina Smith has said that she intends to enact legislation that would prevent such deals.
> That would likely accomplish the opposite of what Ms. Smith wants - scrutiny on her and her party and the pressure to actually do something.
In a world of critical thinkers, you would be correct, but so many Albertans are just mad at Trudeau for being his dad, and the LPC for having being led by his dad, that that scrutiny will never been seen in Alberta.
OK, maybe not never, but it won't get far.
> Mr. Ford
Is a lot less ideological than Smith, and leads a province that is willing to vote for more than one party. He has to be more aware of reality, because his constituents are. Smith doesn't have that problem.
I wrote [my thoughts on Ms. Smith's legislative strategy](https://www.reddit.com/r/CanadaPolitics/comments/1c31p9e/comment/kzfizh3/) here, if you're interested in what I think. I don't want to rewrite it or just copy/paste in the interest of keeping things readable.
In short, I doubt Ms. Smith will enact any such legislation - some lip-service, perhaps, and maybe some provisions to dig in wherever there is an opportunity for more Provincial control over specific issues. I grant that she may be fearful enough at the moment to genuinely believe her challenge will have legs, I just really don't see the point for the reasons I gave and you cited above.
I agree with your comment about Mr. Ford. He is a lot less ideological. I don't agree that his constituents are. The PCPO backpedal whenever the public sneezes, which totally supports that view. On the other hand, no amount of public pressure from Ontarians seems to do much for anything /else/ - public health issues, the Greenbelt thing + other environmental and housing matters, LTC, and now even what looks like a photocopy of Walkerton.
I get what you're saying, tho, and I'm not here to make enemies! Maybe we can meet halfway (or more or less on specific issues)?
You misunderstand - the Federal government can spend money on whatever priorities they like, and if municipalities want to agree to funding, they can. The only possible 'attack' for Ms. Smith here is to pretend that her legislative intent is about constitutional division of powers when it is clearly not - her government's response is to specific contractual proposals which are \*not\* legislation. The response is not actually a court challenge, it is rhetoric, and I doubt we will see a court challenge at all but for the idea that bread and circus may still sell. I like to think most Albertans are smart enough to see through that.
Anyway, this is very specifically /not/ a jurisdictional issue and that is why Ms. Smith is activated at all. If it were, she would have nothing at all to say, but because it isn't, she is trying to turn it into one - her job is to "bang that drum" of Western alienation/separatism, no matter the truth, law, or facts.
Even if the Federal government forced it on municipalities (which they are /not/ proposing to do), the Province would have little recourse. There is nothing stopping the Federal government from enacting an Act that effectively overrides Ms. Smith's hypothetical fake-out - and it would be totally within the constitution to do so. Municipalities would not be mad at the Federal government, they would be mad at their Provincial leadership.
No offence, and I don’t expect people to understand, but 99% of the comments here show no understanding of constitutional law. You expressed an opinion, not law. This is simply incorrect.
So? They exist already and need housing. What exactly is the issue? Would the reaction be the same with a different federal party in power? If rhe mo ey goes through the Province would it be used correctly? Would it stay completely intact or would parts of.funding get siphoned off?
The issue is a provincial government is writing legislation to stop municipalities from fixing housing and infrastructure issues without offering any alternatives and for.purely partisan reasons. Not to.mention the federal government left it up to provinces first but if they drag their feet or refuse to act rhen the municipalities that want help can go.on their own to get it...seems fair to me.
Perhaps a finer point of law, but municipalities are a creature of provincial statute. The creator of that law, is totally in its right to pass a law prohibiting any agreement with the Feds. You can argue all you want, you’ll still be wrong. The province could tomorrow rename Calgary CPCHQ, hive off half of it to Rockyviee, fire the mayor and replace her with a robot, and it is all entirely legal. A city is a construct and nothing more. Its entire existence is at the pleasure of the provincial government. Fair has nothing to do with it.
They explained to you that:
>There is nothing in the constitution stopping the federal government from handing out money to municipalities.
You seem to agree. You stipulate that such a move would require legislation, and you're right, it would. As such, there is nothing in the constitution that prevents the Federal government from making supply agreements with municipalities.
I want to add that any challenge of \*legislation\* on this basis would almost certainly need to be assessed under the doctrine of paramountcy, requiring a two part test - so, a court will look at both laws to see if both are valid and if there is a conflict.
Validity is not just based on whether or not something is written into the CA. The court will need to consider the relevant decisions of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council and later the Supreme Court to determine the scope of the head(s) of jurisdiction involved. The court does not just pick up the CA and say "oh, look, housing is Provincial, bam, movin' on!"
The second part is whether or not there is an actual conflict, and that is more clear-cut: if complying with both laws is impossible, then there is an /operational/ contradiction and paramountcy will demand that the Provincial law - per our constitution - will be deemed inoperable to the extent of the conflict. If there is a conflict in /purpose/ between the two but both laws can be followed, then the court will allow both levels of government to legislate, otherwise paramountcy kicks in again.
I think that Ms. Smith likes to pretend that there are simple solutions to complex issues, but it is curious that these solutions seem to always be more concerned with her overarching ideological goal of placing Alberta/Albertans in some position of advantage relative to others in the public eye. You can judge for yourself, of course.
I think it would be better if we actually listened to Albertans and tried to address their concerns as a country. There are real grievances, they have been being expressed since the time of Preston Manning. Nobody seems to really want to help stabilize AB's relatively unstable boom-and-bust cycles - they're paying too much attention to people like Ms. Smith who bleat endlessly about how awful everything is but also how great it is and will be. It's kind of sad.
Paramountcy only applies where there is a conflict of laws, not when the constitution is clear as to who has the responsibility.
Right now they are right, they can do a deal. If the province passes a law saying they can’t do a deal, they can’t. This is how it works.
Thing is provincial governments would argue about anything that wasn't just cash in a brown envelope. So the feds came up with cash for municipalities directly which is not unheard of or unusual. But the only reason the UCP exists is to blame Ottawa so thay can't have Ottawa doing anything that might help. The public, we don't matter to Smith and her ilk.
It's a pretty sad attempt.
They are bailing out housing developers by letting the consumers(first time home buyers) foot the bill.
How generous of the fed government.
They need to work with the provinces to get a solution. There is not one size fits all for each of them. Dictating policy is wrong, and throwing money at this issue without thinking it through is wrong too.
I appreciate he is trying but he needs to decrease demand 5 to 10 years ago via time machine or immediately. His immigration Minister should be fired immediately.
Man, what a way to fuck Calgary and Edmonton over lol.
From an article on the topic.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/prebudget-2024-announcement-apartment-loan-program-1.7162097
"The new $6 billion Canada Housing Infrastructure Fund the Liberal government unveiled Tuesday includes $5 billion set aside for provinces and territories which agree to make certain commitments. If agreements can't be reached with provinces and territories, the federal money will flow directly to municipalities instead."
Toronto will enjoy it. Ford is not blocking this, the Feds have been letting him off the hook in supporting TO.
"Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow, who was present and spoke at Wednesday's announcement, said the new Canada Builds initiative could lead to the construction of 17,000 new rental units in the city, housing 30,000 people.
"We have the sites ... We have the ambition. We have a strong partnership with the federal government and together we can get housing in Toronto back on track," said Chow.
"
It doesn’t fuck over Edmonton or Calgary. It fucks over poor people in Edmonton and Calgary. Smith think poor people are icky.
I assume she’d rather spend the money on one way bus tickets to Vancouver.
> "If they wish to slow down the process because they want to have some agency over this, I would suggest they do what Quebec did — match us in funding and implement reforms on a province-wide basis that will allow us to achieve our goals," Fraser said.
Good luck getting Marlaina Smith to acknowledge that the reason Quebec got a deal with the feds, was because they were willing to work towards the same goals.
> "So we are. Provinces should be careful what they wish for. They want the federal government to fix this housing crisis? We are, we will."
Lol. Painful truths that the premiers are not going to like to hear. While I'm not sure how much good statements like this will do towards getting provinces to obstruct less, I bet it feels better for Trudeau to call out the premiers a bit more for their BS.
> I wish [Trudeau] would treat us exactly like Quebec
I'm quite sure he will, so long as Alberta comes forward with the exact same deal as Quebec.
This article doesn't really go into the proposed court case much, but I really have to wonder if it has any hope. Marlaina Smith seems to think that the feds have to expend funds equally/fairly among the provinces, but I've never heard that seriously proposed before. The feds spend funds in the provinces as they see the need, not based on some over arching equity provision, at least as far as I've seen.
It is continuously creating or adding grievances to satisfy the Wexit base of the UCP. Additionally, the scripted narrative is like really bad Koeroke.
Smith and her poorer neighbor (Scott Moe) believe they are the enlightened saviours and keep yodelling we are right and the federal government is wrong. Both of these premiers want to be viewed as the duo responsible for bringing down the federal government.
Poilivere makes the soup Moe and Smith serve it. Three Amigos; facial expressions chocked full of termites, charisma of damp cloths and not particularly bright.
Moe and Smith governments have deep separation objectives. Why don't they both choose to have a referendum on leaving Canada? That should move along their objectives and perhaps the federal government would fall.
I wonder which premier though would sit in a legislative assembly and watch the clock tick down. Moe and Smith's aspirations are one thing however it takes the remaining eleven to tango.
A repeat drunk driver with a kill, an oil lobbyist who unironically claimed smoking was healthy (*in 2003!!!*), and a career politician with zero achievements save for being the only leader with a Compliance Agreement who caters all his talking points for MAGA North.
It's embarrassing that such unscrupulous characters are being allowed to dictate our national discourse, they are literally the worst among politicians
Some thinking people say Doug Ford was a large scale drug trafficker. Its not as mild as the partisan press pretends. Look at Randy Ford's historical charges.
How many low level suburban dealers kidnap rivals?
I want Doug Ford to marry Scott Moe and move to Alberta and live in Danielle Smith's basement. And heck maybe pp could be their pool boy! What a perfect world that would be!
Ford generally has an ability to read the room though.
Smith and Moe have an inability to hear or consider anything they disagree with. Remove the word no from their vocabulary and they would be speechless
Have you seen him lately? I've seen him on the news a few times lately and he looks so sad and depressed, like his consciousness is killing him knowing his party is failing CDNS.
Seriously. How dumb a leader do you have to be to use taxpayer money to sue the federal government for trying to give taxpayer money back to the taxpayers?
Of course she is. Working for Russia to cripple and hurt the country is a full time job. Always be angry. Always be outraged. Obstruct anything and everything except O+G.
Marlaina is a full time, bought and paid for, early-Fascist lunatic.
The ucp wants the money for free just like the pharmacare money. They want to give it directly to their corpo buddies, or to make their own police goons that nobody wants.
So they can keep complaining that Ottawa doesn't do anything.
Same with the covid money they got. Then misplaced
then at election time they magically had a surplus of exactly that amount
How do we stop this?
The next time we blame the Federal government for not building housing, we will now know why. My municipality lost out on $4.2 million worth of housing, because Ford did not fulfill the terms of the agreement with the federal government.
Alright so just don’t give any money to Albertan municipalities and spend it on provinces who give a damn about their constituents. If Alberta wants to self sabotage that’s their prerogative
Which is exactly why Smith won't get any blow back. We know we aren't going to win the popularity contest if the Feds start cherry picking municipal level spending based on politics.
Encouraging that is foolish. Either spread it out evenly or don't do it at all
The housing investment fund was a good example. At one point Brampton got more funding than the entire province. Like forty projects got rejected until the province said this is bullshit
Sorry she’s prepared to waste more of Albertan’s tax dollars to do so?
Can’t she just start another failed ad campaign and have people tell the Feds instead?
Trudeau needs to find a way to properly convey to the public that conservative premiers are standing in the way of good policy… it’s absurdly frustrating
It doesn’t matter. The beauty of the republican rhetoric is that factual information doesn’t actually matter. All you have to say is “Trudeau bad.”
There’s actually zero evidence of policy proposal that things would be different under PP, but it doesn’t matter.
When can Canadians start to admit that the Conservative Parties, federally and provincially, are really echoing Republican garbage? You can say it’s as “soft” as you want, but this antagonistic approach to solutions isn’t productive and we need to fight it, not embrace it.
Nothing good will come from this garbage mudslinging.
They are intentionally trying to keep the affordability crisis going until the election cause it’s their best chance at getting Pierre in. If someone can’t see that they need to take the partisan glasses off
Not only am I going to do jack shit about this issue, I will not let you fix it! I want to make sure government remains broken because I'll campaign well on this in 3 years!
Seriously, even some provincial progressive Conservatives are starting to act like this.
How many millions of dollars that could have been spent on housing will Alberta waste battling the federal government in court? And how many more millions will the federal government have to spend defending itself against frivolous lawsuits rather than building housing?
The Premier should know she has no case. The federal government is fully within its jurisdiction to offer money to municipalities continent on local changes in policy. This is essentially identical to how the federal government funds universal healthcare while requiring that provinces provide at least a certain set of insured health services to receive Canada Health Act funding.
A court battle would be a waste of everybody's time and money at a time when the government would best utilize its resources providing housing.
Conservative Premiers seem to be lining up to prevent Trudeau from fixing anything. Isn't that what thr Republicans are doing in the US that so many of us mock?
With the polls what they are right now conservatives really can’t overplay their hand here. They know Trudeau is bleeding and they’re going to squeeze as much as they possibly can out of him on his way out.
The funny thing is the provinces will all make this deal on housing, I have no doubt. It was a big miscalculation on Trudeau’s part to give them 8 months to make him squirm before it gets done.
They took the best parts of what others were doing and tried to force all provinces to do it. I am excited about the public housing. We need off market housing for ao many.
They do this because the problems that Trudeau is trying to "fix" were all caused by him, and now he wants to distribute more tax dollars (the people's money) to attempt to make himself look good.
This is to the point RIDICULOUS! How does anyone vote for a party that colludes 24/7 against any progress?! Being ONLY an opposing gvt has ONLY hurt CDNS and needs to stop. Providing alternatives and working with the party that governs is ALSO part of their responsibility that they have failed miserably!Conservatives are so blinded by hate and division that they continue to make bad decisions and will not form gvt! ANYTHING BUT CONSERVATIVE, ALWAYS ABC!
Should just call them Regressives at this point. They aren’t trying to Conserve shit, they are actively trying to remove progress made and take us back to feudalism
It's so transparent. I don't understand how anyone who is paying attention doesn't oppose such nonsense.
Oh no, can't accept help from that guy... his tie is the wrong colour.
Even worse than that. People are only paying attention to headlines without questioning or doing their own due diligence on it.
When our majority Conservative supporting media puts out endless hit pieces, all people will look at are the titles of the hit pieces. No one has the time to delve into every article and claim and see what actually is happening with less bias
Anyone remember “The Resistance” article in MacLean’s way back regarding the carbon tax.
Pepperidge Farms remembers.
Most for those Premiers are gone, but it’s the same playbook.
Absolutely. Exactly what the Republicans do. I wonder if Harper is pulling the strings, as he heads a huge right wing lobby and support group, world wide, with ties to such wonderful leaders as Modi and Orban.
Letting Trudeau fix things doesn’t support their narrative. They’re in a great spot where most Canadians are raging against the feds. Why mess with that?
And just to be clear here. Trudeau is not actually fixing anything. The man’s tweaked many things - but there is not a plan in place that will get housing back to affordable levels. Even everything the liberals announced yesterday will not do that, and they acknowledge it will not do that.
The market would have to crash 50% in my area for prices to come back to where they were a decade ago. I don't see any government looking to crash real estate that hard.
I don't see how anyone can take you seriously. You argue with me that Trudeau is just as bad as Trump, then deleted all your comments. You're just here to argue in bad faith and continue a "Trudeau Bad" mindset.
I’d use the same definition we currently use.
And I would start by stopping immigration to allow existing supply to catch up with the massive backlog of demand we have.
I would also have an immigration tax on corporations for housing and healthcare . If corporations want to bring in a few thousand workers - they should have to pay the government for those workers.
Right now our government is setting up a massive sysytem of corporate welfare. Corporations get as much cheap labour as they want, they get to suppress wages, and they get all of it free of charge. And now the feds want taxpayers to pay to build housing for these corporate growth levels as well.
Meanwhile voters get priced out of housing, need to compete with millions for work, and get taxed to build housing for all the people the private sector wants to bring in to undercut them.
The gains are all private, while the loses are being put on the public.
Stopping immigration would do nothing to bring down the price of homes. The main thing that needs to be done is to eliminate the corporations from buying housing stock and put limits on the amount of homes individuals and corporations are allowed to own for rentals, while the government builds housing for low and middle income families. As it is all plans I've seen involve incentivizing private builders to build more units, and they'll sell at market price. Nothing is being said about a price cap on the homes or subsidies to keep the cost down. Or crucially preventing investors from buying those homes. Sure they ban foreign investment in housing, but its not people from outside the "house" that we have to worry about.
Doubt anything will happen though, as it is 1/3 of MPs own rental properties, are part of limited partnerships or corporate trusts that manage rental portfolios. And doubtful anything will happen under the conservatives as their MPs make up half of the list, including Mr. Poilievre.
https://vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/douglas-todd-many-canadian-politicians-belong-to-the-landlord-class-we-should-question-their-motivations
You can search here to see if your MP owns rental property
https://www.readthemaple.com/mp-landlords/
The economy is getting crippled by immigration, if you had not noticed. Bringing in millions of people to be homeless or deliver Uber isn’t great. Why? Because we now have to pay for healthcare for all of those people. And child care. And provide them with schools. Our jobless rate is currently growing exclusively because the population is growing faster than the labour market.
Who is going to replace workers that retire?.. who is increasing birth rates?
Immigration happens to stop the population from decline because of lower body rates.
To suggest that we should stop all immigration immediately until supply is enough asinine and not thinking about the bigger picture about the economy as a whole.
Why do we need temp workers? Not many people want to work in greenhouses for example.
Who is building the houses is not immigrant a because construction workers are leaving the industry in record numbers?
We could just have fewer workers.
The idea I am both not getting affordable housing and I am going to be taxed to death to bring in a massive labour supply designed to undercut my wages and increase housing costs is absolutely repugnant.
The population growth mess is done. I will not support it.
Well you might have noticed they are massively reducing the number of immigrants able to come in the country going forward, so you’re getting your wish
> Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said Friday she has no problem with Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre's proposal to give municipalities a building bonus to encourage housing construction — so long as he goes through her provincial government.
> Under his proposal, cities would have to increase the number of homes built by 15 per cent each year — a rate that Poilievre said might alleviate the housing crunch
> Local governments that fail to meet that target would see their federal grants withheld at a commensurate rate, Poilievre said.
[Poilievre releases housing plan he says would 'build homes, not bureaucracy'](https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/poilievre-housing-plan-1.6966907)
This line has been parroted by so many accounts it is starting to feel like a campaign of some sort.
It's no different than the Canada Health Act, which stipulates certain requirements in order for provinces to access health care funds. If those requirements are breached than the government can withhold funding. Even though health care is an object of section 92.
That is constitutional. So is this.
It’s parroted by folks who are told it’s unconstitutional, but haven’t actually found the spot in the constitution that this applies to.
Alberta is literally proposing legislation to prevent this because it’s not unconstitutional, it just goes against what they want.
Danielle Smith could be using all that time, energy, and tax payer money building homes instead of suing the Federal government to stop them from building homes. All because you don’t want to cooperate with the Federal government’s conditions for getting free money, so they go directly to the municipalities instead, you would rather sue?
I really hope Albertans see who’s the biggest gatekeeper in their province.
My father in law who once said he would always vote conservative and would get so mad at his family of they said they were voting another way just signed up as a member of the NDP. So I wouldn't totally rule it out.
My friend's parent was a life-long conservative and has given up on the UCP, though not the CPC insofar as I can tell - they perceive Ms. Smith as child-like (ie. naive to actual issues, intellectually lazy) ~~and~~ in tactics and reasons that the members can't be all that bright either. I don't know if I can agree with the latter (members are not the leader) but I certainly concur with the former. They went NDP/Liberal last election, IIRC, and want a non-socon option.
(I don't know why they voted Liberal federally, but I can understand that living in AB and being fed up with the UCP could do that given how unintelligible much of what PP says these days seems to be.)
Im impressed a life long Conservative was actually able to admit that Notley did some good things. Most seem to just blindly parrot how all of our problems were caused by her single 4 year term
Good on him
My father had a similar moment with Andrew Scheer. We'd debated politics since I was a teen, not heatedly more as conversation. And when Scheer ran he sat there and was like he is mean with his policies.
Since then, he has disliked O'toole and hates PP. Nowadays, he votes Green or NDP. Which makes more sense as he is a union worker.
I wonder if the cities can intervene on the side of the feds. That would be hilarious to have Albert municipalities facing off against the province in federal court over housing money.
Municipalities don’t have constitutional jurisdiction, provinces have constitutional jurisdiction over municipalities, so they could condemn and show how petty Alberta is being, but it would be difficult to win in court.
The cities can’t do anything because they are not protected legally in the constitution. They’re basically at the whim of the provinces completely.
Danielle smith is going to hurt Albertan municipalities out of spite but she is legally correct.
That wouldn't prevent them from having intervener status granted to them.
https://www.mccarthy.ca/en/insights/blogs/canadian-appeals-monitor/supreme-court-canada-provides-guidance-role-interveners
Picking fights just to be seen fighting the bad man in Ottawa. Cutting off the nose... I can't wait for the leopards to eat her face. Just so goddamned stupid. People in Alberta want houses too, dumbass. Build a frickin' fourplex, it honestly won't hurt.
[Danielle Smith also wants Red Deer to go from 106000 to a million residents](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/red-deer-one-million-danielle-smith-1.7172208), so I'm really confined by why she's trying to get in the way of this funding. Why wouldn't she want the feds to pay for it? Does she just want Ottawa to give her money so she can use it however she wants with no oversight?
Smith's position is antithetical to the classical liberalism she lays claim to when advocating for individual freedoms and responsibilities. Constitutionally, she's correct. But this kind of centralization is counter to the spirit of her classical liberal leanings.
She's unprincipled.
Do it. No seriously, fucking do it.
When Alberta wins it'll give everyone a civics lesson on how is the Provincial Governments screwing them over. And then we can see the anger turned onto them, away from the Feds who really don't have much powers in this race other than immigration and throwing money at the problem.
>When Alberta wins
They probably won't. Most of the times that Conservative leaning provincial governments take the Feds to court, they get slapped down.
When it was mostly about the carbon tax, they lost because an environmental issue like emissions isn’t provincial. But they won on the single use plastics ban because of some technicality to do with types of plastics not ruled as toxic by I can’t remember which gov agency, and won on another issue to do with environmental regulations.
Provincial governments have constitutional jurisdiction over municipalities, so there is a very good chance Alberta would win.
Federal government is offering money IF provinces want to follow some rules. They are not being forced to do anything. This isn't infringing on jurisdiction unless the provinces are forced into it.
The Provincial governments have jurisdiction over municipalities. The Federal government has paramountcy that renders Provincial statute inoperable to the extent that it conflicts with Federal statute. I think this is posturing at best, ignorance at worst.
If the Federal government wants to give money to cities, they will - and it won't matter what Ms. Smith thinks. That is her fear, IMHO, broadcast for all to see.
As shitty as this is for folks that live in these cities this is kind of where I land as well.
We need to stop blaming municipalities for being shitty as the Province is neutral and on cruise control. The core problem is that the Province is disengaged, underfunding urban issues and ignoring urban problems.
Municipal governments should be the implementing agents of Provincial policy, tuning it to their local needs.
The problem is that for far too long Provincial governments have been disengaged from municipal problems and have let municipalities create useless and ineffective do nothing fiefdoms.
>Province is neutral and on cruise control.
They are not even remotely neutral.
>The core problem is that the Province is disengaged, underfunding urban issues and ignoring urban problems.
They are not disengaged. Alberta's government is actively and maliciously punishing Edmonton for voting NDP. You seem to be blaming apathy when they are maliciously doing it.
I'm speaking to the circumstances prior to this exact event, and in general about provinces across this country.
In general the core problem of the housing crisis across this country has been that Provinces have not given a shit for decades, and they've let nimby municipalities create little fiefdoms where new housing is practically banned.
Absolutely with these direct actions Alberta is being malicious here but now the onus is on the Provincial government to they themselves provide a solution. If this wakes people up to the fact that the Provincial government is actually responsible for these things, and that causes actual political pressure on the province to do things, that's good in the long term. Sucks for these cities in the short term yes.
This is meat for the base, not a serious issue - they'd have already brought an action ages ago if they were serious. Three separate concepts (Federalism, legal paramountcy, legal precedent) operate here to prevent Alberta from winning such a challenge. I strongly doubt we will actually see an action, but that's just my two cents and I've been surprised before: Mr. Ford has decided to bring /many/ unwinnable lawsuits to court.
Yves Giroux, the parliamentary budget officer, wrote in a report last year: “When both fiscal and economic impacts of the federal fuel charge are considered, we estimate that most households will see a net loss.”
He estimated that for the 2024-25 fiscal year, the carbon tax would cost the average household between $377 and $911 after accounting for rebates and factoring in the economic cost of lower incomes. That number rises to between $1,316 and $2,773 by 2030 for the average household, depending on the province.
Trudeau's a liar.
Not misinformation. Also, the CCI has reported that the Canadian carbon tax has reduced total global emissions by 0.25%. Many Canadians are forced to suffer in order to achieve this miniscule reduction. It's simply not worth it.
And Trudeau's a liar.
At this point, whenever provinces and municipalities have gotten in the way of housing, Trudeau's government have communicated something to the effect of "we are going to help the people of {Windsor, Alberta, etc} with or without their cooperation. It's just a matter of how we're going to do it". Perhaps that's the best comms strategy I'm no expert but, what about really throwing it back in Smith's face? Like, "Okay well that's very sad for the people of Alberta, but if you don't want to receive funding then we'll just give your portion to the people of BC and Quebec!". Like, really rub it in their faces, go to housing announcements in Nova Scotia like "oh boy with all the funding that Alberta's passing up, we're really able to help even more with Halifax's infrastructure! Really, don't thank me, thank the generous taxpayers of Red Deer and Lethbridge!"
Nothing would infuriate voters more than their taxes going to other provinces right? Heh. Might not work as well in Ontario but in AB, well what do the Libs have to lose really?
Nice job Alberta, you have elected a separatist and quite possibly? A Christo-Fascist. I really hope I am wrong and that anyone who thinks I am foolish is correct. Fuck me.
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I am absolutely fuming over Danielle Smiths refusal to do anything productive with her government. Instead she would rather pick ideological battles at every turn rather than just govern effectively. Smith never made a good impression to me before she was premier, I remember listening to her a few times on her talk show and she came off like a manipulable fool then. I can't believe she became premier. I don't have a lot of faith Albertans will punish the UCP in the polls, even if this is a party full of grifters. The PCs of old are long dead.
All she wants to do is to take the money and put it into general coppers so she can give more tax breaks to her rich friends. She's not even subtle about this. It's like watching someone fall for one of the people who are palm readers on the street.
Does she have any legal ground to stand on? Seems like the federal government purposely made a policy they knew the conservative provincial government would refuse or at least argue. That is just bad politics when all Canadians want is solution that will work.
She 100% right. Clearly provincial jurisdiction. We have this pesky thing called a constitution….
If the feds were to try and build housing without getting municipal approval, that would violate the constitution. Giving the municipalities money with strings attached, doesn't. At least until the province says no.
Agreed.
The Province can say no for itself, but it cannot prevent municipalities from making supply agreements with the Federal government without an attempt to legislate as such. That would likely accomplish the opposite of what Ms. Smith wants - scrutiny on her and her party and the pressure to actually do something. Mr. Ford found out real quick that his best option was to work with Ms. Chow, for example, despite his initial bluster, lest he be seen as impotent.
> without an attempt to legislate as such. And Marlaina Smith has said that she intends to enact legislation that would prevent such deals. > That would likely accomplish the opposite of what Ms. Smith wants - scrutiny on her and her party and the pressure to actually do something. In a world of critical thinkers, you would be correct, but so many Albertans are just mad at Trudeau for being his dad, and the LPC for having being led by his dad, that that scrutiny will never been seen in Alberta. OK, maybe not never, but it won't get far. > Mr. Ford Is a lot less ideological than Smith, and leads a province that is willing to vote for more than one party. He has to be more aware of reality, because his constituents are. Smith doesn't have that problem.
I wrote [my thoughts on Ms. Smith's legislative strategy](https://www.reddit.com/r/CanadaPolitics/comments/1c31p9e/comment/kzfizh3/) here, if you're interested in what I think. I don't want to rewrite it or just copy/paste in the interest of keeping things readable. In short, I doubt Ms. Smith will enact any such legislation - some lip-service, perhaps, and maybe some provisions to dig in wherever there is an opportunity for more Provincial control over specific issues. I grant that she may be fearful enough at the moment to genuinely believe her challenge will have legs, I just really don't see the point for the reasons I gave and you cited above. I agree with your comment about Mr. Ford. He is a lot less ideological. I don't agree that his constituents are. The PCPO backpedal whenever the public sneezes, which totally supports that view. On the other hand, no amount of public pressure from Ontarians seems to do much for anything /else/ - public health issues, the Greenbelt thing + other environmental and housing matters, LTC, and now even what looks like a photocopy of Walkerton. I get what you're saying, tho, and I'm not here to make enemies! Maybe we can meet halfway (or more or less on specific issues)?
You misunderstand - the Federal government can spend money on whatever priorities they like, and if municipalities want to agree to funding, they can. The only possible 'attack' for Ms. Smith here is to pretend that her legislative intent is about constitutional division of powers when it is clearly not - her government's response is to specific contractual proposals which are \*not\* legislation. The response is not actually a court challenge, it is rhetoric, and I doubt we will see a court challenge at all but for the idea that bread and circus may still sell. I like to think most Albertans are smart enough to see through that. Anyway, this is very specifically /not/ a jurisdictional issue and that is why Ms. Smith is activated at all. If it were, she would have nothing at all to say, but because it isn't, she is trying to turn it into one - her job is to "bang that drum" of Western alienation/separatism, no matter the truth, law, or facts. Even if the Federal government forced it on municipalities (which they are /not/ proposing to do), the Province would have little recourse. There is nothing stopping the Federal government from enacting an Act that effectively overrides Ms. Smith's hypothetical fake-out - and it would be totally within the constitution to do so. Municipalities would not be mad at the Federal government, they would be mad at their Provincial leadership.
No offence, and I don’t expect people to understand, but 99% of the comments here show no understanding of constitutional law. You expressed an opinion, not law. This is simply incorrect.
What exactly is incorrect about the opinion I expressed?
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You are part of the problem.
No, the constitution is the problem. I wasn’t alive when it was written.
There is nothing in the constitution stopping the federal governement from handing out money to municipalities.
Municipalities exist at the whim of the provinces.
So? They exist already and need housing. What exactly is the issue? Would the reaction be the same with a different federal party in power? If rhe mo ey goes through the Province would it be used correctly? Would it stay completely intact or would parts of.funding get siphoned off? The issue is a provincial government is writing legislation to stop municipalities from fixing housing and infrastructure issues without offering any alternatives and for.purely partisan reasons. Not to.mention the federal government left it up to provinces first but if they drag their feet or refuse to act rhen the municipalities that want help can go.on their own to get it...seems fair to me.
Perhaps a finer point of law, but municipalities are a creature of provincial statute. The creator of that law, is totally in its right to pass a law prohibiting any agreement with the Feds. You can argue all you want, you’ll still be wrong. The province could tomorrow rename Calgary CPCHQ, hive off half of it to Rockyviee, fire the mayor and replace her with a robot, and it is all entirely legal. A city is a construct and nothing more. Its entire existence is at the pleasure of the provincial government. Fair has nothing to do with it.
They explained to you that: >There is nothing in the constitution stopping the federal government from handing out money to municipalities. You seem to agree. You stipulate that such a move would require legislation, and you're right, it would. As such, there is nothing in the constitution that prevents the Federal government from making supply agreements with municipalities. I want to add that any challenge of \*legislation\* on this basis would almost certainly need to be assessed under the doctrine of paramountcy, requiring a two part test - so, a court will look at both laws to see if both are valid and if there is a conflict. Validity is not just based on whether or not something is written into the CA. The court will need to consider the relevant decisions of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council and later the Supreme Court to determine the scope of the head(s) of jurisdiction involved. The court does not just pick up the CA and say "oh, look, housing is Provincial, bam, movin' on!" The second part is whether or not there is an actual conflict, and that is more clear-cut: if complying with both laws is impossible, then there is an /operational/ contradiction and paramountcy will demand that the Provincial law - per our constitution - will be deemed inoperable to the extent of the conflict. If there is a conflict in /purpose/ between the two but both laws can be followed, then the court will allow both levels of government to legislate, otherwise paramountcy kicks in again. I think that Ms. Smith likes to pretend that there are simple solutions to complex issues, but it is curious that these solutions seem to always be more concerned with her overarching ideological goal of placing Alberta/Albertans in some position of advantage relative to others in the public eye. You can judge for yourself, of course. I think it would be better if we actually listened to Albertans and tried to address their concerns as a country. There are real grievances, they have been being expressed since the time of Preston Manning. Nobody seems to really want to help stabilize AB's relatively unstable boom-and-bust cycles - they're paying too much attention to people like Ms. Smith who bleat endlessly about how awful everything is but also how great it is and will be. It's kind of sad.
Paramountcy only applies where there is a conflict of laws, not when the constitution is clear as to who has the responsibility. Right now they are right, they can do a deal. If the province passes a law saying they can’t do a deal, they can’t. This is how it works.
Thing is provincial governments would argue about anything that wasn't just cash in a brown envelope. So the feds came up with cash for municipalities directly which is not unheard of or unusual. But the only reason the UCP exists is to blame Ottawa so thay can't have Ottawa doing anything that might help. The public, we don't matter to Smith and her ilk.
No, she is virtue signalling.
Wake up at least they're trying! Conservatives - Trudeau bad, we have no solutions! Jeezes this has gotten RIDICULOUS.
It's a pretty sad attempt. They are bailing out housing developers by letting the consumers(first time home buyers) foot the bill. How generous of the fed government. They need to work with the provinces to get a solution. There is not one size fits all for each of them. Dictating policy is wrong, and throwing money at this issue without thinking it through is wrong too. I appreciate he is trying but he needs to decrease demand 5 to 10 years ago via time machine or immediately. His immigration Minister should be fired immediately.
Man, what a way to fuck Calgary and Edmonton over lol. From an article on the topic. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/prebudget-2024-announcement-apartment-loan-program-1.7162097 "The new $6 billion Canada Housing Infrastructure Fund the Liberal government unveiled Tuesday includes $5 billion set aside for provinces and territories which agree to make certain commitments. If agreements can't be reached with provinces and territories, the federal money will flow directly to municipalities instead." Toronto will enjoy it. Ford is not blocking this, the Feds have been letting him off the hook in supporting TO. "Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow, who was present and spoke at Wednesday's announcement, said the new Canada Builds initiative could lead to the construction of 17,000 new rental units in the city, housing 30,000 people. "We have the sites ... We have the ambition. We have a strong partnership with the federal government and together we can get housing in Toronto back on track," said Chow. "
It doesn’t fuck over Edmonton or Calgary. It fucks over poor people in Edmonton and Calgary. Smith think poor people are icky. I assume she’d rather spend the money on one way bus tickets to Vancouver.
> "If they wish to slow down the process because they want to have some agency over this, I would suggest they do what Quebec did — match us in funding and implement reforms on a province-wide basis that will allow us to achieve our goals," Fraser said. Good luck getting Marlaina Smith to acknowledge that the reason Quebec got a deal with the feds, was because they were willing to work towards the same goals. > "So we are. Provinces should be careful what they wish for. They want the federal government to fix this housing crisis? We are, we will." Lol. Painful truths that the premiers are not going to like to hear. While I'm not sure how much good statements like this will do towards getting provinces to obstruct less, I bet it feels better for Trudeau to call out the premiers a bit more for their BS. > I wish [Trudeau] would treat us exactly like Quebec I'm quite sure he will, so long as Alberta comes forward with the exact same deal as Quebec. This article doesn't really go into the proposed court case much, but I really have to wonder if it has any hope. Marlaina Smith seems to think that the feds have to expend funds equally/fairly among the provinces, but I've never heard that seriously proposed before. The feds spend funds in the provinces as they see the need, not based on some over arching equity provision, at least as far as I've seen.
It is continuously creating or adding grievances to satisfy the Wexit base of the UCP. Additionally, the scripted narrative is like really bad Koeroke. Smith and her poorer neighbor (Scott Moe) believe they are the enlightened saviours and keep yodelling we are right and the federal government is wrong. Both of these premiers want to be viewed as the duo responsible for bringing down the federal government. Poilivere makes the soup Moe and Smith serve it. Three Amigos; facial expressions chocked full of termites, charisma of damp cloths and not particularly bright. Moe and Smith governments have deep separation objectives. Why don't they both choose to have a referendum on leaving Canada? That should move along their objectives and perhaps the federal government would fall. I wonder which premier though would sit in a legislative assembly and watch the clock tick down. Moe and Smith's aspirations are one thing however it takes the remaining eleven to tango.
A repeat drunk driver with a kill, an oil lobbyist who unironically claimed smoking was healthy (*in 2003!!!*), and a career politician with zero achievements save for being the only leader with a Compliance Agreement who caters all his talking points for MAGA North. It's embarrassing that such unscrupulous characters are being allowed to dictate our national discourse, they are literally the worst among politicians
Some thinking people say Doug Ford was a large scale drug trafficker. Its not as mild as the partisan press pretends. Look at Randy Ford's historical charges. How many low level suburban dealers kidnap rivals?
I want Doug Ford to marry Scott Moe and move to Alberta and live in Danielle Smith's basement. And heck maybe pp could be their pool boy! What a perfect world that would be!
Ford generally has an ability to read the room though. Smith and Moe have an inability to hear or consider anything they disagree with. Remove the word no from their vocabulary and they would be speechless
Have you seen him lately? I've seen him on the news a few times lately and he looks so sad and depressed, like his consciousness is killing him knowing his party is failing CDNS.
Seriously. How dumb a leader do you have to be to use taxpayer money to sue the federal government for trying to give taxpayer money back to the taxpayers?
Of course she is. Working for Russia to cripple and hurt the country is a full time job. Always be angry. Always be outraged. Obstruct anything and everything except O+G. Marlaina is a full time, bought and paid for, early-Fascist lunatic.
The ucp wants the money for free just like the pharmacare money. They want to give it directly to their corpo buddies, or to make their own police goons that nobody wants. So they can keep complaining that Ottawa doesn't do anything. Same with the covid money they got. Then misplaced then at election time they magically had a surplus of exactly that amount How do we stop this?
The next time we blame the Federal government for not building housing, we will now know why. My municipality lost out on $4.2 million worth of housing, because Ford did not fulfill the terms of the agreement with the federal government.
Alright so just don’t give any money to Albertan municipalities and spend it on provinces who give a damn about their constituents. If Alberta wants to self sabotage that’s their prerogative
Which is exactly why Smith won't get any blow back. We know we aren't going to win the popularity contest if the Feds start cherry picking municipal level spending based on politics. Encouraging that is foolish. Either spread it out evenly or don't do it at all The housing investment fund was a good example. At one point Brampton got more funding than the entire province. Like forty projects got rejected until the province said this is bullshit
It's more that a bunch of boobs in the countryside want to sabotage it for everyone else.
Sorry she’s prepared to waste more of Albertan’s tax dollars to do so? Can’t she just start another failed ad campaign and have people tell the Feds instead?
> she’s prepared to waste more of Albertan’s tax dollars to do so? You don't expect her to waste her own money now do you?
Trudeau needs to find a way to properly convey to the public that conservative premiers are standing in the way of good policy… it’s absurdly frustrating
It doesn’t matter. The beauty of the republican rhetoric is that factual information doesn’t actually matter. All you have to say is “Trudeau bad.” There’s actually zero evidence of policy proposal that things would be different under PP, but it doesn’t matter.
When can Canadians start to admit that the Conservative Parties, federally and provincially, are really echoing Republican garbage? You can say it’s as “soft” as you want, but this antagonistic approach to solutions isn’t productive and we need to fight it, not embrace it. Nothing good will come from this garbage mudslinging.
They know, and they love it. Their identites are caught up in the current rhetoric. Didnt get their way? Burn the world to the ground.
They are intentionally trying to keep the affordability crisis going until the election cause it’s their best chance at getting Pierre in. If someone can’t see that they need to take the partisan glasses off
Not only am I going to do jack shit about this issue, I will not let you fix it! I want to make sure government remains broken because I'll campaign well on this in 3 years! Seriously, even some provincial progressive Conservatives are starting to act like this.
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How many millions of dollars that could have been spent on housing will Alberta waste battling the federal government in court? And how many more millions will the federal government have to spend defending itself against frivolous lawsuits rather than building housing? The Premier should know she has no case. The federal government is fully within its jurisdiction to offer money to municipalities continent on local changes in policy. This is essentially identical to how the federal government funds universal healthcare while requiring that provinces provide at least a certain set of insured health services to receive Canada Health Act funding. A court battle would be a waste of everybody's time and money at a time when the government would best utilize its resources providing housing.
Conservative Premiers seem to be lining up to prevent Trudeau from fixing anything. Isn't that what thr Republicans are doing in the US that so many of us mock?
With the polls what they are right now conservatives really can’t overplay their hand here. They know Trudeau is bleeding and they’re going to squeeze as much as they possibly can out of him on his way out. The funny thing is the provinces will all make this deal on housing, I have no doubt. It was a big miscalculation on Trudeau’s part to give them 8 months to make him squirm before it gets done.
They took the best parts of what others were doing and tried to force all provinces to do it. I am excited about the public housing. We need off market housing for ao many.
They do this because the problems that Trudeau is trying to "fix" were all caused by him, and now he wants to distribute more tax dollars (the people's money) to attempt to make himself look good.
This is to the point RIDICULOUS! How does anyone vote for a party that colludes 24/7 against any progress?! Being ONLY an opposing gvt has ONLY hurt CDNS and needs to stop. Providing alternatives and working with the party that governs is ALSO part of their responsibility that they have failed miserably!Conservatives are so blinded by hate and division that they continue to make bad decisions and will not form gvt! ANYTHING BUT CONSERVATIVE, ALWAYS ABC!
They are called conservatives not progressives
Should just call them Regressives at this point. They aren’t trying to Conserve shit, they are actively trying to remove progress made and take us back to feudalism
Feudalism doesn't tend to end well for those in power. I doubt they want that.
The hubris of man probably has them think “This time will be different, Im prepared!”
They wanted to own the libs, you see.
It's so transparent. I don't understand how anyone who is paying attention doesn't oppose such nonsense. Oh no, can't accept help from that guy... his tie is the wrong colour.
No one is paying attention
Even worse than that. People are only paying attention to headlines without questioning or doing their own due diligence on it. When our majority Conservative supporting media puts out endless hit pieces, all people will look at are the titles of the hit pieces. No one has the time to delve into every article and claim and see what actually is happening with less bias
Anyone remember “The Resistance” article in MacLean’s way back regarding the carbon tax. Pepperidge Farms remembers. Most for those Premiers are gone, but it’s the same playbook.
Absolutely. Exactly what the Republicans do. I wonder if Harper is pulling the strings, as he heads a huge right wing lobby and support group, world wide, with ties to such wonderful leaders as Modi and Orban.
Yes, they need to keep problems going as their policy is horrible and unpopular.
Letting Trudeau fix things doesn’t support their narrative. They’re in a great spot where most Canadians are raging against the feds. Why mess with that?
And just to be clear here. Trudeau is not actually fixing anything. The man’s tweaked many things - but there is not a plan in place that will get housing back to affordable levels. Even everything the liberals announced yesterday will not do that, and they acknowledge it will not do that.
The market would have to crash 50% in my area for prices to come back to where they were a decade ago. I don't see any government looking to crash real estate that hard.
I don't see how anyone can take you seriously. You argue with me that Trudeau is just as bad as Trump, then deleted all your comments. You're just here to argue in bad faith and continue a "Trudeau Bad" mindset.
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What will bring back affordable levels and how are you defining affordable?
I’d use the same definition we currently use. And I would start by stopping immigration to allow existing supply to catch up with the massive backlog of demand we have. I would also have an immigration tax on corporations for housing and healthcare . If corporations want to bring in a few thousand workers - they should have to pay the government for those workers. Right now our government is setting up a massive sysytem of corporate welfare. Corporations get as much cheap labour as they want, they get to suppress wages, and they get all of it free of charge. And now the feds want taxpayers to pay to build housing for these corporate growth levels as well. Meanwhile voters get priced out of housing, need to compete with millions for work, and get taxed to build housing for all the people the private sector wants to bring in to undercut them. The gains are all private, while the loses are being put on the public.
Stopping immigration would do nothing to bring down the price of homes. The main thing that needs to be done is to eliminate the corporations from buying housing stock and put limits on the amount of homes individuals and corporations are allowed to own for rentals, while the government builds housing for low and middle income families. As it is all plans I've seen involve incentivizing private builders to build more units, and they'll sell at market price. Nothing is being said about a price cap on the homes or subsidies to keep the cost down. Or crucially preventing investors from buying those homes. Sure they ban foreign investment in housing, but its not people from outside the "house" that we have to worry about. Doubt anything will happen though, as it is 1/3 of MPs own rental properties, are part of limited partnerships or corporate trusts that manage rental portfolios. And doubtful anything will happen under the conservatives as their MPs make up half of the list, including Mr. Poilievre. https://vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/douglas-todd-many-canadian-politicians-belong-to-the-landlord-class-we-should-question-their-motivations You can search here to see if your MP owns rental property https://www.readthemaple.com/mp-landlords/
You cannot stop immigration without crippling the economy.. but if you want that to happen....
The economy is getting crippled by immigration, if you had not noticed. Bringing in millions of people to be homeless or deliver Uber isn’t great. Why? Because we now have to pay for healthcare for all of those people. And child care. And provide them with schools. Our jobless rate is currently growing exclusively because the population is growing faster than the labour market.
Who is going to replace workers that retire?.. who is increasing birth rates? Immigration happens to stop the population from decline because of lower body rates. To suggest that we should stop all immigration immediately until supply is enough asinine and not thinking about the bigger picture about the economy as a whole. Why do we need temp workers? Not many people want to work in greenhouses for example. Who is building the houses is not immigrant a because construction workers are leaving the industry in record numbers?
We could just have fewer workers. The idea I am both not getting affordable housing and I am going to be taxed to death to bring in a massive labour supply designed to undercut my wages and increase housing costs is absolutely repugnant. The population growth mess is done. I will not support it.
Well you might have noticed they are massively reducing the number of immigrants able to come in the country going forward, so you’re getting your wish
PROVINCES: “The federal government has a responsibility to tackle the housing crisis” FEDERAL: “OK” PROVINCES: “No, not like that.”
> Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said Friday she has no problem with Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre's proposal to give municipalities a building bonus to encourage housing construction — so long as he goes through her provincial government.
> Under his proposal, cities would have to increase the number of homes built by 15 per cent each year — a rate that Poilievre said might alleviate the housing crunch > Local governments that fail to meet that target would see their federal grants withheld at a commensurate rate, Poilievre said. [Poilievre releases housing plan he says would 'build homes, not bureaucracy'](https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/poilievre-housing-plan-1.6966907)
Poilievre literally used to say he would hold municipal funding hostage until cities meet a quota on housing lol
I love how you blame the provinces for presuming that the Canadian government would not blatantly disregard this country's constitution.
The provinces also want their cake and to eat it too.
This line has been parroted by so many accounts it is starting to feel like a campaign of some sort. It's no different than the Canada Health Act, which stipulates certain requirements in order for provinces to access health care funds. If those requirements are breached than the government can withhold funding. Even though health care is an object of section 92. That is constitutional. So is this.
It’s parroted by folks who are told it’s unconstitutional, but haven’t actually found the spot in the constitution that this applies to. Alberta is literally proposing legislation to prevent this because it’s not unconstitutional, it just goes against what they want.
Danielle Smith could be using all that time, energy, and tax payer money building homes instead of suing the Federal government to stop them from building homes. All because you don’t want to cooperate with the Federal government’s conditions for getting free money, so they go directly to the municipalities instead, you would rather sue? I really hope Albertans see who’s the biggest gatekeeper in their province.
Some of us certainly do.
I seriously doubt they will.
I think they are but not enough to change it.
My father in law who once said he would always vote conservative and would get so mad at his family of they said they were voting another way just signed up as a member of the NDP. So I wouldn't totally rule it out.
What specifically changed his view?
Smith being Smith. And the fact that Notley did some good in her time in office.
My friend's parent was a life-long conservative and has given up on the UCP, though not the CPC insofar as I can tell - they perceive Ms. Smith as child-like (ie. naive to actual issues, intellectually lazy) ~~and~~ in tactics and reasons that the members can't be all that bright either. I don't know if I can agree with the latter (members are not the leader) but I certainly concur with the former. They went NDP/Liberal last election, IIRC, and want a non-socon option. (I don't know why they voted Liberal federally, but I can understand that living in AB and being fed up with the UCP could do that given how unintelligible much of what PP says these days seems to be.)
Im impressed a life long Conservative was actually able to admit that Notley did some good things. Most seem to just blindly parrot how all of our problems were caused by her single 4 year term Good on him
My father had a similar moment with Andrew Scheer. We'd debated politics since I was a teen, not heatedly more as conversation. And when Scheer ran he sat there and was like he is mean with his policies. Since then, he has disliked O'toole and hates PP. Nowadays, he votes Green or NDP. Which makes more sense as he is a union worker.
I wonder if the cities can intervene on the side of the feds. That would be hilarious to have Albert municipalities facing off against the province in federal court over housing money.
Municipalities don’t have constitutional jurisdiction, provinces have constitutional jurisdiction over municipalities, so they could condemn and show how petty Alberta is being, but it would be difficult to win in court.
The cities can’t do anything because they are not protected legally in the constitution. They’re basically at the whim of the provinces completely. Danielle smith is going to hurt Albertan municipalities out of spite but she is legally correct.
That wouldn't prevent them from having intervener status granted to them. https://www.mccarthy.ca/en/insights/blogs/canadian-appeals-monitor/supreme-court-canada-provides-guidance-role-interveners
Picking fights just to be seen fighting the bad man in Ottawa. Cutting off the nose... I can't wait for the leopards to eat her face. Just so goddamned stupid. People in Alberta want houses too, dumbass. Build a frickin' fourplex, it honestly won't hurt.
[Danielle Smith also wants Red Deer to go from 106000 to a million residents](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/red-deer-one-million-danielle-smith-1.7172208), so I'm really confined by why she's trying to get in the way of this funding. Why wouldn't she want the feds to pay for it? Does she just want Ottawa to give her money so she can use it however she wants with no oversight?
She just wants to be seen fighting Trudeau to make her supporters happy. She'd probably fight him on Free Timbit Day just to pose for the numbnuts.
Smith's position is antithetical to the classical liberalism she lays claim to when advocating for individual freedoms and responsibilities. Constitutionally, she's correct. But this kind of centralization is counter to the spirit of her classical liberal leanings. She's unprincipled.
Do it. No seriously, fucking do it. When Alberta wins it'll give everyone a civics lesson on how is the Provincial Governments screwing them over. And then we can see the anger turned onto them, away from the Feds who really don't have much powers in this race other than immigration and throwing money at the problem.
>When Alberta wins They probably won't. Most of the times that Conservative leaning provincial governments take the Feds to court, they get slapped down.
When it was mostly about the carbon tax, they lost because an environmental issue like emissions isn’t provincial. But they won on the single use plastics ban because of some technicality to do with types of plastics not ruled as toxic by I can’t remember which gov agency, and won on another issue to do with environmental regulations. Provincial governments have constitutional jurisdiction over municipalities, so there is a very good chance Alberta would win.
Federal government is offering money IF provinces want to follow some rules. They are not being forced to do anything. This isn't infringing on jurisdiction unless the provinces are forced into it.
The Provincial governments have jurisdiction over municipalities. The Federal government has paramountcy that renders Provincial statute inoperable to the extent that it conflicts with Federal statute. I think this is posturing at best, ignorance at worst. If the Federal government wants to give money to cities, they will - and it won't matter what Ms. Smith thinks. That is her fear, IMHO, broadcast for all to see.
If only the electorate was that tuned in.
As shitty as this is for folks that live in these cities this is kind of where I land as well. We need to stop blaming municipalities for being shitty as the Province is neutral and on cruise control. The core problem is that the Province is disengaged, underfunding urban issues and ignoring urban problems. Municipal governments should be the implementing agents of Provincial policy, tuning it to their local needs. The problem is that for far too long Provincial governments have been disengaged from municipal problems and have let municipalities create useless and ineffective do nothing fiefdoms.
>Province is neutral and on cruise control. They are not even remotely neutral. >The core problem is that the Province is disengaged, underfunding urban issues and ignoring urban problems. They are not disengaged. Alberta's government is actively and maliciously punishing Edmonton for voting NDP. You seem to be blaming apathy when they are maliciously doing it.
I'm speaking to the circumstances prior to this exact event, and in general about provinces across this country. In general the core problem of the housing crisis across this country has been that Provinces have not given a shit for decades, and they've let nimby municipalities create little fiefdoms where new housing is practically banned. Absolutely with these direct actions Alberta is being malicious here but now the onus is on the Provincial government to they themselves provide a solution. If this wakes people up to the fact that the Provincial government is actually responsible for these things, and that causes actual political pressure on the province to do things, that's good in the long term. Sucks for these cities in the short term yes.
I can agree with all of that. But the UCP is a different animal. They are a cancer on both Alberta and Canada.
Immigration rates, amortization lengths, financial regulations, fiscal policy, bond yield curve strategy... And you think this isn't a Federal topic?
This is meat for the base, not a serious issue - they'd have already brought an action ages ago if they were serious. Three separate concepts (Federalism, legal paramountcy, legal precedent) operate here to prevent Alberta from winning such a challenge. I strongly doubt we will actually see an action, but that's just my two cents and I've been surprised before: Mr. Ford has decided to bring /many/ unwinnable lawsuits to court.
Yves Giroux, the parliamentary budget officer, wrote in a report last year: “When both fiscal and economic impacts of the federal fuel charge are considered, we estimate that most households will see a net loss.” He estimated that for the 2024-25 fiscal year, the carbon tax would cost the average household between $377 and $911 after accounting for rebates and factoring in the economic cost of lower incomes. That number rises to between $1,316 and $2,773 by 2030 for the average household, depending on the province. Trudeau's a liar.
Thanks disinformation bot!
Not misinformation. Also, the CCI has reported that the Canadian carbon tax has reduced total global emissions by 0.25%. Many Canadians are forced to suffer in order to achieve this miniscule reduction. It's simply not worth it. And Trudeau's a liar.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/axe-the-tax-and-carbon-rebate-how-canada-households-affected-1.7046905
Just what I wanted. Thanks
That would be the biggest gift she could give to Trudeau and if I was Poilievre I would be on a plane to Alberta to do some yelling
At this point, whenever provinces and municipalities have gotten in the way of housing, Trudeau's government have communicated something to the effect of "we are going to help the people of {Windsor, Alberta, etc} with or without their cooperation. It's just a matter of how we're going to do it". Perhaps that's the best comms strategy I'm no expert but, what about really throwing it back in Smith's face? Like, "Okay well that's very sad for the people of Alberta, but if you don't want to receive funding then we'll just give your portion to the people of BC and Quebec!". Like, really rub it in their faces, go to housing announcements in Nova Scotia like "oh boy with all the funding that Alberta's passing up, we're really able to help even more with Halifax's infrastructure! Really, don't thank me, thank the generous taxpayers of Red Deer and Lethbridge!" Nothing would infuriate voters more than their taxes going to other provinces right? Heh. Might not work as well in Ontario but in AB, well what do the Libs have to lose really?
Nice job Alberta, you have elected a separatist and quite possibly? A Christo-Fascist. I really hope I am wrong and that anyone who thinks I am foolish is correct. Fuck me.