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Few current Canadian politicians have the credentials of newly-appointed Minister of Housing and Infrastructure Gregor Robertson, as he has now served in all three levels of government.
Although he’s been out of the political scene for a few years, with his most recent Liberal MP election victory in B.C.’s Vancouver Fraserview—South Burnaby riding, Robertson is decidedly back on the map.
In years past, he served as a Member of the Legislative Assembly for the B.C. NDP starting in 2005. He then became the City of Vancouver’s longest-serving mayor, holding the post from 2008 to 2018 as a member of the Vision Vancouver slate.
With a governmental mandate to improve housing affordability nationwide, Robertson’s new, high-profile cabinet post comes with much political baggage and policy challenges. Let’s look at some of Robertson’s past achievements and how they relate to the current Liberal housing plan.
New technology
In 2011, during his time as mayor of Vancouver, Robertson launched Vancouver’s first Economic Action Strategy, which focused on job creation by supporting local businesses, seeking areas of strategic new investment, and capitalizing on global trade. It also looked at fostering targeted job creation in areas such as green energy and the burgeoning digital media sector.
Back then, Vancouver’s economy was on a major upswing, and (as per a Conference Board of Canada report at the time) it was the fastest-growing metropolitan economy in the country.
Now that Robertson is overseeing expanded housing targets, it’s likely that technology and related job growth will be key parts of his game plan. Tech changes at scale could streamline the way a lot of housing is currently built, which would also create new ancillary jobs as part of the expansion of that tech sector.
During the election campaign, the Liberal Party expressed interest in expanding prefabricated and modular housing to speed up construction timelines. These technologies could also potentially allow for a new level of lesser-qualified tradespeople to be employed in putting the prefabricated sections together onsite. This, in turn, would help relieve the dire forthcoming trade labour shortage.
Environmental housing
As Vancouver’s mayor, Robertson launched several notable housing-related policy initiatives. A major one was the development of the Greenest City 2020 Action Plan.
The goal was to make Vancouver the “greenest city in the world” by 2020. The program focused on three target areas: carbon, waste, and ecosystems. Much of this initiative focused on developing the “green economy,” which included a sizeable increase in green buildings that offer CO2 reduction.
It will be interesting to see if Robertson’s environmental and green-tech interests intersect with housing targets. He may look at putting additional focus on carbon footprints, sustainable building practices, and green housing technology incentivization.
The challenge will be that green building typically equates to more expensive construction, which is counterintuitive to fostering an increasingly affordable end-product.
Canadian homelessness issues and housing for in-need demographics
A 2008 policy that garnered significant attention around Metro Vancouver was Robertson’s goal of eliminating homelessness by 2015. Sadly, regional homelessness continued to worsen during that period. As this initiative was a highly public failure, it has long dogged him in how he is remembered as a Vancouver political leader.
That said, homelessness and housing for in-need groups are clearly issues that matter to Robertson. It only stands to reason that he will be anxious to redeem his work in this area and use newfound clout to make an impact.
In terms of specific in-need housing groups, the Liberal pre-election platform referenced both expansion of student housing and care homes, and accommodation for our rapidly aging population.
Incentivizing and expanding rental stock
As a politician with demonstrated sensitivity to in-need groups, Robertson is likely to focus on the sizeable demographic of renters across the country.
From the 1970s to the early ’80s, the federal government ran a tax incentivization regime called the Multi-Unit Residential Buildings program. During the seven years it was in use, this program inspired a record expansion of rental buildings that has never been matched since.
While it’s an expensive program for the government to operate in terms of lost taxation revenue, it’s proven to work and a likely direction for Robertson as he carries out his mandate.
Governmental housing alignment
As Robertson has worked on the ground in all three layers of government, he’s an ideal politician to implement stronger collaboration from municipal to provincial to federal entities.
Housing issues affect all three layers of government, and they desperately need to approach housing policy as three layers of a single entity.
It’s time for strong top-down leadership, paired with some nuance in approach that recognizes all communities are not the same, and their issues and challenges differ.
What is most needed to move the dial on affordable housing?
Canadian governments have a longstanding habit of trying to solve complex housing issues in isolation. But that way of working won’t achieve the goals this new federal government wants to achieve.
That’s why it’s time to create a permanent national housing roundtable. This roundtable would be made up of 25 or so housing policy experts from across the sector, inclusive of market, non-market, Indigenous, and academic voices.
A group like this working collaboratively with the government to share ideas, pre-vet policy, provide advance feedback, share research, and conduct joint analysis could work miracles in what can be achieved.
All is not lost. This country can fix its housing issues. But it’s going to take more than any one politician or any one policy. Let’s do this together.
Trevor Hargreaves oversees research and policy, government relations, and communications at the BC Real Estate Association (BCREA). He is also an Adjunct Professor at the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia. Before joining BCREA as the Senior Vice President of Policy Research, Government Relations, Marketing & Communications in 2019, he served as Director of Communications, Government and Public Relations at the BC Dairy Association and, prior to that, toiled in regional media and journalism.