Let's call a spade a spade.
How can we describe the mayor of a city where housing starts fell by 37% (Montreal) and 40% (Quebec) in 2023? A performer? A qualified person? An effective one? At least in this area of activity I would say: incompetent.
In 2023, the mayors of Quebec's largest cities distinguished themselves by fighting homelessness, the war on cars and the environment – important issues for which they demanded more municipal powers and especially more budget from higher governments. In Montreal, Ms. Plante called for more foreign students to visit and fortunately witnessed the rapid anglicization of her city and a significant increase in crime.
The housing crisis has made headlines with a series of more or less questioned explanations, the decline in available labor, the pandemic, high interest rates, Trudeau-style immigration, dilapidated and out of place. Control.
Mayors never address the numerous bureaucratic hurdles faced by entrepreneurs who want to start building new housing. In Quebec and Montreal in particular, bureaucrats make the laws and the endless steps entrepreneurs have to go through are legion. Mayors Marchand and Plante never talk about this. Accusations of the Conservative leader's incompetence will now force him to explain what he intends to do, and quickly, to eliminate bureaucratic hassles, make it easier to approve projects and establish an expedited process.
Instead of whining and curling up in the corner, mayors need to own up to their mistakes when analyzing and approving projects. The fact that government subsidies for housing are not paid directly to cities, but rather go through the Quebec government, is irrelevant at all. This is a trivial, purely distracting argument. It doesn't matter who writes the check. Ultimately the money comes from the federal government and Mr Poilievre is right to be concerned about that.
The basic problem, and it is not new, is at least partly the incompetence of the mayors.
Marc BellemareLawyer