New housing minister’s comments on home prices raise eyebrows

Just a day into his new job as minister for housing and infrastructure, former Vancouver mayor Gregor Robertson is already sparking controversy.

Robertson was asked during a media scrum whether he believes home prices in Canada need to go down.

“No, I think we need to deliver more supply, make sure the market is stable, and it’s a huge part of our economy, and we need to be delivering more affordable housing,” Robertson said in response.

But he adds that doing those things will be a long road.

“It’s very ambitious, it’s going to take years to really scale up. We’re going to have to leverage Canadian technology to offset manufacturing. We’ve got a lot of work to do on this, and it doesn’t happen overnight. Housing is a slow-moving creature, and we’ve got to do everything we can to speed it up,” he added.

But the co-director of Abundant Housing Vancouver says he hopes Robertson has an “opportunity to consider his words a bit more carefully.”

Peter Waldkirch says he’s optimistic about the Liberals promises to build more, but he also says housing prices absolutely need to go down.

“Entire generations of people, especially young people and families, are being pushed out of the city, which should be centres of opportunity and the chance to pursue the Canadian dream, and they’re being told that there’s no room for them anymore, and that’s unacceptable,” Waldkirch explained.

In a separate, unrelated media availability on Wednesday, B.C. Premier David Eby was asked to address the new housing minister’s comments.

“Well, at the provincial level, our focus is on bringing the cost of housing down,” he said. “To extend on the federal government’s goal around building more rental housing, around modular housing, to bring down the cost of construction, around partnering with us to bring down costs for people to get into the housing market, then I think we’ll have a good partnership.”

That kind of partnership that Eby referenced was nowhere to be found when Robertson was mayor of Vancouver, he said. During his tenure, the average price of a home in the City of Vancouver more than doubled.

“I wasn’t getting the help I needed from the federal government when I was mayor, or the provincial government of all stripes. We need, as a government in Ottawa, to be delivering and partnering with cities and provinces all together and making sure we’re building enough supply,” Robertson said.

Just hours after his comments and the ensuing pushback, Robertson took to X to clarify his statements.

“The question I answered was about reducing the price of a family’s current home, which for most Canadians, is their most valuable asset. The question wasn’t ‘should homes be more affordable?’ Of course they should. Vancouver led the country on co-ops, rental-only zoning, social housing, and we launched Canada’s first Empty Homes Tax — which created thousands of rental units,” he shared.

In their recent campaign platform, the Liberals promised to build 500,000 new units annually by investing in prefabricated homes and affordable housing while reducing municipal development charges.

“We are launching the most ambitious affordable housing plan in generations,” Robertson added. “I’m focused on what the federal government can and should do to increase the supply and drive down the overall cost of housing.”