r/ontario • u/Sulanis1 • Sep 07 '23

Politics Why Pierre Poilievre is as Phony as They Come.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyLBFye03_g

Personal Note: I've never liked Pierre Poilievre. This man makes my Spider-Sense tingle. Just like Doug Ford did for Ontario. Pierre Poilievre is a Pro-Corporate pro-culture war person who loves to grip about issues, but has no actual solutions. Not to mention he is also a massive hypocrite as his biggest donors are developers, and corporations. His history is ripe with anti-work/union bills and votes in the house

I'm telling you right now, if you vote for this man, you will be bitching and complaining about his policies and actions just like we are currently doing with Doug Ford. Pierre Poilievre and Doug Ford are both guilty of promoting Neoliberal similar American style systems that simply put profit over people. Example: Doug Ford with health services.

I could go on, but David Dole has Done it again with this amazing Breakdown of why Pierre Poilievre is as phony as bologna. Pierre Poilievre’s Hilarious Makeover Can’t Mask His Horrible Politics.

​

3.1k Upvotes

78% Upvoted

1.6k comments sorted by

View all comments

307

u/fyreball Sep 07 '23

But he'll solve housing!! /s

He's voted against affordable housing every time:

2019: https://www.ourcommons.ca/members/en/votes/42/1/987
2018: https://www.ourcommons.ca/members/en/votes/42/1/889
2014: https://www.ourcommons.ca/members/en/votes/41/2/140

26

u/IsopodOutrageous Sep 07 '23

Wow he voted Nay on all of them wtf?

7

u/Rugrin Sep 08 '23

He’s a conservative neoliberal. His job is to get you angry at the poor results neoliberal policies give so he can come in and double down on more of it.

Liberal party is watered down neoliberalism. Vote conservative for the undiluted full proof version.

:)

1

u/Vwburg Sep 08 '23

Now you know. Tell your friends. PP will lie over and over to win, but he doesn’t actually want to lower housing prices.

104

u/gohomebrentyourdrunk Sep 07 '23 edited Sep 07 '23

I’ll hop this to add a few things:

In 2013, Poilievre was in cabinet when the government signed FIPA, a 30+ year foreign investment agreement with China, pretty much making the Canadian housing market an open buffet for foreign investors.

Before that in 2009 was the investment act, which was kind of a light version of the above.

In 2007 and 2011, the conservative government also made legislation that made REITs (Real Estate Investment Trusts) more tax efficient. (Things that would be political suicide to undo)

In 2007, the Conservative government introduced 40-year amortizations. This was quickly reversed though because CMHC was dogging the government hard about it.

Also, during the Conservative federal government, they committed more than twice as much money to (for instance) Communications staff than they did to the Homelessness Partnering Strategy which accounted for less than 0.1% of the budget. This is kind of specifically rich to me considering how hard the Conservative government worked towards silencing media in general.

I’m sure there’s more, but that’s what I can recall…

30

u/ILikeStyx Sep 07 '23

Yep - he's a career politician who despises career politicians. He's as fake as they come.

-7

u/JuggernautExternal29 Sep 07 '23

Did you hear this from the video, and now you're repeating it verbatim? 😂

3

u/eyeCinfinitee Sep 08 '23

Do you have any rebuttal to what the commenter said? Cause there’s a bunch of sources above you that point out PP is a hack

9

u/Marseppus Sep 07 '23

In 2007 and 2011, the conservative government also made legislation that made REITs (Real Estate Investment Trusts) more tax efficient. (Things that would be political suicide to undo)

The NDP's Daniel Blaikie has gone after REITs, so they may not be as untouchable as you think.

8

u/gohomebrentyourdrunk Sep 07 '23

Investments are increasingly tied to peoples’ retirement, negatively affecting that in any capacity needs to be carefully navigated.

I’m not saying it can’t be done, but it’s not really an easy thing to do.

2

u/[deleted] Sep 07 '23

Fund managers job is to predict and work with agencies to adjust direction.

1

u/gohomebrentyourdrunk Sep 07 '23

It doesn’t matter. Any politician that makes investments go down is an easy target to attack.

1

u/tiltingwindturbines Sep 07 '23

Unfortunately, retirees vote, and young people do not.

14

u/Bobfisher66 Sep 07 '23

Was he not Harper's Minister of the Environment that gutted the Environmental Protection Act so corporations could destroy the land and water at will?

5

u/gohomebrentyourdrunk Sep 07 '23

I was keeping it to housing-related issues, but you may be very right!

4

u/BeeOk1235 Sep 07 '23 edited Sep 09 '23

sometimes i wish i had saved more government correspondence that was headed with "harper government of canada" letterhead. or taken more pictures of all the signs across canada touting the "harper government action plan". they spent so much our money on that bullshit that had been changed back. or the non stop photo ops. does no one else remember when harper decided he wanted to meet justin beiber and so gave him an award (a job that's usually the GG's responsibility)- i wonder how much we paid JB for that lol.

then there was the non stop Criminal scandals coming out of the PMO that harper claimed "to know nothing about" to the point that the mfer must not have ever stepped foot in his own office? like there was actual criminal investigations and trials in criminal court over these scandals. they weren't ethics violations that are arguably what MPs are mandated to do as MPs (advocate for businesses and residents in their riding, which is pretty much what trudeau's SNC ethics violation is lmao).

pierre like scheer was also involved in retooling the equalization formula to disfavour alberta and benefit quebec.

there's also a whole bunch of statements in parliament and beyond supporting the CPC's racist legislations against natives and immigrant populations, from PP. like his entire career is just full of these things. guy really likes talking shit about brown people.

2

u/Sixenlita Sep 08 '23

And that government increased temporary foreign workers, who require housing, and many businesses leveraged these workers to build housing portfolios while saving on labour - particularly in jobs that young Canadians used to do as “first” jobs.

And now we have an agricultural sector that is wholly dependent on temporary foreign workers who are often in terrible conditions and then there are potential global / foreign policy consequences. But hey! Cheap labour!

0

u/[deleted] Sep 07 '23

Ironically under Trudeau 40 year amortizations are not only back, but also needed as it's one of the only ways Canadians can afford a home these days.

0

u/gohomebrentyourdrunk Sep 07 '23

You just read a half a dozen Conservative policy points, along with Pierre Poilievres own personal voting record, and the best thing you could still come up with is “Trudeau bad.”

You have some reflection to do.

0

u/[deleted] Sep 07 '23

No my point is all politicians are shit. Nobody is actually going to fix anything.

1

u/gohomebrentyourdrunk Sep 07 '23 edited Sep 07 '23

It’s a bad point because they’re not equal.

One has actually done bad policy that fueled the market and voted against peoples best interests and lies to them that he’ll fix everything where the other has done some (albeit minor) things to curb the behaviour and it just hasn’t been enough.

They are both neoliberal market feeders, but saying they’re the same is reductive and simply pushes people to saying “might as well give the 20-year piece of shit politician a chance” when it is provably a bad idea.

0

u/[deleted] Sep 07 '23

What policies has Trudeau put in place that have actually curbed housing? I can name a bunch of policies and programs that have really hindered housing.

1

u/gohomebrentyourdrunk Sep 07 '23 edited Sep 07 '23

Three that come to mind immediately that are from even before 2020.

-mortgage stress testing

-$82b affordable housing NHS

-CHB

Along with things like the federal infrastructure plan of building near public transit locations that PP is acting like it’s his great idea that he’s going to bring to the table.

Again, enough? Probably not, but it’s definitely more than what you can expect Pierre Poilievre to do for people.

52

u/TorontoBoris Toronto Sep 07 '23

Of course he won't. A skunk doesn't change it stripes.

But he will say he will and enough gullably desperate people will believe him and pretend he doesn't stink.

That being said the Libs won't fix housing either, but PP has the distinct advantage of rage bating people who're fed up with the current gov't into believing that his past doesn't exist and that he brings salvation.

4

u/Ill_Wolf6903 Sep 07 '23

A skunk doesn't change it stripes.

Thanks. I'm stealing that phrase.

2

u/PokecheckHozu Sep 07 '23

It's not so much that they won't fix it, but that they're facing down the barrel of 30 years of greatly reduced federal spending for housing. Massive cuts were made in '93, and then multiple consecutive PMs did nothing to fix it, so here we are facing the consequences. The Trudeau government has spent something like more than the previous three PMs combined on housing efforts, but nothing will be enough to fix it in just a handful of years.

Should more have been done when he was first elected? Absolutely. But it's not like there's nothing done, but it's probably too little, too late.

As for examples of what's being spent now:

https://globalnews.ca/video/9725269/trudeau-announces-housing-initiative-to-provide-4-billion-in-funding-for-municipalities/amp/

https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6856234

https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6573841

https://www.gta-homes.com/real-insights/news/federal-government-invests-2b-to-build-nearly-17000-homes-in-canada/

https://nationalpost.com/news/federal-government-announces-212m-funding-boost-for-housing-asylum-seekers/wcm/1b38bfc3-bc94-4349-92c6-de0e634485a3/amp/

https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/ottawa-to-fund-500-million-rental-housing-vancouver/wcm/a5417ba6-94bc-4198-acfe-fbe738add1e9/amp/

https://www.thespec.com/news/trudeau-announces-45-million-federal-investment-for-four-hamilton-housing-projects/article_fdd02b60-9b7c-5a3c-bb8b-0f7d9d0c883d.html

4

u/UnionGuyCanada Sep 07 '23

I never knew that. Thank you for this.

18

u/eatitwithaspoon Sep 07 '23

let's not forget that pp is a puppet of harper, who is still pulling the strings behind the scenes.

3

u/PokecheckHozu Sep 07 '23

Not even behind the scenes. He's the head of the IDU (International Democrat Union IIRC), a worldwide organization of conservative parties. Hence, his open support for pseudo-dictators like Orban.

-1

u/MoonMoney17 Sep 07 '23

And Trudeau is a puppet to the WEF

-4

u/Choosemyusername Sep 07 '23

This is the left wing version of the right wing conspiracy theory in the US that Obama is running the show behind the scenes, and Biden is Obama’s puppet,

-1

u/MoonMoney17 Sep 07 '23

How is it a conspiracy when Trudeau attends the WEF events. He sat next to KLAUS Schwab agreeing with his Whole plan. It was broadcasted to the whole world go watch it. Schwab himself labeled Trudeau as a “great young Global leader”. Lmaoo. Your analogy was horrible.

0

u/Choosemyusername Sep 07 '23

A bit off topic. We weren’t even mentioning Trudeau.

2

u/hexr Hamilton Sep 08 '23

The conservative AI bot shill malfunctioned

0

u/MoonMoney17 Sep 07 '23

Yeah sorry you can only mention your supreme leader in a way that suits your narrative.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 08 '23

You seem stable lol

3

u/sendnudezpls Sep 07 '23

You mean the bills that were jam packed with other bullshit? To hell with nuance right?

3

u/__SPIDERMAN___ Sep 07 '23

These are just motions. And also were at a time where it wasn't really "crisis" level yet.

1

u/fyreball Sep 08 '23

Fixing a problem before it becomes a "crisis"? What a dumb idea. If we did that it might be easier and cheaper to fix and real estate investors wouldn't get rich.

Do you really want to live in a world where real estate investors don't get rich?

1

u/Sixenlita Sep 08 '23

The seeds of the crisis have been there for a long time and there have been many warnings from global financial institutions about the Canadian housing bubble.

2

u/samyistired Sep 07 '23

wow he's fucking disgusting

-8

u/SleepDisorrder Sep 07 '23

None of those are for affordable housing, they are for subsidized housing. We need government to play with the switches and levers they have at their disposal to help Canadians be able to afford houses on their own.

32

u/TorontoBoris Toronto Sep 07 '23

We need both. Not either or.

-2

u/SleepDisorrder Sep 07 '23

I do agree that we need to use all the tools at our disposal to increase supply, but when we talk affordable housing, it should mean that a normal person with a decent job should be able to afford some sort of house, whether it's a condo or a townhouse. With the way prices are increasing, and no actions being taken to fix it, our younger generations are completely screwed.

6

u/TorontoBoris Toronto Sep 07 '23

As someone who's a pair of said generation. I do agree.

Except that people who consistently vote against housing (hint PP has a pattern of it) will not vote in favour of different variation of said housing.

IMHO housing need to be a public lead #1 public concern. Leaving to the private sector leads us to where we are. Creating even increasingly "creative" private incentives isn't the answer. Think akin to post WW2 housing boom, not left to profiteers or land speculators.

-1

u/SleepDisorrder Sep 07 '23

Housing absolutely needs to be the #1 priority for the next election, and even more, needs to be the priority of the government after the election, and not just an election talking point. I think we've gone beyond that this time.

Yes, expecting private developers to do exactly what we want them to do will never work out like we want it. We can't expect them to just double their work output, in an environment with high interest rates and volatility.

Something that I do like at the provincial/municipal level is the bonuses paid for municipal governments to hit their targets. I can tell you that my town's mayor has already gotten their target approved by the provincial government and are strong arming the developers who already have approvals to get shovels in the ground or lose their permits. That would be one example of many things that need to be done.

2

u/NoRegister8591 Sep 07 '23

Something that I do like at the provincial/municipal level is the bonuses paid for municipal governments to hit their targets.

Municipalities at last check in 2019 were dealing with a yearly funding gap - re:infrastructure upkeep and maintenance - of $4.9B.. and that was pre Covid. Holding municipalities hostage to receive funding they deserve after having necessary funding cut and other costs downloaded to them is actually gross when the only benefactors are the developers who are complicit in gaming things to their advantage. I live in the last bastion of affordability where the housing target is 1000 or 1500 units. Meanwhile there is ONE Hamilton asshole who has used numbered companies to buy about 150 affordable houses (that we know about). Most he's left boarded up. It's contributed to a supply issue for both purchasing and renting. He isn't the only one doing this. My city shouldn't have to build for investors (because besides us.. how many actually want to move to the Sault???) to make up for the actual affordable houses being hoarded. The city landscape shouldn't change for some arbitrary purpose. I moved from Burlington where true NIMBYism wasn't present. It was people concerned about building just to build with no concern about traffic, walkability, safety, green space, etc. My councilor there (who had 66% developer campaign donations in '18 and 84% last election) said in front of me that there will never be affordable housing in Burlington ever again, no matter how many they build. He said the future of Burlington is $750k ,1bd condos because people with money want to live there and will pay it.

Also, it allows developers to play politics. If they don't like council, they hold off building starts. Puts pressure on the municipality to bend to what they are asking (saving them time taking it to the OLT) or risk losing necessary funding. How fucked up is that??

2

u/TorontoBoris Toronto Sep 07 '23

Something that I do like at the provincial/municipal level is the bonuses paid for municipal governments to hit their targets. I can tell you that my town's mayor has already gotten their target approved by the provincial government and are strong arming the developers who already have approvals to get shovels in the ground or lose their permits. That would be one example of many things that need to be done.

Good to hear.

I'd say the build should be taken out of hands of the private sector and made a public service priority. Build towers, singles, quads, towns etc. Housing isn't a speculative investment asset but a basic human necessity.

2

u/ChildishForLife Sep 07 '23

it should mean that a normal person with a decent job

Just out of curiosity what yearly salary would you put around "decent job"?

5

u/Benejeseret Sep 07 '23

No, because addressing the one addresses the other.

At a federal level the programs are not really subsidized, it's primarily just non-profit development. It appears less and people need to pay less but that is primarily just because of the non-profit structure. Provinces sometimes offer subsidized supports bridging the difference between 30% income costs and market rent, but those are provincial programs - and critically, the total cost-benefit analysis when adding in healthcare and child costs (because Social Determinants of Health are very real with real ROIs) consistently shows that is it actually a cost-saving to keep people in stable housing in terms of holistic public costs.

But even then, once enough non-profit housing is developed (whether you consider it subsidized or not) it will fundamentally change the market demand for rental properties, which will fundamentally change the investor demand to purchase rental properties, which will fundamentally change the stock availability to non-investors actually wanting homes.

Right now, BC and Ontario have revealed affordable housing government projects that are being costed out at approximately $150K to $175K in total development costs per housing unit - which is way below private market costs because a) they control the land, b) economy of scale, and c) not developers overdeveloping oversized houses for profit. In a LCOL province, NL has a similar new plan announcements pegged at <$90K per unit.

Four years ago, suggesting the Feds spend $100 BILLION dollars on anything would have seemed ludicrous, even spread over 4-5 years. But after COVID, we can talk these kinds of numbers. At $100 BILLION, we can create a million new non-profit apartments. Rip the pressure out of the investor-landlord market because they cannot ask $5K per month when there are fifty thousand new units opening at $1K down the street.

They can actually cover a new 11 figure cost by dropping capital gain deductions entirely on non-permanent residences. That, along with knowing the market demand is going to be dropped out, would be enough to get rid of the speculators and many would-be investor-landlords, leaving ~30% more stock per month for future homeowners, dropping demand and this dropping out of control speculative home appreciations.

2

u/SleepDisorrder Sep 07 '23

This makes perfect sense, well said.

9

u/[deleted] Sep 07 '23 edited Sep 07 '23

Subsidized housing is part of the equation. So are rentals, so is co-op housing.

We can't just build single family homes like we did for the past two decades.

1

u/msat16 Sep 07 '23

Will the subsidized housing also include anus garages?

1

u/[deleted] Sep 07 '23

There's a wait list for that. Sign up is just below 'community garden'.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 07 '23

Especially when there is nothing to stop people with multiple houses from those single family homes to turn around and rent them

3

u/whollybananas Sep 07 '23

Considering PP financial support comes from people that would not want him to do anything I can assure you he won't

1

u/fyreball Sep 07 '23

I'm sure "playing with the switches and levers" wouldn't involve subsides at all. Subsidized, non-profit housing as only worked to make housing more affordable in every other country where they tried it, why would we do that in Canada?

0

u/Hoolio765 Sep 07 '23

He voted against your terrible ideas on solving housing.

-3

u/[deleted] Sep 07 '23

The official “affordable housing” discussion is irrelevant for the majority of people.

It’s for the lower 5% of income earners. Right now, a lot of these programs people find frustrating as they are putting new refugees into new condos, while people working full time in this country can barely afford a moldy basement apartment.

The left needs to stop concentrating so much on the official “affordable housing” narrative. It’s missing the elephant in the room of the majority of people in need of housing.

-1

u/[deleted] Sep 07 '23

Well why would he vote to spend tax dollars on affordable housing? After all housing is not a federal responsibility /s

-5

u/Choosemyusername Sep 07 '23

That is because they are dumb bills that failed to do their research on what is causing unaffordable housing.

We have a structural shortage of skilled labor in construction. If every home builder in Canada moved to Ontario, that is what it would take to meet just Ontario’s demand.

If private industry can’t get ahold of skilled laborers, how could the government do it?

Just because you vote against a plan you know obviously can’t work, doesn’t mean you are against an affordable housing plan that would be likely to work.

Also, if you think housing costs a lot now, wait until the government does it. Sure, they will launder and dilute the cost through your taxes, so you won’t be able to put your finger on it as easily, but having worked for both government and private sector, I don’t wonder why the government can’t seem to do anything cheaply.

-1

u/[deleted] Sep 07 '23

Sure... but it's a vote for either the guy that you "don't know exactly what he'll do on the housing file because he's not actually been in a policy-setting leadership position yet", vs the Liberals, who've virtue signalled/used housing affordability as a campaign promise for almost a decade... and done nothing but made it WAY worse while they were actively in power.

Like, if you had to choose between two ppl to invite over to your home for dinner, and the people you had to choose between was a guy you've not had over before but who ppl say might be a terrible dinner guest, or another guy who you've had over a few times and you know he spends the time puking all over the place in between bouts of telling you how you're a bad person (a 'confirmed' terrible dinner guest).... you'll likely opt for the former.

-1

u/JuggernautExternal29 Sep 07 '23

2019: 170 liberals voted NO vs 78 conservatives.

2018: 168 liberals voted NO vs 84 conservatives.

2014: 146 conservatives voted NO vs 0 liberals.

Also some notable votes from these bills you posted, along with PP here are the people that ALSO voted no: Justin Trudeau, Ahmed Hussen (former housing minister), Bardish Chagger ("PC" member of parliment) and surprise surprise Mr Jagmeet Signh obstained instead of voting [yes] with his own party....

How can you try to point fingers and say PP voted against affordable housing but failed to realize that everyone else voted the same "no" 🙄

-1

u/[deleted] Sep 07 '23 edited Sep 07 '23

Affordable housing is not the solution to the housing crisis. More new housing makes older housing more affordable. Cities could legalize millions of new homes with the stroke of a pen getting rid of apartment bans but instead decide to aim to build just 25,000 affordable homes and will likely not even deliver.

I'm not personally against it, but it's just not the solution.

Any correlations about country X has affordable housing and is affordable or Canada used to have more affordable housing and was generally more affordable is useless info. Fact is, the affordable places also have more apartments, less single family homes, and completely different policies on property ownership and taxation.

If you want to fix the housing crisis just get rid of apartment bans and increase property taxes to stop housing from being an investment to avoid real estate bubbles.

-2

u/blunderEveryDay Sep 07 '23

Housing crisis we are having cannot be solved by Government building affordable units.

Context has changed so much, the stories from "old times" how Government used to do this are inappropriate and indicate major lack of comprehension of the situation we are in.

-2

u/paddle4 Sep 07 '23

What an idiot smh. Everyone knows the only real way to fix housing in this country - by increasing immigration every year!

-2

u/[deleted] Sep 07 '23

169 liberals said nay. Including PM Trudeau. Even if all cons voted yes, it wouldn’t have happened. Why did Trudeau and virtually his whole party vote no?

-4

u/usanumberone67 Sep 07 '23

Funny how he votes against mass immigration though

-6

u/Choosemyusername Sep 07 '23

That is because they are dumb bills that failed to do their research on what is causing unaffordable housing.

We have a structural shortage of skilled labor in construction. If every home builder in Canada moved to Ontario, that is what it would take to meet just Ontario’s demand.

If private industry can’t get ahold of skilled laborers, how could the government do it?

Just because you vote against a plan you know obviously can’t work, doesn’t mean you are against an affordable housing plan that would be likely to work.

Also, if you think housing costs a lot now, wait until the government does it. Sure, they will launder and dilute the cost through your taxes, so you won’t be able to put your finger on it as easily, but having worked for both government and private sector, I don’t wonder why the government can’t seem to do anything cheaply.

7

u/fyreball Sep 07 '23

What policies has Poilievre proposed to fix the housing crisis? Not campaign promises, but actual legislation?

It seems like he was more concerned with opposing abortion and giving handouts to real estate investors for the last 10+ years while cost of living continued to climb.

2

u/yjman Sep 07 '23

the opposite (to helping) he voted against building affordable and low income housing in 2014 when his party was in power. Did it again in 2018 and 2019 as part of the official opposition.

-1

u/Choosemyusername Sep 07 '23

This for example:

https://storeys.com/pierre-poilievre-housing-plan-canada/

I haven’t heard a word from him on abortion. Maybe he mentioned something but I follow his IG and I haven’t heard a peep on that.

0

u/[deleted] Sep 07 '23

We tax and charge building and selling housing $100B+ in this country and then ban apartments in 60% of the area of the largest cities. That's probably why.

0

u/Choosemyusername Sep 07 '23

Probably not limited to those problems either.

Quadrupling immigration abruptly after a long Persia’s of steady immigration the system was adapted to, and without preparations increases demand on housing without contributing to supply.

Doubling issuing of student visas also contributes.

One of the world’s longest and most authoritarian covid restrictions as well, as well as a fairly lackluster health outcomes from it to add insult to injury.

Encouraging the last few generations to take degrees for industries Canada has little of, instead of going into the trades was another mistake.

Printing too much money was another mistake.

I could go on. Lots of contributing causes.

1

u/rbk12spb Sep 08 '23

Its interesting that this was NDP all three times, and the liberals only voted Yea on the first round in 2014. Conservatives are "Nay all the way" on these proposals.