Two in three Canadians say Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government is doing a poor job of introducing policies to make housing affordable, according to a new poll.
The survey by Nanos Research for Bloomberg News suggests a flurry of announcements from Trudeau’s Liberals in the past six months haven’t resonated yet with Canadians, who are struggling with rental inflation at a 40-year high and ballooning mortgage interest costs.
Trudeau appointed a new housing minister, Sean Fraser, in July amid sagging poll numbers. Since then, the government has announced hundreds of millions of dollars for cities to speed up building dense housing, cut the federal sales tax on new rental construction and introduced new measures to discourage short-term rentals such as those provided on Airbnb Inc.
“The fact that only 2% score the Liberal housing initiatives as very good and another 6% good indicates there are few that have confidence in these policies to make housing more affordable,” pollster Nik Nanos said.
Residents of Ontario and the western provinces were more likely to say that the Trudeau government was doing a poor or very poor job on housing affordability than Atlantic Canada or Quebec. Those under 55 were also more likely to give the Liberals poor marks than older Canadians.
Nanos also asked respondents to rank solutions that would make housing more affordable. More than a quarter said building more public housing was the most important solution, while about 17% each put reducing immigration and cutting mortgage rates at the top of the list.
Fewer Canadians ranked the government’s existing policies — such as speeding up local approvals on development — as the top way to make housing more affordable.
The poll didn’t ask about Fraser’s December proposal to create a catalog of preapproved designs to accelerate homebuilding, inspired by a similar postwar program. It also didn’t assess the level of blame Canadians assign to provincial or municipal governments, which hold significant levers on housing supply.
The survey is the latest hint that the high cost of living is harming Trudeau politically. Most polls put the Conservative Party ahead of Trudeau’s Liberals by about 10 points, though a federal election isn’t expected before 2025.
Nanos polled 1,006 Canadians by phone and online between Dec. 27 and Dec. 29. The findings are considered accurate within 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
By Bloomberg
