Opinion: Rather than clarifying details of the plan, Ottawa and Victoria have stood by idly as political furore grows
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VICTORIA —The federal and provincial plan to buy up unsold condos for first-time homeowners remains shrouded in mystery, denial and backtracking, three weeks after Premier David Eby and Prime Minister Mark Carney promised it.
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Nor is there any apparent rush to fill in the details of the half-baked scheme, judging from events this week.
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In Ottawa on Tuesday, the federal Liberals on a parliamentary committee blocked a federal Conservative motion to summon federal and provincial officials to explain the Canada-B.C. partnership on condo conversion.
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Aaron Gunn, Conservative MP for the B.C. riding of North Island-Powell River, raised the issue in the House of Commons ethics committee, citing concerns about the cosy relationship between the federal government and some developers.
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“Whose idea was it? Who lobbied for it? And maybe most importantly, which well-connected developers, big banks, and foreign investors stand to benefit the most?” Gunn challenged.
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“If the Liberals have nothing to hide, then they should have nothing to fear by welcoming an investigation into where this idea came from and who stands to benefit from it the most.
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Voicing support for the motion, though she does not have a vote on the committee, was Jenny Kwan, NDP MP for Vancouver East.
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“I don’t agree with my Conservative colleagues very often, but this scheme has major problems and it does not pass the public smell test,” said Kwan, according to a report by Bill Curry of the Globe and Mail.
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Ironically, Kwan was applying the “smell test” to a plan that was mostly the work of the B.C. NDP government, according to the Liberal majority on the committee.
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“We don’t get to dictate how the provinces spend their money,” said Liberal MP Fares Al Soud, who made the motion that shut down Gunn’s call.
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“Our job as a government is to work in partnership with them to deliver on a mutual mandate. We don’t currently have enough information to debate this in good faith.”
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Federal Housing Minister Gregor Robertson took much the same tack during an event in Vancouver on Wednesday, according to a report by Jami Makan in Business in Vancouver.
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“I submitted a letter to the ethics committee clarifying that this is a B.C. government program,” Robertson told reporters. “The B.C. government is working on the details of it, so any mischaracterization is premature. Nobody has seen what this program will be.”
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Robertson accused the federal Conservative Opposition of spreading “a bunch of misinformation” about the condo conversion.
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“This has been twisted around by the Conservative opposition first and foremost into many things that it is not. This is about making sure we take every advantage, every tool we have between the provincial, federal and local governments to get more affordable housing available to people as soon as possible.”
