Ex-Vancouver mayor Gregor Robertson tries tackling housing crisis once again, this time as federal minister
Poilievre said Robertson's record on housing is that prices ballooned during his tenure
Prime Minister Mark Carney revealed his new cabinet on Tuesday with two Liberal members of Parliament from British Columbia sworn in as ministers and three B.C. MPs named secretaries of state.
The most high-profile B.C. addition to cabinet is Gregor Robertson, who takes on the role of minister of housing and infrastructure, putting him in the spotlight as the federal government responds to Canada's housing crisis.
Elected last month to represent Vancouver Fraserview-South Burnaby, Robertson has served at all three levels of government in Canada, including as a one-time MLA with the B.C. NDP and as mayor of Vancouver.
Carney said Robertson brings "the type of experience" needed to help tackle Canada's housing crisis after a decade as Vancouver mayor — a period that coincided with sharp increases in the city's home prices.
WATCH | New Housing Minister Gregor Robertson on Power & Politics
Housing was a key platform point for Carney during the election, including a promise to double the rate of residential construction over the next decade to reach 500,000 homes per year.
"We're going to have to change how we build. And a lot of that expertise, not exclusively, but a lot of it has actually been developed in British Columbia," Carney said.
"Minister Robertson is very familiar with it. We're going to incorporate that, but in a pan-Canadian strategy to really drive this."
Federal Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre said Robertson's record on housing is that prices ballooned during his tenure as mayor, giving the city the most expensive housing prices in North America.
Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation data show that during Robertson's time as mayor of the City of Vancouver, the average price of single-family and semi-detached homes rose 179 per cent across the broader Metro Vancouver area.
Robertson was first elected mayor in 2008 after serving as MLA for Vancouver-Fairview with the provincial NDP. He was re-elected mayor in 2011 and 2014.
During his time at city hall, Robertson faced criticism for rising housing costs and not fulfilling his promise to end street homelessness in the city by 2015.
WATCH | Vancouver city councillor on former Vancouver mayor's new federal housing role
Robertson told CBC's Power & Politics that Ottawa has to work with provincial and municipal governments to use "all the tools that we have available" to tackle housing affordability, adding that Stephen Harper's Conservative government and the B.C. Liberal government were not interested in dealing with the housing crunch during his time as Vancouver mayor. He said he also had to deal with the 2008 financial crisis.
"What's different now is that we've got a prime minister and a new government here in Ottawa who are saying we need to double the rate of construction, we need to work across all levels of government, we need to engage the private sector to do this," he said. "We didn't have any of that going back to 2008."
Geoff Meggs, who served on Vancouver city council from 2008 to 2017, says Robertson did everything he could at the municipal level to address housing affordability.
"Where there may have been a problem was that there was a failure to explain to people what the limits were," he said.
Meggs cited, as an example, Vancouver's inability to develop a government-owned organization that would finance and build housing.
"He did everything he could in that regard, but it wasn't sufficient," Meggs said. "And I don't think that we were candid enough about the limits. Now ... Gregor Robertson is the housing minister. He doesn't have that excuse."
"I think it will be fair to say to him and to Mark Carney — who really understands this stuff — 'give us hard deadlines and achieve them.'"
Other B.C. appointees
In addition to his role as housing minister, Robertson is also the minister responsible for Pacific economic development.
Jill McKnight, another new MP who won the B.C. riding of Delta, was sworn in as the minister of veterans affairs and associate minister of national defence.
Surrey Centre MP Randeep Sarai is the secretary of state for international development, and Stephanie McLean, MP for Esquimalt–Saanich–Sooke, was named secretary of state for seniors. Kelowna MP Stephen Fuhr is the secretary of state for defence procurement.
With files from Justin McElroy, Chad Pawson and The Canadian Press