Like the Wizard of Oz, Ontario’s premier wants you to look away from what’s actually not happening in this province.

Ford has really ramped up the showmanship lately, calling for a bike lane witch hunt and making magical announcements about beer, highway tunnels and $200 cheques. Much of it, it seems, is being done in the service of getting us to look away from the reality of how things are going in Ford’s Ontario.

In particular, he’d really like us to pay no attention to the housing policy failure behind the curtain. But by the numbers, Ford’s failure on housing should be way too big to hide.

A report released last week by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation revealed that housing starts in Ontario are down 18 per cent so far this year. That stat, which measures the number of new housing units that saw construction get started, should set off loud alarm bells. Because housing, more than any other issue, has been Ford’s signature issue — the subject of lots of legislation. He’s styled himself as a builder-in-chief who will “get it done.”

This isn’t a case of Ontario’s large population skewing the numbers, either. For his excellent Data Shows newsletter, analyst Tom Parkin recently crunched the per-capita numbers for housing starts and found Ontario ranked eighth out of Canada’s 10 provinces. According to Parkin’s numbers, with just 34 new starts for every 100,000 people, Ontario’s rate of per-capita building was well below that of provincial peers like Manitoba (47), Quebec (47.8), B.C. (58.8) and Alberta (89.9).

With numbers like that, it’s no surprise that the province has dim hopes of hitting its much-ballyhooed goal of building 1.5 million homes by the end of 2031.

  • @StopTouchingYourPhone
    7•6 hours ago

    Ontario News Now keeps on trucking. Look over there!

    Much like the bike lane portions of the legislation, Bill 212 has also drawn concern from Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation, because it would allow work to begin on Highway 413 before an Indigenous consultation is finished and exempts the project from the Environmental Assessment Act.

    Highway 413 would be a 52-kilometre highway that connects Peel, Halton and York — much of which falls within treaty lands. In connecting those regions, the highway would cut across wetlands, rivers, forests and agricultural areas, according to the outgoing director of the Department of Consultation for Mississaugas of the Credit. CBC, Nov 25, '24

    …

    Remember Doug vowed during the 2018 election campaign that he would let big business develop the Greenbelt, and that he got the idea from “some of the biggest developers in this country.”

    “We will open up the Greenbelt — not all of it, but we’re going to open a big chunk of it up —  and we’re going to start building and making it more affordable and putting more houses out there,” Ford said in a video.

    "I’ve already talked to some of the biggest developers in this country and again, I wish I could say it’s my idea, but it was their idea as well. Give us property, we’ll build and we’ll drive the cost down. That’s my plan for affordable housing."

    It got out and he immediately changed course, saying that the PC platform would pledge NOT to touch it. He said, “I govern through the people, I don’t govern through government. The people have spoken − we won’t touch the Greenbelt.” G&M, 2018

    Then, in Dec 2020, our Conservative government used the Pandemic Recovery Bill to neuter Ontario’s Conservation Authorities and give a government minister the power to veto CA decisions. AND they amended the Conservation Authorities Act to give a provincial minister complete control over issuing permits. No appealing decisions. No appealing MZOs.