Published in the Toronto Sun, 10 July 2026

DEVELOPING NEWS

Re “Taxpayers on the hook” (Ling Hui, Toronto Sun, June 29):

Prime Minister Mark Carney admits that “no developer asked for this from me directly” and that his “new” government had done a “poor job” of explaining his latest example of corporate welfare. So, this is simply a public relations problem? That’s the real issue here?

(Coming to market: Carney Condos)

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The original article that inspired my column:

Tax­pay­ers on the hook

Poil­ievre seeks `urgent’ eth­ics com­mit­tee probe of B.C. `condo bail­out’

Toronto Sun

LING HUI

29 Jun 2026

Con­ser­vat­ive Leader Pierre Poil­ievre is call­ing on the par­lia­ment­ary eth­ics com­mit­tee to probe a pro­gram announced earlier this month by Ott­awa and the B.C. gov­ern­ment to buy more than 2,000 unsold con­dos to con­vert into afford­able hous­ing.

Call­ing the pro­gram a “condo bail­out,” Poil­ievre shared on Sunday a let­ter addressed to the House’s eth­ics com­mit­tee chair, Con­ser­vat­ive MP John Brass­ard, seek­ing an “urgent meet­ing” to invest­ig­ate the pro­gram.

The fed­eral gov­ern­ment is expec­ted to cover 10% of the $1.45 bil­lion in estim­ated costs to con­vert the condo units into afford­able hous­ing, while the B.C. gov­ern­ment is expec­ted to pay the remain­ing bal­ance.

“Under the Lib­er­als’ plan, tax­pay­ers would be on the hook to buy more than 2,200 `vacant’ units that Brit­ish Columbi­ans can’t afford or don’t want at their cur­rent price,” Poil­ievre said in the let­ter dated on Fri­day.

“Far from mak­ing hous­ing more afford­able, the bail­out pre­vents a price cor­rec­tion from tak­ing place, pre­serving high prices for developers rather than lower­ing them for buy­ers.”

The fed­eral and B.C. gov­ern­ments announced the plan on June 19 with the Prime Min­is­ter’s Office tout­ing it as “one of the fast­est and most effi­cient ways to increase hous­ing sup­ply.”

In a release, the PMO also said both gov­ern­ments plan to “lever­age innov­at­ive fin­an­cing tools” to con­vert the con­dos “in pri­or­ity growth areas.”

The pro­gram, named the Canada-brit­ish Columbia Part­ner­ship on Condo Con­ver­sion, was part of a 10-year B.C. infra­struc­ture devel­op­ment plan that would see the fed­eral gov­ern­ment invest more than $5 bil­lion in the province.

In his let­ter, Poil­ievre cri­ti­cized Car­ney, stat­ing: “In his eco­nomy, well-con­nec­ted insiders, power brokers, and cor­por­ate lob­by­ists get all the bene­fits while stick­ing Cana­dians with the losses. The Lib­eral club shouldn’t bene­fit from the pub­lic’s expense.”

The Con­ser­vat­ive leader ended his let­ter by call­ing on Brass­ard to “hold an urgent meet­ing of the eth­ics com­mit­tee so it can invest­ig­ate this bail­out.

“For­cing home­buy­ers to com­pete with their own tax dol­lars to raise prices for the bene­fit of developers is not in the interest of Cana­dians,” Poil­ievre added.

Speak­ing at a news con­fer­ence in Ott­awa on Thursday, Car­ney said the idea for the plan came from the B.C. gov­ern­ment.

“No developer asked for this from me dir­ectly,” Car­ney told report­ers, per Global News.

He admit­ted he and the fed­eral gov­ern­ment had done a poor job of announ­cing and explain­ing the plan.

Both the prime min­is­ter and fed­eral Hous­ing Min­is­ter Gregor Robertson said details of the plan will be released in the com­ing months.