The Editor,
This is a Letter to the Editor in response to the recent article “MP talks Cornwall housing standstill, House of Lazarus” (Dec. 31.) I have seen MP Eric Duncan making these claims on social media, and I am frustrated to see them repeated in print with very little pushback. Housing is not “at a standstill” here because the federal government forgot about us. According to the Canadian Real Estate Association, housing slowdowns across Canada are being driven by high interest rates, tight financing, and builders pulling back. This is happening everywhere, not just in Cornwall. It is the predictable result of global inflation stemming from COVID and supply chain disruptions, and central bank rate hikes that affected every G7 country. Framing this as a local failure caused by one federal budget is either misleading or deliberately simplistic. Claiming that Cornwall and SDG are “banned” from accessing federal housing programs sounds dramatic until you ask the most basic questions. Banned how? By whom? For what reason? The Housing Accelerator Fund is tied to zoning reform. If a municipality has not yet met those requirements, that is not Ottawa locking the doors. Removing GST on new homes up to $1.3 million is not an affordability fix for regular people. It primarily benefits higher-end buyers and developers. In a place like Cornwall, where the real crisis is wages, financing, and the lack of non-market housing, it does nothing for renters, food bank users, or young families shut out of ownership. Calling this a solution for working families stretches credibility.
The food bank argument is especially cynical. The House of Lazarus does vital work, and rising demand there should alarm all of us. But tying a 100 per cent increase in usage since 2019 directly to Liberal budgets, without mentioning stagnant wages, precarious work, grocery price gouging, or provincial social assistance rates that have not kept pace with the cost of living, is dishonest. Food bank use has surged everywhere since COVID, including in Conservative-run provinces. Provincial responsibility is not mentioned. Housing approvals, income supports, and municipal funding largely sit at the provincial level.
Ontario has been downloading costs onto municipalities for years, yet that never seems to enter the Conservative affordability narrative.
People here are struggling. Housing is tight. Food banks are under pressure. That is real. Using these struggles as props in the same tired party-versus-party blame game doesn’t feel like leadership to me.
Louise Mignault, Cornwall
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L’article MP’s comments on housing, food banks are misleading, simplistic, cynical est apparu en premier sur Cornwall Seaway News.
