The Machinery of Government

Homelessness and housing affordability have been in the news a lot lately. Since these are issues that hurt a considerable number of Canadians, across regions and demographic groups, opposition parties have jumped on them to hammer the Trudeau government. Consequently, the prime minister and his cabinet have been keen to show that they take housing seriously and last year launched several new initiatives to help.

However, Ottawa had already been helping those Canadians facing homelessness and soaring housing costs — for years. In fact, according to a 2022 auditor general’s report, Infrastructure Canada’s Reaching Home program and the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s National Housing Strategy together spent nearly $6 billion between 2018 and 2022 on precisely these matters. Despite all that money, the auditor general, Karen Hogan, found that there was “still no organization in the federal government taking the lead on Canada’s target to prevent and reduce...