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The C Word · CityTalk Canada

• 0:07
  Mary Rowe: This is City Talk the podcast brought to you by the Canadian Urban Institute or CEUI.
• 0:13
  Mary Rowe: I'm Mary Rowe.
• 0:15
  Mary Rowe: If you've just listened to my earlier conversation with Don Iveson, former mayor of Edmonton and civic consultant at large, you've already heard that relationships between municipal governments and their provincial counterparts aren't exactly rosy these days, certainly in Alberta, likewise in Ontario and other places too.
• 0:33
  Mary Rowe: The issues at the core of these loggerheads vary, but typically come down to one thing: who's in charge or who controls the given jurisdiction or a set of decisions?
• 0:43
  Mary Rowe: Some of the turf rules governing these relationships have been in place since Confederation, and some would argue are clearly in need of an update, or two or three.
• 0:54
  Mary Rowe: Among many other files on her desk, Alexandra Flynn, associate professor of the University of British Columbia's Allard School of Law and director of the Housing Research Collaborative, is one of our best thinkers on the subject of Canada's governance model and other timely topics.
• 1:10
  Mary Rowe: Alex, welcome back to City Talk.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for having me.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: I love chatting with you in any format.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um the only thing you left out of my bio is that I love board games.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like a ruthless board game player.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: Do you like to win?
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: Of course.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, every time.
• 1:31
  Mary Rowe: Well, I also don't I didn't include, which we often don't, but you're also a big runner.
• 1:36
  Mary Rowe: What number of marathon are you at now?
• 1:38
  Mary Rowe: How many have you done now?
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: I finished my seventh marathon in March, Tokyo.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm hanging up my marathon shoes and switching to half marathons.
• 1:49
  Mary Rowe: I thought you were gonna say you're gonna take up brain surgery or something like that.
• 1:53
  Mary Rowe: Maybe yoga with you.
• 1:55
  Mary Rowe: Yeah, you do yoga with me.
• 1:56
  Mary Rowe: But it but let's talk about Tokyo for a second because it's really one of the world's great cities to which I've never been.
• 2:01
  Mary Rowe: What was your observation?
• 2:02
  Mary Rowe: You were busy, you know, making sure you finished the race, but what did you observe?
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's a very peaceful city.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's so big.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: Every neighborhood is distinct.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah um and it's uh it's so calm.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: You know, for a big city, I know, I know it was surprising because it's so busy, it's so big, it's so con there's so many people in it.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but it's it's very orderly and um and just very easy to be there, like almost like being on the seawall in Vancouver, like it kind of had that vibe.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 2:33
  Mary Rowe: And do you describe the seawall in Vancouver as being busy with people?
• 2:36
  Mary Rowe: Not always.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: It is busy with people, but it has that that sense of calm, yeah, you know, a sort of like, ah, you know, it's very serene.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a lot of great coffee, a lot of great coffee.
• 2:49
  Mary Rowe: There, there's it, there it is.
• 2:50
  Mary Rowe: That's the clue.
• 2:51
  Mary Rowe: This is an interesting segue to why I wanted to bring you on to Citytalk because I think we're at a moment where uh people are not feeling ease.
• 3:01
  Mary Rowe: And in fact, I think we feel there most people are experiencing some kind of dis-ease.
• 3:07
  Mary Rowe: And I'm I want us to chat a bit about that, about what are the things that we can be focusing on that are going to build back up a sense of ease in your community.
• 3:20
  Mary Rowe: And that's why at CUI we focus on main streets and downtowns uh because we feel they're fundamentally navigable and they are important economically and socially, and they're a unit that everybody understands.
• 3:32
  Mary Rowe: Where's your downtown?
• 3:32
  Mary Rowe: Where's your main street?
• 3:34
  Mary Rowe: But at the moment, downtowns and main streets don't feel very comfortable for people.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think that's true.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: I think there's there's a sense of what's the priority, you know.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm I'm joining you uh from actually Musqueam Lands, I'm at UBC, but I'm I'm in Vancouver, and we have our municipal elections.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: I know those are going on in Ontario as well.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: We have a provincial election coming up as well.
• 3:59
  Mary Rowe: Yep.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um obviously.
• 4:02
  Mary Rowe: We have a global uh existential threat uh in terms of what our economic and and geopolitical future is.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like every conversation I'm having, I know you were chatting with Don Iveson uh earlier as well.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we're all in these kind of these rapids of uncertainty over what's gonna who's gonna be in charge.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like I think there is, thankfully, we have a we have a federal government that, you know, barring any calamity isn't going anywhere anytime soon.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: So at least we have the certainty, whether you like it or not, of what's gonna be happening there.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: But I think across the country, there's this sense of like, we have these wildly different ideologies that are informing policy and especially how that trickles down into our main streets, into our communities, what's gonna happen there.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: Big ticket things like housing and infrastructure is actually people's sidewalks and homes, you know?
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: So of course we're all, you know, in a kind of ongoing nervous system collapse, wondering what's gonna happen next.
• 5:06
  Mary Rowe: We seem now to have a national agreement that we're in crisis on housing.
• 5:10
  Mary Rowe: We don't seem, I don't think there's anyone querying that we don't seem to have the right amount of housing across the continuum that we need.
• 5:18
  Mary Rowe: So we have people in, perhaps people with high incomes have choice, but certainly people in middle income and lower income or needing supportive housing have insufficient choice and options.
• 5:29
  Mary Rowe: There seems to be an agreement on that.
• 5:32
  Mary Rowe: And I do think there is a growing agreement that we have a mental health crisis that is manifesting most acutely, we can see it now on downtowns and main streets.
• 5:42
  Mary Rowe: So we seem to have a consensus that Houston, we have a problem, or we have those two problems.
• 5:46
  Mary Rowe: Do you agree?
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and and the problem is they're not two different problems, they're actually the same problem.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and the longer that we have our housing system, and I put system in air quotes, your listeners can't see that, but you can.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: They know our video right now.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, as long as we have the housing system that we have, which is three levels of government, four if you count indigenous governments that are completely uh kind of doing their own thing project by project, yeah, the more we're missing the results of that system.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: We're not addressing it, which is the longer people are unhoused, the worse their mental health and substance abuse issues get.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so someone who was evicted because they couldn't afford the rent or had whatever life crises that happened that led them there, 12 months later, is going to be somebody who has a whole other host of issues, which are going to show up on your main street.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so these are not separate issues.
• 6:47
  Mary Rowe: Not that you said that, but but the other thing is as you say, then if you were to do that little cycle, and as you say, they're unhoused, they're more vulnerable, then their life on the street is more volatile, and then a regular person walking along the street has an encounter, and we're back to people feeling at dis-ease.
• 7:05
  Mary Rowe: I'm trying to figure out what the right adjective is, but it's it's a good one because if you take that line even further, eventually people say, I don't think democracy is working.
• 7:16
  Mary Rowe: I don't think that governance is working generally, and they don't know who to blame, and so they end up in this kind of place of everything is fed.
• 7:24
  Mary Rowe: And I think this is the dilemma that we're facing because these challenges are fixable.
• 7:30
  Mary Rowe: We have jurisdictions, examples around the world and even in Canadian communities, where we have been able to make interventions to provide more supportive housing.
• 7:39
  Mary Rowe: And I'm trying to understand why we can't scale up, not necessarily replicate and duplicate in exactly the same way, but how come we can't scale up and get this, these things solved in communities in different ways, but put that as our priority.
• 7:54
  Mary Rowe: What is the major obstacle, do you think?
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we think in silos.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: If we're a federal model, we have acronyms.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we think in silos, we separate things out.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: And housing has been an area where for a long time, for decades, we've really relied on the market to supply housing.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: And they've Andy, and we shouldn't say relied.
• 8:13
  Mary Rowe: I think we made choices in Canada.
• 8:15
  Mary Rowe: We made choices.
• 8:15
  Mary Rowe: We made choices in the 70s when you and you weren't born yet, but I was.
• 8:19
  Mary Rowe: And uh where you, you know, I always quote John Van Nostran, the can the Toronto planner who describes Toronto in the 40s, 70% of the housing stock was self-built.
• 8:28
  Mary Rowe: And then over time, it became a more uh organized uh sector of the economy.
• 8:34
  Mary Rowe: And as you know, it employs thousands and thousands and thousands of people who have earned good livings working on in some aspect of the housing industry.
• 8:43
  Mary Rowe: And so it's an economic driver too.
• 8:45
  Mary Rowe: It's not just supplying a public good, it was it actually was part of an essential part of the economy.
• 8:51
  Mary Rowe: Yeah.
• 8:51
  Mary Rowe: Yeah, it's an industry and it um which isn't bad.
• 8:54
  Mary Rowe: No, no, of course it's not.
• 8:56
  Mary Rowe: Sometimes what I worry about is that we tend to demonize and say, oh, well, you know, gee, we let the private sector do it.
• 9:01
  Mary Rowe: But there are other jurisdictions where they had a higher degree of uh public investment ownership and ongoing ownership of housing.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the private market developers will say we can't provide housing for very low-income people.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's not our bread and butter, it's not what we do.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's like asking, you know, Audi to supply um bicycles, you know.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, bicycles.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like you just wouldn't ask them.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean Audis suck.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: It just means they're not gonna be, you know, using my two-wheeler to providing my two-wheeler.
• 9:32
  Mary Rowe: But it it but I guess a car is not seen as a right.
• 9:36
  Mary Rowe: I have a right to own a car, but I have a right to shelter, to some kind of appropriate housing.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: So that's actually, it's like if I had a bell, I would ding it right now.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: I wish I did.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: I should grab a gavel or something and like put it on my desk.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: But um, that's the issue, right?
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: Is what what is a public good?
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: Is housing a public good or not?
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I would say under the legal frameworks we have, we as Canadians have committed to it being a public good.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we've done it in lots of different legal instruments, which I can yak on about, but in the same way that we've done that with health, you know, in the same way that we've done it with um schools.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: So the question is doing it.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: What we need to do is tell our governments you need to work together in order to supply this public good that you have committed to providing and focus on that.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: I agree.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't help to demonize it, it helps to shift our gaze to who it is that can actually help address the actual problem we have.
• 10:33
  Mary Rowe: So let's talk about your favorite topic.
• 10:35
  Mary Rowe: You know, uh, you and I joke about this.
• 10:36
  Mary Rowe: We can't, you know, the C word, uh, the constitutional word.
• 10:40
  Mary Rowe: I I think that, you know, we we know that lots of eyes glaze over when you start to talk about that.
• 10:44
  Mary Rowe: But it's we have a gazillion challenges in existing places in this country, big cities, small cities, rural, where the there are impediments to making good decisions that work in a particular place.
• 10:58
  Mary Rowe: And some of that is completely organized by the way we are structured.
• 11:03
  Mary Rowe: And how do we get ourselves to a place where subsidiarity is a given and where there's enough local autonomy that communities can start to solve their challenges in the ways they need to using instruments that they have available to them, as opposed to now, which is that we have many, many different kinds of challenges, and everybody just complains that they're not getting the attention and the investment they need.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: Can I just say I actually like talking about the constitution, uh, as you well know, because I bring it up every single time we talk, and you are like, stop it.
• 11:37
  Mary Rowe: No, no, no.
• 11:38
  Mary Rowe: Listen, knock yourself out, knock yourself out.
• 11:40
  Mary Rowe: If you're hopeful about uh a constitutional remedy, as you and I are sitting here, we have two, we've we've just had uh the equivalent of a referendum in one province.
• 11:53
  Mary Rowe: When this airs, we will have had a second referendum in a second province.
• 11:56
  Mary Rowe: We have municipal elections happening, we have provincial elections happening.
• 12:00
  Mary Rowe: As you say, we have a federal election that happened and there's some stability there.
• 12:04
  Mary Rowe: But everybody at some level is saying it ain't working.
• 12:10
  Mary Rowe: And so I'm looking for a path that allows us to somehow get back into the boat and get back rowing together.
• 12:18
  Mary Rowe: If you're telling me we have to rebuild the boat, I just okay.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: We we actually have to look at different parts of our boat.
• 12:26
  Mary Rowe: Okay.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it just misses the potential, the creative potential that the constitution actually has.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: And there are other sections of the constitution that have been used to mobilize agreement between provinces and the federal government, namely around health.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, it there were a lot of kinks to work out in the creation of the Canada Health Act and the uh federal provincial health accords that now have become what we would all call Medicare, you know.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we don't care uh that it's federal money, it's X percentage going to which province.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: We care that we can go to the doctor like I did when I was helping, and then more air quotes.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: My son put together his bed for university and chopped my finger and had to go to the emergency ward in Kingston.
• 13:10
  Mary Rowe: Yeah.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I walked in, and six hours later, without paying a penny, I walked out with 20 stitches.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that's what I care about.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: That's what we actually need.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: And we need one instrument that's gonna guide that.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think that we are on our path with the national housing strategy to do that.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: I think we are on the path with Build Canada Homes to do that.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: And what we need to inject in it is the third dimension, which is the tables.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's how we get our governments to the table to figure out who does what.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 13:45
  Mary Rowe: What I'm listening for is the yes withstanding clause.
• 13:51
  Mary Rowe: Because the constitution is usually invoked to stop something.
• 13:55
  Mary Rowe: You're telling me there's opportunity in the constitutional framework to enable collective action.
• 14:03
  Mary Rowe: Yes.
• 14:04
  Mary Rowe: So that's well, there's collective action amongst governments to use our constitutional framework to strengthen our collective commitments.
• 14:11
  Mary Rowe: So the National Housing Strategy 2.0, uh Bill Canada Homes, designated and empowered to really address non-market challenges.
• 14:20
  Mary Rowe: And then you're saying that the third leg of that stool is how do we get these collaborative tables?
• 14:24
  Mary Rowe: I mean, is it not just the normal federal, provincial, territorial engagement, or is it something else?
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the thing that's missing from that table is municipalities.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I know there's no M.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: There's no M in the S.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: There's no M T.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: There's no M.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll add, um, you know, municipalities are actually the ones from a legal perspective and from a, I say human rights small H, small R, from how people live together perspective, that are bearing the risk and bearing the burden of this lack of a coherent strategy.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: So it we actually need municipalities to have a seat at that table in order to be both uh directing the funds that they already direct to the right in the right direction, knowing that they're going to be supported by the other governments that also have way more funding and way more funding tools at their disposal to actually solve the issues.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: And and the other piece that's missing is the connection with health.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: Because as as a when our conversation started, when we were talking about that main street, yeah, when somebody is unhoused and struggling with mental health issues and with substance abuse issues, that's a health issue.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: So how can we mobilize our existing intergovernmental tables or existing agreements to actually address the issue there?
• 15:41
  Mary Rowe: Uh, I mean, the as you say, how uh housing, mental health, these are all things where the challenge is acutely felt in a place, but there are common elements to these things.
• 15:54
  Mary Rowe: And hence we look for federal leadership, national programs, uh, access to best practice across the country because the best solution may not be known to you.
• 16:06
  Mary Rowe: It's known to somebody in some other part of the country.
• 16:08
  Mary Rowe: But the dilemma is that our constitutional arrangements don't necessarily uh enable that kind of flow of a particular solution to a particular place.
• 16:19
  Mary Rowe: First, how do you get the money there?
• 16:21
  Mary Rowe: Second, best practice, how do you make sure that you've got things that are adapted to the local challenge?
• 16:27
  Mary Rowe: And then politics.
• 16:30
  Mary Rowe: Yeah.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: And also the time element, too, right?
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: What's the time element?
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: I don't question, I'm not saving money for in 10 years from now, will I need to have enough money if I get cancer so that I can treat it?
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: Because I'm not relying on Medicare to still be in place, right?
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're a municipality and you're thinking about supportive housing that's going to be built in your community that's going to require both the capital cost and the operating costs, you're going to be thinking about, okay, well, it's great that Build Canada Homes is providing funding now and there's reaching home and we have an okay province that's providing, but what about the next election?
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: What about after that?
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: So the time element is some certainty that this is a long-term commitment.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's a long-term infrastructure that we're building as a country in order to address the the housing crisis that we have now, but the housing issues that we're going to be facing in the future.
• 17:23
  Mary Rowe: Do you think we can depoliticize this stuff, Alex?
• 17:26
  Mary Rowe: Like the, like if you think about it, we have built large infrastructure over the years, over uh centuries, uh, that that I'm assuming outlasted political cycles.
• 17:35
  Mary Rowe: Although I don't know that.
• 17:36
  Mary Rowe: There'll be some scholar who's gonna send us a note at City Talk and say, well, but you know, we were able to build railways, we've been able to build highway systems, various those kinds of infrastructure seem to be able to weather political transitions.
• 17:52
  Mary Rowe: Can we get housing to that level of general acceptance where we just motor on and build the build what we need and don't see these things being altered every four years over a political cycle?
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: So I when you say political, I think I just want to unpack that a little bit because when I think about political, I think about whose voices our candidates and elected officials are listening to and who they're hearing and who they're making their decisions based on.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that is the question here.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's the question.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's not which BC government are we gonna have in two weeks from now?
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: It is what do my neighbors think about this issue?
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: What do we want collectively?
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: You know, what are we aligned on when it comes to values?
• 18:42
  Mary Rowe: What do you think?
• 18:42
  Mary Rowe: What do you think the answer is to that on housing?
• 18:44
  Mary Rowe: Because I think that's one of the concerns we're seeing in other parts of the country where people are, politicians are being affected by people who come to them and complain about something, and those politicians respond to who they hear from.
• 19:00
  Mary Rowe: Versus is I think what you're getting at is if you have a broad consensus in your neighborhood, I think the politicians are less likely to overstep and make it.
• 19:10
  Mary Rowe: I think they have like I I'm sort of thinking out loud here, trying to imagine how we build consensus at the local level for the kinds of solutions you and I know are necessary for, say, housing and mental health.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: 100%.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we don't have a healthcare system and a public school system because they just manifest it, because the federal government was like, we should do this.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that's the biggest struggle we have right now is has the housing crisis gotten to a point where we collectively as Canadians agree that we actually need a solution to this?
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: It you know, the the truth is, Mary, it's not about cost.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone knows it's cheaper to have adequate housing, adequate affordable housing, especially for our most low-income folks.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: It saves money.
• 19:56
  Mary Rowe: You know, it's cheaper than having people just live on the street and then end up in the emergency room.
• 20:00
  Mary Rowe: Yeah.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: The example of house other studies.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's yeah, it's it's it's not even it's not that, right?
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a financial thing, it's a will thing.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: So the question is do enough of us have kids who are still living at home that we see it, or we're trying to buy a house and we can't, or we don't want to see as many unhoused people on our streets because it affects our daily lives, or whatever it is.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: Are we aligned on the solution?
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: So what does that take?
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: It actually takes exactly the kind of network that you're putting together for the next iteration of the national housing strategy.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: It means that advocates have to come together and be aligned.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: And my own domain, you know, my sector has to be aligned, which we're not always great at doing, to be honest.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: So no wonder they're emailing you because they're not emailing, we have no other way to connect with each other and make sure we're aligned on this.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, maybe some people do, maybe I'm maybe I'm out of the club.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, it's it's actually that.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like, are we aligning ourselves?
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: We're we're very divided on the solutions that we're suggesting, which is why we have these very odd political solutions that seem to be completely disconnected from one another.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: So we all need to be talking to each other and and really talking and listening to each other to build the kind of consensus that is saying this is the next steps, this is where we need to go next.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: And that's that's a tough job, but that's what we have to do next.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: There's no other choice.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: We can't just leave it to, you know, the federal housing and infrastructure minister to figure this out.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: It is on us, and I'm looking at you, Mary.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry, uh, it's on us to figure this out and to mobilize in the way that we know works.
• 21:39
  Mary Rowe: When I give talks, you know, across the country, I always end with something around the antidote to hopelessness and helplessness is local action.
• 21:49
  Mary Rowe: And I'm always saying we've got to find a way to have some action that they can see a positive result from.
• 21:55
  Mary Rowe: And so when I hear you suggest this, I think part of what I think we need to be tackling.
• 22:00
  Mary Rowe: Storytelling we need to be showing is that there are communities across the country in small neighborhoods who are actually doing really interesting things.
• 22:07
  Mary Rowe: I was in Hamilton, Ontario yesterday and heard the chief of police describing all the different ways in which the Hamilton Police Force, the different interventions they've been making, working with the business community, working with civil society, working with healthcare, very positive, action-oriented steps and the results that they're having.
• 22:25
  Mary Rowe: We know these examples exist.
• 22:26
  Mary Rowe: And I think that's the challenge is that we can't, I just think we're very good at admiring the problem.
• 22:32
  Mary Rowe: And we've got to start uh highlighting the solution.
• 22:35
  Mary Rowe: And as you say, Alex, eventually people get fed up enough, they say, come on, we're gonna do the right thing, you know?
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, exactly.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, please in your in your show notes, add in the Downtown East Side Land Trust, add in the Parkdale Land Trust.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there are other models that are much more effective, much more humane, that are happening right now that local communities can get behind.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: This land trusts and other kinds of housing options exist across the country in terms of uh really interesting models for the way that we can do things differently.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: The problem is, Mary, that as great as those local examples are, what we don't want to have is every community fending for itself.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, of course not.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: This has to be a Canadian commitment that we have.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: We've already agreed to it, you know.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: And the the question is, how do we how do we absorb it as part of our identity?
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: In the same way when that you ask, what's different between me and somebody who lives in Seattle?
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Canada has committed to a public healthcare system.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: We wear it like a badge of honor, at least most of us, I would say like the vast majority of us, um, we should be wearing as a badge of honor that we've committed to the the right to adequate housing and then continue building the infrastructure to make it happen.
• 23:54
  Mary Rowe: But if as we finish, talk to me about what if there were one or two things that would enable these kinds of local solutions to proliferate?
• 24:06
  Mary Rowe: What do you think they'd be?
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna turn my gaze for a moment to each of the governments.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um on the Fed, aside from my dream uh and many people's dream um about the sort of intergovernmental infrastructure being created.
• 24:22
  Mary Rowe: Um, but don't, don't, don't gloss over that.
• 24:25
  Mary Rowe: What would that look like?
• 24:26
  Mary Rowe: What would intergovernmental infrastructure look like?
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: It would look like a um sustainable, permanent set of tables that are federal, provincial, territorial, municipal that are based on uh city structure, like cities, almost like city deals that are bringing together capital operating and and you know, probably civil society organizations as well, nonprofit and for-profit as well.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: Again, these models exist all across the world.
• 24:58
  Mary Rowe: Could could could this process, this table, could it insist on integrated approaches so that you're not just dealing with housing or just dealing with mobility or just dealing with economic domain?
• 25:09
  Mary Rowe: Somehow we have to have all these things meshing together and that the local authority, whatever this authority is, yes, has to embrace all of it.
• 25:17
  Mary Rowe: It can't fix just one.
• 25:19
  Mary Rowe: It has to be in some kind of an integrated thing.
• 25:21
  Mary Rowe: Could that be part of it?
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, it is part of it in so many jurisdictions.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's not just housing can never be separated or siloed from income supports, from health.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: It never can, from from other infrastructure.
• 25:33
  Mary Rowe: Or from transit or from transit.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 25:35
  Mary Rowe: Um best jurisdiction that does this now, who is it?
• 25:39
  Mary Rowe: Uh both the UK and France.
• 25:41
  Mary Rowe: Okay.
• 25:41
  Mary Rowe: All right, keep going.
• 25:42
  Mary Rowe: Keep going.
• 25:43
  Mary Rowe: You were laying it out.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: So that's my that's my my big dream in the short term.
• 25:46
  Mary Rowe: And that can be done in the existing constitutional framework we got.
• 25:49
  Mary Rowe: Yes.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: We do it with health, right?
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: So health is a lot of things too, right?
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: So of course we can do it.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, this is not something that's this is an agreement, this is a contract that's created between these different bodies.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's a governance model.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: So there's that dream that I have.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: But I think in the as we lead up to it, what can be done for these examples of ingenious and important uh things that are taking place at the local level?
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, Build Canada Homes has to make it easier to fund these things.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: They need to be making it easy to fund the community land trust that, you know, is short$100,000 for their acquisition of a building.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: And then it's easy.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's easy.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's it there's an easy application form.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: The application form includes a housing need assessment that's already been created that's integrated.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: These are, as you well know from these examples, they're often people who are trying to come together, roll up their sleeves, and fix something in their community.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: They may not have, they may be doing it off the side of their desks as their teachers and nurses and whatever.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it can't be too complicated.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: We need to have community sector uh coalitions that can share knowledge.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not just one-offs.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: You know, for example, the Canadian Network of Community Land Trusts is relatively new on the stage.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: They're a best practice organization to do exactly this kind of thing.
• 27:07
  Mary Rowe: Yep.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, with model agreements and all the rest of it.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: And then on the provincial side, so so one of the things that I hear the most is okay, fine, we can build it, but can we operate it?
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the piece that also needs some attention, right?
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's not enough to build supportive housing.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: We need to have an operating uh agreement with the province in order to make that happen.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so what needs to happen there, in my view, we need to be thinking a lot more of how to leverage the Canada Health Act to say these are actually health costs.
• 27:38
  Mary Rowe: Right.
• 27:39
  Mary Rowe: And so you take an existing mechanism that already is already in place, and then you alter the allocation.
• 27:45
  Mary Rowe: I I feel this way about downtowns.
• 27:47
  Mary Rowe: You know, we have the Build Community Strong Fund, and I think they have to earmark a chunk of that Build Community Strong Fund for downtown revitalization and let communities two billion, just give them, you know, just give them a couple, two billion, and let communities across the country figure out what the mix is of housing, mental health supports, community safety, land trust, whatever it is, and then come and look for the investment they need.
• 28:09
  Mary Rowe: But to create, as you suggest, some kind of incentive to get that kind of coalition formed up.
• 28:17
  Mary Rowe: Sometimes money is what it takes to get them organized, right?
• 28:20
  unknown: Yeah.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I don't want to turn my gaze too much to you personally as uh as somebody who's already doing the work of several people, but in your in your group that's working on the you know, your recommendations for the next iteration of the of the federal housing strategy, you know, there's so many groups that are doing these strategies.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so ensuring that there's some alignment with what other organizations are asking for as well, what other coalitions are asking for, it's really important because of the complexity as we move in from the general to the complex, that it's it's clear if Minister Robertson picks up the memo, you know, it's pretty clear what the ask is.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a lot of work, you know, but it's really important work.
• 29:03
  Mary Rowe: Um, I just to have one last thing to ask you about, and then we'll break.
• 29:06
  Mary Rowe: This book, By Law State, your last, your latest one.
• 29:10
  Mary Rowe: To me, it's such a fascinating illustration of the conundrum of Canada, which is that with the vertical system that we've created and that we live in, you end up with this tangle of bylaws that end up being the instrument of enforcement because municipalities are kind of forced, they don't have anything else to work with, I guess.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'll never forget this.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, this, so in here at Vancouver, we have a park board that sets the bylaws for parks.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so there was an amendment to um to the park bylaw that that regulated where encampments could be located.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: And it was shocking in a way to think about that.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, with all due respect to the park board, you know, who of course are are tasked with making sure that parks are accessible to that's in their mandate, right?
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: They have to make sure parks are accessible to everybody that are deciding what's gonna happen with our most deeply vulnerable people.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's not, it is not their job to do that.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: That is not their job to do that.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: They cannot do that.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: And the bylaw cannot be the instrument that's gonna make that happen.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's just not okay.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's not okay for unhoused people, but it's also not okay for those officials to have to deal with this problem in that way, this crisis in that way.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: This is a problem.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: If you take subsidiarity, subsidiarity asks, what is the right level of government to solve this issue?
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: Municipalities, we know, cannot do it.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: They do not have an income tax.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: They do not have the fiscal capacity or the jurisdiction to handle the underlying issues that relate to it.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I still think they need to comply with human rights standards that we have, of course, but they can't solve it.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, ultimately, I think it's an all-in-government thing, but the province is the one that handles healthcare, that implements the healthcare model.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: They have to come in and assist municipalities with this issue.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it is a terrible issue that this is, it's a terrible sign of where we're at that bylaws are being able being used to regulate human beings.
• 31:19
  Mary Rowe: Yeah, I just want to think about that because, and this is why it's so provocative, the book, because you're using it as an illustration of a breakdown in the existing tools that we have to address.
• 31:32
  Mary Rowe: And what I always like to think of is that legislation is an enabling uh set of tools that allow people to flourish and make a living and support their families.
• 31:42
  Mary Rowe: And and when you see it being turned into more of a controlling enforcing piece, uh that's that's just this the the wrong side of the purpose of this kind of measure.
• 31:54
  Mary Rowe: And so, as you suggest, we've we've we're being put into this place because the upstream conditions leave us with not much choice.
• 32:04
  Mary Rowe: I think that's what municipal folks would say.
• 32:06
  Mary Rowe: It's true.
• 32:07
  Mary Rowe: Yeah.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's true.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, again, I I think there are municipalities that make other choices around what they do, like the city of Regina, you know, the city of um of uh I was gonna say Western Ontario, but London, Ontario, you know, tell I have teenage or teenagers going to university.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, like really good examples of what's happening with the authorities that they have Toronto, you know, and then there are municipalities that are making different choices, that are addressing other voices that are at the table saying, like, we want to be able to use these public spaces.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: We're we feel unsafe.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: We it doesn't matter which way you look at it, you know.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: From I don't see the point of demonizing different jurisdictions.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_00: What I say is we have a legal framework that respects that right to adequate housing that includes dignity.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: This is not the tool to do it, you know.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: And and some we have lots of governments, you know, we have so many of them.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um if you add them together, if you smush them in together, we have the tools to fix this.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: So let's smush them together and fix it.
• 33:14
  Mary Rowe: It's a good place to end.
• 33:15
  Mary Rowe: We're gonna smush them together.
• 33:17
  Mary Rowe: We need to smoosh the ingenuity and the resourcefulness and the tools that we do have at all four orders of government.
• 33:26
  Mary Rowe: And you've made me really think about what are the possibilities for the constant the current constitutional arrangement to enable the kind of alignment and creative government-to-government collaboration that has created so much of what makes Canada unique.
• 33:41
  Mary Rowe: So let's do it again.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: I love the idea of actually talking about this part of the constitution because I think you won't be trying to make me stop.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: So it's awesome.
• 33:52
  Mary Rowe: Great to have you on City Talk.
• 33:54
  Mary Rowe: We'll we'll see you soon.
• 33:56
  Mary Rowe: You're gonna love a City Talk podcast who talks about smooshing or smushing.
• 34:02
  Mary Rowe: And if you haven't looked it up yet, the Oxford English Dictionary defines it as to mash or crush.
• 34:09
  Mary Rowe: And its usage actually goes back to 1825, which means it predates the Confederation Act of Canada by 1867 minus 1820 42 years.
• 34:21
  Mary Rowe: So Professor Flynn is on small grammatical as well as legal ground, of course.
• 34:27
  Mary Rowe: A reminder that you can drop us a line at citytalcanerb.org to send us your thoughts on grammar or any other topic, or click the talk to us from your city link under the episode description to send us an instant text or a video message.
• 34:42
  Mary Rowe: I'm Mary Remo.
• 34:44
  Mary Rowe: Thanks for listening.