Open Letter to the Minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities

Hon. Sean Fraser, P.C., M.P.

Minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities

House of Commons

Ottawa, ON K1A 0A6

Open Letter: The Housing Crisis in Perth—Wellington

Dear Minister Fraser:

Congratulations on your appointment as Canada’s new Minister of Housing.

As you are aware, since 2015 your government’s record on housing has been disastrous. I hope you will deliver much better results than the Liberal ministers who previously held this file.

Last December I sent an open letter to your immediate predecessor expressing the challenges faced by my constituents created by the housing crisis. I hope you will read this letter and provide a more substantive response than he did.

Recently, local municipalities have expressed concerns to me that the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) has decided to group all municipalities with a population of over 10,000 in the “Large/Urban stream” of the Housing Accelerator Fund.

This is utter nonsense.  Placing rural and small-town municipalities like North Perth (Population: 15,538), Mapleton (Population: 10,839), Perth East (Population: 12,595), Wellington North (Population: 12,431), and Stratford (Population: 33,232) in competition with cities like Toronto (Population: 2,794,356), Mississauga (Population: 717,961), and Hamilton (Population: 569,353) is absurd.  Simply put, it will once again penalize rural municipalities. 

As I have informed several cabinet ministers on multiple occasions over the past eight years, municipalities in Perth—Wellington do not have the same resources that large cities do.  Unlike their larger urban counterparts, rural municipalities do not have a professional, full-time grant writer on staff.  Instead, they rely on their very capable, but much-worked staff who prepare these applications on the proverbial “corner of their desks.”

It is unreasonable to expect a small municipality to compete with big city finance departments for money in the same stream of federal funds.  This is yet another example of your government catering to large, urban centres while ignoring small-town and rural Canada. 

I urge you, as one of your first actions as Minister of Housing, to immediately correct this situation.

Sincerely,

John Nater, M.P.

Perth—Wellington

Enclosed: Open Letter to Minister Hussen, December 21, 2022