Liberals hope focus on housing, crime halts their plummet in the polls as Parliament returns
CBC
After taking a beating in the polls all summer, Liberal MPs are expected to focus on two areas of political vulnerability for them — housing and public safety — when Parliament resumes today after the summer break.
Conservatives, riding high in the polls and re-energized after a September policy convention, will use every opportunity they have during the fall sitting to argue that after eight years in government, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's policies have failed to address a shortage of housing or to keep communities safe.
Question period will resume this afternoon for the first time since June, after a summer of growing voter anxiety over the cost of living and unprecedented wildfires.
"Our focus is really going to be about affordability and public safety," Government House Leader Karina Gould told Rosemary Barton Live.
"That's going to be my main focus as government House leader ... making sure we're advancing legislation that is dealing with the very real challenges that Canadians are facing within their households and their budgets ... as well as addressing some of the public safety challenges that we faced over the past year."
Here are the issues expected to dominate Parliament this fall.
After meeting with caucus in London, Ont., where his party's sinking political fortunes were raised, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a fleet of new measures Thursday aimed at countering rising housing and grocery prices.
The federal government says it will remove the GST from the construction of new rental apartments to spur new development.
The GST change announced Thursday was part of the Liberal Party's election platform in 2015. The Liberal government abandoned that policy in 2017, saying there were better ways to boost rental construction
"We feel that now is the right time to bring this in," said Gould.
The Liberals also will now require municipalities to repeal or amend exclusionary zoning policies in order to access the government's Housing Accelerator Fund.
The Thursday announcement appeared to be an attempt to deflate Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre's claims that Trudeau has been missing in action on the file.
Undeterred, Poilievre held a separate media conference Thursday announcing plans to introduce a private bill he says would fast-track the construction of new homes in Canada.
While the "Building Homes Not Bureaucracy Act" is not yet on the House of Commons notice paper and likely won't become law, it signals how the Official Opposition will approach the issue in Parliament.
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