Ahmed Hussen Makes A Fool Of Himself Attempting To Blame Pierre Poilievre For Failed Liberal Housing Policy

By Spencer Fernando, Exclusive to the National Citizens Coalition

The Liberals face a serious problem:

They are an extremely ‘activist’ government, in that they propose government spending and centralized government power as the solution for every issue facing Canada.

At the same time however, things in Canada aren’t going well.

Per capita GDP is declining, crime is rising, social programs are crumbling. And perhaps most damaging to our long-term prospects, an entire generation is now largely locked out of the dream of home ownership due to an out-of-control housing market.

During the Liberals’ time in office, average house prices have doubled. Meanwhile, incomes have been almost stagnant during that period.

So, for an ‘activist’ government that intervenes in everything, there is no way for them to realistically blame others for what has happened on their watch.

But that hasn’t stopped them from trying.

Housing Minister Ahmed Hussen was absolutely ratioed on Twitter for attempting to blame Pierre Poilievre for Canada’s lack of affordable homes.

Here’s what Hussen said:

“Now is the time for solutions, not political theatre. 

While Pierre Poilievre & the Conservatives are focused on cuts & far-right rhetoric, we are focused on one thing: bringing everyone to the table to get the affordable homes Canadians need, built now.”

At the time I’m writing this, the Tweet has just 270 retweets, but over 2,000 replies – almost all of which are extremely negative towards Hussen’s message.

In Hussen’s National Post op-ed itself, he clearly sought to make Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives appear responsible for Canada’s housing affordability crisis.

Here are a few excerpts:

“Now is not the time to blame mayors. Now is not the time to pick fights for political gain. And yet, instead of putting aside partisan politics, Poilievre is pointing blame at the very municipal leaders who are working hard to help people in their communities. He is proposing cuts to services and investments that Canadians rely on. If he had his way, he would slash funding for infrastructure Canadians need, like roads, hospitals, community centres and public transit unless mayors cave in to his demands. That is political theatre, not leadership.”

If it wasn’t clear that Hussen was trying to blame Poilievre, the closing sections of the op-ed dispel all doubt:

“As a minister under prime minister Stephen Harper, Poilievre did not believe the federal government had a role to play on housing whatsoever. He had nearly 10 years to act, but he did not.

After nearly a decade of inaction under the Harper-Poilievre government, we brought the federal government back to the table by launching Canada’s first-ever National Housing Strategy. Since then, our housing investments have helped more than two million households get the housing they need. We are putting Canada on track to double housing construction over the next decade. And we are just getting started.”

Yes, Hussen is not only blaming Pierre Poilievre, he’s also trying to blame former Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Unfortunately for Hussen, while housing prices did indeed rise somewhat under the Harper government, the completely absurd surge in housing prices has occurred under the Trudeau Liberals:

Figure 1 - Source: Macrobond, Macquarie Macro Strategy - National Post

Prescient Poilievre

Making all this even more insane is that Hussen appears to believe that saying how hard the government is trying and listing some failed policies somehow distracts from what the above chart reveals.

He can talk all he wants, but nothing he says changes the reality that the housing market has careened out of control on the Liberals’ watch.

Hussen’s attempt to blame Poilievre is even more laughable given that Poilievre repeatedly warned that this is what would happen if the Liberals didn’t restrain their spending.

About three years ago, when the Liberal government and the Bank of Canada were claiming that ‘deflation’ was the real threat, Pierre Poilievre was delivering speeches in the House of Commons where he went into great detail on the impending consequences from massive federal spending, massive deficits, and massive money printing by the Bank of Canada.

Poilievre repeatedly explained that without a substantial increase in the supply of goods, an increase in the supply of money would lead to inflation – particularly of fixed assets like housing.

At the time, the Liberals accused Poilievre of ‘fearmongering’ and ‘talking down Canada’s economy.’

Turns out, he was exactly right about what was going to happen.

This is another huge problem for the Liberals.

Their main opponent was right, and they were wrong. 

They obviously can’t admit this, nor can they take responsibility for what has happened to the housing market during their time in power. So, all they have left is to try and somehow blame Poilievre for it.

Hussen made a fool of himself with his Tweet and his op-ed, but any attempt by the Liberals to talk their way out of the housing affordability crisis was always going to fail.

In many ways, such absurdly dishonest political attacks betray the weakness of the Liberals’ position. They have almost nothing positive to campaign on, so fear and deception is their last resort.

Hopefully, common-sense Canadians will see through this and will realize that perhaps we should elect those like Poilievre who were able to accurately predict the consequences of government actions, rather than those like Hussen and Trudeau who seem addicted to blaming others for their own failures.

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