Uncommons with Nate Erskine-Smith

Nate and Carolyn Whitzman talk about her recent book Home Truths, Canada's housing needs, and different historical and international approaches that should inform how we build market, non-market, and supportive housing. Carolyn is a housing and social policy researcher, an expert advisor to UBC's Housing Assessment Resource Tools, and a senior housing researcher at U of T's School of Cities. She is also the author of Home Truths, Fixing Canada's Housing Crisis.How many homes do we need to build? How should we go about building them? And who should we be serving?Transcript:Nate:Welcome to Uncommons. I'm Nate Erskine-Smith. For those of you who are tuning in more recently, I'm the Member of Parliament for Beaches-East York. And this Uncommons podcast is a series of interviews with experts in their respective fields with colleagues of mine in parliament really focused on Canadian politics and policy in relation to that politics.And today I'm joined by Carolyn Whitzman. She is an expert in housing policy, one of the most important issues at all levels of government that need to be addressed in a comprehensive, serious way. You'll hear all politicians sort of trip over themselves with different housing plans.And the question for Carolyn is, how many homes do we need to build? How should we go about building them? And who should we be serving? And how are we going to get out of this housing crisis that this country faces and that all regions face in their own respective ways?Now, Carolyn is a housing and social policy researcher. She's an expert advisor to UBC's housing assessment resource tools. She's a senior housing researcher at U of T's School of Cities. And most importantly, having just read her book, she is the author of Home Truths, Fixing Canada's Housing Crisis.Nate:Carolyn, thanks for joining me.Caroyln:Great to join you, Nate.Nate:So you came highly recommended to me by virtue of Mark Richardson, who's a constituent and an advocate on housing and someone I, you know, anything he says on housing is to be believed.And he's, you know, he highly recommended your book, Home Truths, but he also suggested you as a podcast guest. So I really, really appreciate the time. And much of your work, you know, your main work, other than being an expert in all things housing, but a core expertise that you have is really on the needs assessment in terms of what the housing market in Canada needs in particular in different regions. And there are different needs.There are market needs, there are non-market needs, there's deeply affordable needs for people who are experiencing homelessness.And so how would you break down, you know, if you've got Sean Fraser coming to you and saying, what are the needs assessments? How would you break down the needs assessments on housing in this country?Caroyln:Well, funny you should say that because Sean's office and housing and infrastructure has come to me. So I did some work with a project called the Housing Assessment Resource Tools Project based at UBC that was funded by the CMHC that did what the CMHC used to do and unfortunately no longer does, which is look at housing need by income categories.Canada has been doing that since 1944 during World War II when a report by a relatively conservative economist named Curtis said that for low-income people, probably some form of public housing was going to be necessary to meet their needs.For middle-income people, there needed to be a lot more purpose-built rental housing, he said that in 1944. And he also said in 1944 that there needed to be some way to control rent increases and he suggested cooperative housing. And then for higher-income people, definitely scale up while located home ownership.To some extent the Canadian government listened. Between 1944 and 1960, there were about a million homes enabled through government land financing design replication that were for moderate-income starter households.In those days it was mostly one-earner households, like a man at home and a woman, sorry, a woman at home and a man at work. And the homes were two to three bedrooms between $7,000 and $8,000. So pretty remarkably that's like $80,000 to $90,000 in today's terms.Nate:That would be nice.Carolyn:Yeah, wouldn't it be nice? Once they were sold, they lost our affordability.So since then, and certainly in the 1970s and 1980s when the federal government was building, well again enabling, about one in five homes to be built by public housing, cooperative housing, other non-profit housing, that housing was affordable to what they called low- and moderate-income households, so the lowest two quintiles of household income. Home ownership was easily affordable to moderate in most places and middle-income households.So there's always been some housing needs, but there wasn't widespread homelessness. There wasn't the kinds of craziness that you see today where new rental housing isn't affordable to middle-income earners, where new homeowners are limited to the highest quintile, like the highest 20% of population.So we simply use the same kinds of categories, also the kinds of categories that are used in the U.S. and other countries. Low income, moderate income, median income, and then higher income.Unfortunately with provincial social assistance rates being what they are, we have to add a very low income, which is like 20% of median income, and really isn't enough to afford a room let alone an apartment. But yeah, that's the way we look at housing need.Nate:But then, so let's be maybe, that's at a high level for how we look, how we analyze it,and then when we look at the Canadian context today, so you talk about the Curtis Reportpost-war and on my reading of, I found your historical examples very interesting, internationalexamples interesting too, which we'll get to, but this was one of the most interestingones because here you have the Curtis Report proposing annual targets that you say is effectively the equivalent of 4 million homes over 10 years. But then they break this down into a particular categories.Then you've got, you know, two years ago, two and a bit of years ago, you had CMHC issued a report to say we effectively need 5.8 million homes by 2030. So 2.3 million in business as usual. And then you've got this 3.5 million additional homes required. And that's impossible for us to achieve based upon the current trajectory at all levels of government, frankly, but especially at the provincial level.And so when you look at the needs assessment today, so Curtis Report has 4 million over10 years, what do we need today? Is CMHC right?It's 5.8 million, although they don't break it down into these different categories, or should we be more specific to say, as you do, it's 200,000 new or renovated deeply affordable supportive homes over 10 years, and then you've got different categories for market and non-market.Carolyn:Well, I think it's important to prioritize people whose lives are literally being shortened because of lack of housing. So I think that ending homelessness should be a priority. And there's no doubt that we can't end homelessness without a new generation of low-cost housing.So I wouldn't disagree that we need 6,000 new homes. I did a report last year for the Office of the Federal Housing Advocate that argued that we need 3 million new and acquired homes for low-income people alone at rents of about $1,000 a month or less, certainly less if you're on social assistance.So the deed is pretty large. We have to recognize the fact that it's taken 30 to 50 years of inaction, particularly federal inaction, but also the Fed's downloaded to provinces, and as you say, provinces have done an extremely poor job to get there.And I think that what we see from countries that work, like France and Finland, Austria, is that they think in terms of like 30-year infrastructure categories, just like any other infrastructure. If we were to have a really viable public transit system, we'd need to start thinking in terms of what are we going to do over the next 30 years.Similarly, I think we need to look at a kind of 30-year time span when it comes to housing, and I think we need to look once again at that rule of thirds, which is a rule that's used in a lot of, in Germany and again in France and Finland, Denmark, about a third of it needs to be pretty deeply affordable low-income housing, about a third of it needs to be moderate-income rental, but with renter rights to ensure that the rents don't go up precipitously, and about a third of it needs to be for home ownership.Nate:You mentioned a 30-year window a few times there, and it strikes me that we need more honesty in our politics in that there's no quick solution to most of these challenges. That it's, you know, in your telling of the story, which I think is exactly right, this is decades in the making, and it will be decades in undoing this challenge and in addressing this as fulsome as we should.Now, that's not to say, you're right, we should prioritize people whose lives are being shortened by a lack of housing. There's some things we can do immediately to get more rapid housing built and really drive at that in a shorter window of time.But when you look at non-market housing, when you look at the market housing we need to build, no politician should stand at the microphone and say, we're going to build the homes we need without really overhauling how we do things and understanding that these homes are not going to get built tomorrow, that this is putting down track, policy track, to make sure homes get built in the next five years, in the next 10 years and beyond.Carolyn:Absolutely. And I think it's really important to start off with some aspirational goals. Like, forinstance, it was 1987 when Finland said, we're going to end homelessness, and this is how we're going to do it. France in 2000 said 20% of all housing should be non-market, in other words, public cooperative, non-profit.And in both Finland and France, there's been federal government changes as well as changes at the municipal level, etc. And those goals have remained the same through right wing and left wing governments.It does worry me, Nate, when politicians, I won't name any names, use sort of three word slogans, and that's going to somehow change things in the term of the government.Nate:I will will homes into existence by rhyming.Carolyn:So, you know, it takes building up systems, including good information systems to monitor and track how well we're doing and course correct. And that's something kind of basic that's been missing from federal policy as well.There's one report that says there's 655,000 non-market homes. Another report two years later says that there's 980,000 non-market homes and those weren't built in two years. So, you know, what is our current housing stock? How are our policies working to create certain kinds of housing, housing for people with disabilities or housing for seniors?Student housing need wasn't even included in the last few censuses. So, we don't really know how many students need housing at what cost and where. These are all examples of things that would be in a real national housing strategy.Nate:That seems to me like the basics, right? Like you measure why I want to start theconversation with a needs assessment, because if you don't start with that, then you're not working in a serious direction to any end goal.But I was also struck by your book just and you mentioned a couple of international examples and I'll say again, I want to get there, but I want to start the historical examples because part of us we live in this Overton window and we've had the federal government, not this federal government, but previous federal governments walk away from their responsibilities on housing.As you say, the story is a story of downloading responsibilities. There's been some uploading of responsibilities back through the last two national housing strategies as far as it goes, but we could talk about whether there ought to be more of that even and I think there probably should be more fiscal firepower when I look at the international examples and what's spent in France and Germany and other countries.But I was also struck by the historical ability to build in this country. And this is one thing that jumped out, but I'd also be curious what when you were writing this book, like what really jumped out is you as, so we're building fewer homes now than we were in the mid 1970s when the population was half what it is now. I found that absolutely shocking.I also found it shocking if new home construction had stayed at 1970s levels, we'd have an additional 6 to 7 million homes, meaning we'd be where we should be.Carolyn:Yeah, yeah. So what happened? And I think a couple of things happened. One is, and this happened in a couple of countries. It happened in Sweden too.Sweden said, we'll build a million homes in a country of 8 million, which is pretty impressive. And they did. And then they had a slight surplus of homes. They had some vacancies.And instead of going, yay, vacancies, tenants have a choice. They went, oh my God, vacancies,what are we doing? There was also a change of government, of course. So they course corrected.Part of it is that a good housing system includes about 4 to 8% vacancies, just because people move,there's vacancies in between people moving. You want people to have a choice. We know that vacancies help bring rents down in sort of...Nate:And standards up, right?Carolyn:And standards up using classic supply and demand. So we want to see some vacancies. We don't want to have a zero vacancy system. That's number one.Number two is just this increasing belief in the late 1970s and early 1980s. And it came from both the right and the left to distrust government.I think Robert Moses, the chief planner of New York City for decades has a lot to answer for because people started looking at this big, heavy-handed planning and said, we don't want anything of it.And so activists in central cities said, we don't want our heritage knocked down, which I completely understand, but then created such restrictive zoning that only very rich households can live in the majority of well-located neighborhoods in Toronto, for instance.But from the right as well, there was this belief that the market can solve all problems, including the problem of housing for low-income people. And there's never been any proof that that particular contention is true. Whereas there's plenty of evidence that the needs of low-cost, low-income people can only be met through a kind of social perspective.Just like if you said, hey, you have to pay the real costs of healthcare. Well, 20% of you won't be able to, and that's too bad for you. Or everyone needs to pay the real cost of primary education. Well, sorry, many of you will have to remain illiterate.So housing is a basic need, a basic social determinant of health, just as education and healthcare is. And although housing is unlike healthcare and education in that the majority of it is provided by the private sector, just like food, there does need to be some consideration for the fact that everybody needs housing, just like they need healthcare and education and food.Nate:There's a lot there. And really, I think I was on the road a lot last year for an ultimately unsuccessful bid on the provincial leadership side. But I talked about housing a lot because it was, I think it's got to be the overriding focus for all levels of government, but especially provincial governments as it relates to zoning reform.And the line I would use, and I believe in this, I think this is how to articulate it at a high level that governments need to get out of the way on the market side so homes can be built and governments have to get back in the game in a serious way on getting social housing built and public housing built. And at a high level, those are the two objectives.Now, let's start with, there's a lot in what you said on both fronts, but let's start with market housing.You've got a tragic situation where you've got a doubling of home prices, but wages have only increased by 7% over the last five, six years. You've set out a target on this front in your own analysis to say we need 2 million homes with affordable monthly rents.So that's our goal. And to get there, part of this is ending exclusionary zoning. And then every level of government has role to play.The federal government has the Housing Accelerator Fund, which is one of the programs I quite like, although I know it's subject to maybe getting cut under the next government.Carolyn:I do too. I just wish that there was the same kind of conditional funding with provinces. I mean, it seems like the federal government has gone, yeah, let's bully some municipalities and I have no problem with that, or let's provide targets to municipalities.Nate:I'm okay with the firm sort of like carrots and sticks. And in this case, yeah, it's a combination of the two.Carolyn:It is.Nate:And we should be firm with municipalities that don't do their jobs on any restrictive zoning. But when a province can end it with the stroke of a pen across the board, surely we should be even more forceful with provincial governments.Carolyn:Well, let me give the example of supportive housing. So the federal government announcedthe Rapid Housing Initiative, which in many ways has been the most successful national housing strategy program, although it came along as a COVID era additional.Nate:It's the only program I really like talking about, other than the half, the Housing Accelerator Fund, because I can see real results. I can see Toronto, for example, working to change their zoning rules and other municipalities across the province and country, frankly.The Rapid Housing is the only other piece. And there was a housing accelerator or a housing innovation fund, affordable housing innovation fund that was sort of a precursor to it. That's the only program I really point to to show like that's results oriented. There are real outcomes I can point to of homes that have been built where there are people that have moved out of the shelter system that are living in these homes. And, you know, people can debate it, but I see it as a broad success.Carolyn:I'm in furious agreement. It met and exceeded targets. The only problem was that in many cases it was supportive housing or housing with supports. And those supports can't be provided by the federal government.Nate:I know.Carolyn:It's worth of the provincial responsibility. And I think there was a little bit of wishful thinking that the provinces would come along, but in many cases, and Ontario is one of them, they just didn't come along.So what would it be like if the federal government said, okay, as part of our health transfer dollars, we're going to transfer money directly into the health and social support services that we know are necessary in order to keep people with mental and physical health needs housed and we'll just claw it out of the health transfer payment.I think that would be fair. It's still going to the people who need it the most through municipalities, but it would have the impact of showing that these targets are serious and also hopefully pointing provinces towards genuine plans to end homelessness. And the province has so many levers that could help prevent and end homelessness.It has landlord-tenant relations and eviction protection. It has health and social services, which are an essential part of housing for people with disabilities, older people, et cetera. So the province can't wash its hands of the kind of housing policy that the federal government and municipalities are talking about.They are the laggard in terms of the three levels of government, as far as I'm concerned.Nate:Do you think, so I have an example locally of 60 units built modular housing. It was through the Affordable Housing Innovation Fund, that's how I even know it exists, but the precursor to sort of rapid housing.And I think of it as a success. It was some local opposition. It was challenging to get through some of those conversations. There's probably a bit more legwork that could have been done to make sure that it's all single units and it could have been probably, there are demographics to serve that drive this and I do understand that, but I do think in some of these cases, some of the literature I've read suggests that having some mix of single and family units can be helpful in the longer term.I've read some stuff from John Sewell and others. So I don't know, maybe some of that could have been part of the mix in a way to respond to local concerns, but overall it's been a success.And yet the city puts up the parking lot, the feds bring in the capital dollars, it gets built and the missing partner of the table on the wraparound ongoing supports is the province of Ontario.So we fill this locally with a particular project, but it happens everywhere. And you're right. I do think we need to be more forceful on the provincial side. So then what does that look to you?You did in your book suggest a couple of different things. You have a different idea that you propose there, but one piece is around requiring infrastructure dollars. So you have more, you're pushing provinces to add more density in transit oriented areas and you tie federal infrastructure dollars.The half is obviously an example of using some federal dollars to try and change dynamics. We've got now a version of this where there's billions of dollars in loans available to provinces that opt into sort of the BC model, BC bills and doing things in a better way.If you're advising the housing minister on this front, how much more forceful can we be at the federal level around addressing NIMBYism, do you think?Caroyln:Well, I think the big cure to NIMBYism is a lot more front-end work when it comes to community planning.There's some really good work that's been done by a group called Renovate the Public Hearing, NBC. It's a black-clad group out of Simon Fraser and they use citizen juries, for instance, which are randomly chosen individuals in a community. Actually, Mark was part of one many years ago in Toronto out by Jennifer Keesmaat and they make kind of high-level decisions around planning.Usually people, just everyday people off the street, given all the facts and all the evidence, will make pretty good decisions. But I don't think that residents should be asked to make decisions about every single development. I think there needs to be a lot more enabling environment quite radically, I suppose.I think that four stories as of right with unlimited units would allow a whole new generation of small apartment buildings.Nate:That seems the minimum, by the way, so this is something that, you know, the half pushes and other changes have been proposed by other municipal leaders are on four stories as of right. Sorry, four units.Carolyn:It's not four units, it's four stories.Nate:Okay, so four stories would be more radical, but it's certainly less radical though than, the example I love from your book was Japan, which has incredibly permissive zoning rules that is rightly focused their zoning permissions on nuisances and real nuisances that affect quality of life, and not just they keep certain people out of this community and keep my property values up.Carolyn:And that's about mix as well. That's about having small grocery stores next to homes, next to trial care centers, next to high schools or whatever.So I think a lot of the land use zoning is infamously two-dimensional. Like it says, this is what the land use will bein this particular area. And that's really problematic in terms of the kind of walkable communities that many of us are talking about as well as transit-oriented communities.Of course,the minimum heights would need to be greater near transit stations and even bus stops, I'd argue, but certainly that sort of baseline that would allow, they'd allow multiplexes, they'd allow people to build granny flats and give the main house to one of their kids or two of their kids if the kids subdivided or whatever.I think that that's sort of the retail change that needs to happen. There's sort of the wholesale change, which are big new developments on government land or near transit stations, et cetera.But the sort of retail change is really important. A lot of neighborhoods in Toronto, and I know you live in Toronto, have lower densities than they did 30 years ago. They have smaller households, more single-person households, et cetera. So the built form needs to, you know, we need to have a lot more flexible housing to make a long story short.And even if in the best case scenario, non-market housing was 20% of all housing, 80% would still be provided by the private sector. It's really hard for homeowners to say, hey, I'm going to subdivide into three units.The municipal government makes it difficult through approvals and development taxes. Finance providers say, what's your experience as a developer? You know, so I think we need a far more enabling environment to make the kind of changes we need.Nate:Well, my last comment I would say on the market side is, and density, and in general, and encouraging density. It does strike me, one other tool that the feds could potentially use is when we, one thing is, you know, okay, tying infrastructure dollars to density around transit. That seems like no brainer stuff.But there's also when the mayor of Norfolk County comes to me and says, we need real investments in wastewater. Well, great. Federal investments on the infrastructure side tied to some action on density. And I think different municipalities will have different needs.And similarly, some municipalities may balk to go, well, if we add so much density, well, how do we manage the healthcare capacity in these areas, the school capacity in these areas, the childcare capacity in these areas.And so there are infrastructure related needs to adding density and the feds and the province are in a much better position to write those large checks to make that happen.Anyway, so I think there's, you know, maybe housing accelerator fund, but just pushed to, you know, the next level even. So it's not just dollars related housing, but it's dollars related infrastructure more broadly.Okay, but on the, you mentioned non-market and I do want to spend a good amount of time on that, because I actually think that is the missing piece. We can talk about market housing forever, but you rightly know in your book that, you know, market housing is not going to get us out of the crisis that we're in, especially for so many people who can never imagine owning a home right now, given where home prices are at and how much they've run away from wages.And I want you to talk a little bit about, for those who maybe don't get through, who don't get to your book, the examples, you mentioned France, you mentioned, there's a range of different examples in your book though, focus on non-market housing. We used to do this in Canada in a more serious way.What are some of the things we should be doing that other countries do in this space? What would be your top three, four or five hit lists of, you know, France does this and Denmark does this, and if Canada really wanted to re-energize, writing big checks is one of it, but if Canada really wanted to re-energize the space, what's your hit list?Carolyn:Well, one of them is something I'm working on today, actually, in response to a request from the federal government, which is, what's the capacity of developers across Canada to create large-scale developments on government land? So, there are some really exciting large-scale developments.In Vancouver alone, there's SINOC, which is a Squamish-led development that's going to produce 6,000 apartments, very well located next to Burrard Bridge, as well as Jericho Lands, which again is Canada Lands Company plus three First Nations. Those are the kinds of large-scale development that can really show a way forward.And if you look at St. Lawrence neighborhood, people used to come from all over the world to look at St. Lawrence neighborhood. What an amazing development that was, 50 years old now, and 4,000 homes, a third each, public housing, cooperative housing, condos, again the rule of thirds.It was considered such a radical idea to have schools at the bottom and grocery stores at the bottom and a church and a pub and a restaurant and everything at the bottom, but it really works knit along that linear park. It's still a really lovely neighborhood, and it was a game-changer.At that time, talking about families living in eight-story buildings was considered, you know, crazy radical stuff, but it worked. So, we need about 100 more St. Lawrence neighborhoods, and then we need a lot of small-scale enablers such as, as I say, four-story buildings that I was recently on the housing industry task force, and there's so many innovative prefabricated housing producers, and they said all we need is a certain level of guaranteed demand.We'll build the factories, we'll hire the people, and of course you get a much more diverse labor force working for factories than you might in construction industries.The construction industry right now is an aging population with a high level of retirements expected, so we need prefab housing.Prefab housing can be awesome. What would it be like if the federal government did a guaranteed order of, I don't know, 200,000 homes a year, most ambitiously. Okay, let's call it 50,000, be a little bit less ambitious.We know already that modular student housing works in Quebec. UTILE builds affordable student homes really cheaply using modular. We know that the Rapid Housing Initiative was on the back of a kind of four-story special with the ground floor being community services and the social workers, and three stories of housing above it.So, we have those kinds of models that will work nationally, and if you did that sort of a pre-order, you could really build up Canada's prefab industry in a really exciting way. It's really important for the north where construction seasons are slow.You know, it ticks so many boxes.Nate:Yeah, it really does. I like that idea a lot.Well, and one thing that struck me, I mentioned Denmark. One thing that struck me was, but before we get to Denmark, actually the stat from France struck me, and people should know, so France produces 110,000 non-market homes a year, more in one year than the total number of non-market homes created in Canada over the last 24 years.Like, that blew my brain. Like, I just like, what are we even doing here? If France is doing that and we're doing this, like, whoa, what are we even doing here?Carolyn:It's really important to emphasize how beautiful many of those homes are. I mean, I don't know whether you've been to Paris recently, but I was in Paris.Nate:Not recently, no. Paris. I got kids. It's hard to travel these days.Carolyn:Oh, but you know, you can just offer them a chocolate croissant.Anyhow, so Cazane de Relay, which is on a former military barracks, and it is, it's got student housing, it's got family housing, but it's knitted around in the former, like, Chondemar, the former military parade ground, this beautiful park that has cafes in it.And it's in a very ritzy part of Paris near a subway line, and people love it, because it's an adaptive reuse of space with a beautiful park in the middle of it. Again, you can make beautiful, socially inclined, environmentally sound architecture, and it's nothing to be ashamed of.Nate:Yeah, of course, yeah.Carolyn:For a long time, I mean, people think of the original version of Regent Park, and they think about these very dire projects.But, you know, think about St. Lawrence neighborhood. Think about in Ottawa, Beaver Barracks, which again, has this beautiful set of community gardens in the middle of it, and district heating, and all kinds of cool stuff. We can make beautiful things.Nate:I mentioned France just because it's such a frustrating comparison that they are building so much more. But Denmark, I found an interesting example because it's a practical sort of solution-oriented example.It's not just, this, France is doing way more than Canada, sorry, Canada. But Denmark's National Building Fund provides 45-year mortgages, 30 years to pay off the building costs, and then 15 years to fund the next new project.Other countries have just, if you compare CMHC financing for non-market versus what these other countries are doing, I mean, other countries are just way lower cost and longer-term financing. And that seems like, I don't know, it seems like low-hanging fruit to me. I don't know how much pushback there is from CMHC, but if we can't do that, then we're not going to solve this problem at all.Carolyn:Well, that's the secret sauce. That was the secret sauce in the 1970s and 1980s when up to 20% of new homes were non-market. It was 40-year mortgages at 2% at the time, when crime was 6%.So it is a challenge, or let's put it this way, it's not CMHC as much as it is the finance ministers who tend not to love that.But you can get to the point, it's not just Denmark, it's Austria and France as well, where you have a revolving loan fund and it refreshes itself.And that goes back to our earlier conversation of the need for thinking long-term. Infrastructure financing is always long-term and the payback from infrastructure financing is always long-term.Nate:I want to get to a conversation, sort of conclude with addressing homelessness, but before we get there, just on the protecting renters. We've promised a bill of rights for tenants and that's obviously in some ways tough because the federal jurisdiction is going to require, again, sort of a carrot-stick approach, although interesting again to note the historical example of national rent control, I think it was in the 1940s, but regardless.Carolyn:1940s and 1941 and 1975.Okay, so even more recent than that. You know Pierre, said in 1975, thou shalt have rent control and all the provinces said, okay.Nate:Interesting. And even where we have some rent control, obviously Ontario is a classic example where you've got rent control while the unit is lived in and then there's such a massive disincentive to keep the unit up or to respond to tenant concerns because, oh, if the tenant leaves, shrug my shoulders, I actually make more money because I can now, the rent control disappears.Carolyn:It's a huge incentive for evictions and it was brought in, that exemption vacancy control was brought in by conservative government.Nate:Does not surprise me on that front. So on the protecting renters front, there's a window here at least with the tenants bill of rights, although maybe a short life left in this parliament, but there is a window there.I think there's probably a window to collaborate with the NDP on something like that or the Bloc on something like that to really get something done. So there's at least some space to maybe fulfill on the implementation side.Beyond that space or maybe even in that space, what would you want to see in Canada on renter protections?Carolyn:I'm doing some work right now with an investor group called SHARE, S-H-A-R-E, that is on ESG guidelines for investors in housing. And I think it's really important, we now have environmental guidelines for investment in housing, but we don't yet have social guidelines on investment.And I sometimes think that soft-suasion is as important as we've been talking about the bully function of federal government. I think it is really that I've seen ESG guidelines have a huge impact on investors.I think that unions, to give one specific example, are uncomfortable with the fact that several of their pension funds invest in and actually have entirely owned REITs who evict current and former union members. I think that's an uncomfortable place to be.So I think that investor guidelines are really important and they would be a world first if they were developed in Canada. So that's kind of exciting.What else is needed in terms of tenant rights? Look, countries in Europe, including countries that are majority renter and richer than Canada, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Denmark, they tend to have longer leases and tend to have far harder roads towards eviction.So it's partly, absolutely rent, some level of rent negotiation. What Denmark does, one of the things I love about Denmark, is it has, it funds tenant unions and the tenant unions negotiate sort of the landlord.Nate:Better bargaining power.Carolyn:It's a bargaining situation and there is an emphasis on fair cost-based rent increases each year, which seems like a fair and transparent process, but also longer leases is part of the trick. I think that you want to create a situation where you can live for a long time as a renter, invest in other forms of requirement savings other than homes.But right now, definitely being a renter is a second class situation and that leads a lot of people to get into really, really scary debt in order to become homeowners. And that's not necessarily a good situation as well, or living very far away from your work or having to move away from where your family is.Nate:Well, it speaks to, and maybe we should have started here instead of finishing here, but it speaks to what are the twin goals in some ways, like what is a home and to deliver for someone that sense of home and shelter and safety.You have a rundown of different things that have to be considered here. But I think what I would want from a policy lens is at a minimum, you want sure there's some semblance of affordability, and you want to make sure that there's security of tenure, that you want to make sure that people, whether they're a tenant, tenants shouldn't be at

Nate is joined by Erin O'Toole, the former leader of the Conservative Party of Canada. Together in front of a live audience in Beaches-East York, they tackle Trump’s tariffs, foreign interference, and the impacts of polarization. They also chat about collaboration across party lines, their experiences running for leader of their party, and they evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of Prime Minister Trudeau and Pierre Poilievre. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.uncommons.ca

On these two episodes of Uncommons, Nate does a deeper dive on the economics of Canadian immigration policies, including a look at the unsustainable rise in temporary immigration levels, recent government action to correct those levels, and what is almost certainly an over correction to the permanent resident levels. In part one, Nate’s joined by University of Waterloo labour economics professor Mikal Skuterud.Professor Skuterud has written extensively on the economics of Canadian immigration, he’s been consulted by different Ministers, and he’s been a vocal critic of the government’s management of the immigration file, especially with respect to temporary foreign workers. In part two, Nate is joined by Lisa Lalande, the CEO of Century Initiative, a group that advocates for policies to strengthen Canada’s long-term economic prospects, including by growing our overall population to 100 million people by 2100. Ms. Lalande argues for strong but smartly managed immigration to ensure Canada’s economy remains competitive and resilient in the long-term, and she makes the case that Canada must build housing and improve healthcare to accommodate smart growth as well as our non-economic goals. In some ways, the guests are sharply at odds with one another. But in others, there is alignment: that Canada needed to tackle temporary immigration levels, but has caused further unnecessary challenges by reducing permanent immigration levels. Youtube: This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.uncommons.ca

On these two episodes of Uncommons, Nate does a deeper dive on the economics of Canadian immigration policies, including a look at the unsustainable rise in temporary immigration levels, recent government action to correct those levels, and what is almost certainly an over correction to the permanent resident levels. In part one, Nate’s joined by University of Waterloo labour economics professor Mikal Skuterud.Professor Skuterud has written extensively on the economics of Canadian immigration, he’s been consulted by different Ministers, and he’s been a vocal critic of the government’s management of the immigration file, especially with respect to temporary foreign workers. In part two, Nate is joined by Lisa Lalande, the CEO of Century Initiative, a group that advocates for policies to strengthen Canada’s long-term economic prospects, including by growing our overall population to 100 million people by 2100. Ms. Lalande argues for strong but smartly managed immigration to ensure Canada’s economy remains competitive and resilient in the long-term, and she makes the case that Canada must build housing and improve healthcare to accommodate smart growth as well as our non-economic goals. In some ways, the guests are sharply at odds with one another. But in others, there is alignment: that Canada needed to tackle temporary immigration levels, but has caused further unnecessary challenges by reducing permanent immigration levels.Youtube: This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.uncommons.ca

On this episode, Mark Carney joins Nate on the podcast to discuss the current political landscape, sustainable finance and the economic opportunities of climate action, and his future in politics as now economic advisor to the Liberal Party and potential future candidate.Mark has served as the Governor of the Bank of Canada and then the Governor of the Bank of England. He now serves as the UN Special Envoy on Climate Action and Finance, and as the Vice Chair of Brookfield Asset Management.Transcript:IntroductionNate Erskine-Smith: Welcome to Uncommons. I’m Nate Erskine-Smith, and on this episode, I’m joined by Mark Carney. He is, of course, the former governor of the Bank of Canada, he’s the former governor of the Bank of England, and he is also much more political these days, including joining a podcast like this to talk about not only politics, but Liberal politics, because right now, he occupies the role of chair of an economic task force to the Liberal Party and Prime Minister, and he might well have a future in politics beyond that as well.Sustainable Finance Within a Global ContextNate Erskine-Smith: Mark, thanks for joining me. Mark Carney: Thanks for having me, Nate.Nate Erskine-Smith: I was going to make a joke about how you are the first guest we've had since the Prime Minister and people can read into that as they like. But I actually want to start with why you're here in Toronto–sustainable finance. And before people's eyes glaze over, maybe you can help ensure their eyes don’t glaze over.Mark Carney: We’ve lost the audience already.Nate Erskine-Smith: But what do you hope to see achieved through sustainable finance in terms of actual serious climate action?Mark Carney: Yeah, so first thing, thanks for having me and I'm here, I'm giving, a talk later on today at something called the PRI in person, which is 2000 people from around the world focused on more than just sustainable finance, but certainly sustainable finance, and I'm going to talk about that aspect of it and specifically what is the financial sector doing and not doing to get capital to solutions to address climate change.In essence, that's what sustainable finance is. Success in sustainable finance will be when we can drop the adjective, when this just becomes mainstream. And all the work that I and others have been doing, particularly since three years ago, almost to the day, there was a COP, one of these big processes in Glasgow, where finance was at the heart of it. And we've been working to make sure that people have the information first and foremost. And when I say people, I mean people, you know, out here in The Beaches, people working in the center of Wall Street or around the world, investors, people managing people's pensions, that they have the information that's needed in order to judge who's part of the solution and who's still part of the problem, that we have the right market structure. We need some new markets in order to solve this and that we see action and we can judge that action accordingly. Nate Erskine-Smith: And before we get to the possible potential impact of that disclosure–the Canadian context. So you had said in 2019 I think you'd expressed some frustration in one of your speeches about, and this wasn't specific to Canada, but the global pace of progress towards sustainable finance was moving far too slow. We wake up and it’s five years later and in Canada, we still haven't seen these rules put in place. And so what do you hope to see hopefully sooner than later here in Canada?Mark Carney: Yeah, well, let me give a global context first. It's a global event, global context, we operate in a global market, capital moves around the world. And if I look at the world, you have over 700 of the world's largest financial institutions controlling over 40% of the financial assets in the world. Huge numbers, $150 trillion, US dollars, for that matter that these institutions oversee, They're all committed to shift the management of those assets consistent with the transition towards net zero. In other words, to help companies and countries and municipalities get their emissions down. Okay. That's what they're committed to do. And by the way, that what comes with that is if somebody isn't trying to get their emissions down, then money is shifting from those companies. And in one example, to those who are doing something. So globally, you have a huge shift towards this first thing. Secondly, it starts with just reporting on where you stand today. What does your portfolio look like? Who are you investing in or lending to? The next step, of course, is to have a plan. You don't solve anything without a plan. You got to put the plan in action. And as we meet today, we're in a situation where 500 of those 700 institutions have full blown, what's called a transition plan, but a plan, to move the money, and they are moving the money, towards the solutions.Sustainable Finance Within a Canadian ContextFast forward to Canada, or shift to Canada. What we don't yet have is the disclosure regime fully operating so that Canadians can judge who's doing the right thing or not. A number of Canadian institutions are doing it voluntarily, but it's not required for everyone like it is in Europe, like it is in the UK, and elsewhere. And secondly, we don't have, sorry, a framework, an accepted way or consistent way of putting together those plans.And look, I've been through a bunch of crises over my time as a central bank governor and policymaker. And the one thing I know is in a crisis, plan beats no plan. You cannot get your way out of a situation without a plan. It's a good motto for life, I guess, as well.Nate Erskine-Smith: What do you make though? So we put the plans in place. We've got the disclosure regime, hopefully sooner than later, as they say. How do we move away from, take ESG. And there's promise to it, but there's also the bottom line, and a company will, as fast as anything, walk away from ESG if it no longer matters to their bottom line. And how does this differ from that? Mark Carney: Yeah, so I work in a subset of ESG, so ESG–environmental, social, and governance. I work on the environment bit of it, and I work in a subset of the environment, which is the transition towards a low carbon economy or net zero.because obviously in environment there's nature and biodiversity and other aspects. I work in the bit where you can count very clearly what's happening and that's part of what so-called disclosure is doing. And therefore, people are able to judge, again, who's part of the solution, who's still part of the problem. Now in order to do that, in order for everyone to be able to make those judgments, they need access to that information in a way that they can,you know, access it readily. It should be free and it should be consistent. And one of the things that some of the voluntary work that I'm doing is to build out the net zero data public utility. First time that's been on the podcast, I'm sure. Nate Erskine-Smith: Yeah, I know eyes are now fully glazed.Mark Carney: But what it means is that you can, you can judge which of our banks, as of, as of the middle of next year, which of our banks is doing well relative to the others and how are they doing relative to other international banks? What happens today is somebody will write a report and it'll become an argument about the quality of the data or the, you know, the completeness of the data. So first is to get, is to get that information.The second, but the bigger point which I think you're driving at is okay, but why are companies going to do this? Companies and financial institutions are going to do this because Canadians and people around the world want them to do it. After all, they elected a government, your government, over the course, and a number of provincial governments, that have climate action at the core of their platforms. After all, it is the law of the land. It literally is the law of the land in Canada that we transition towards net zero. Now, how we do that requires certain policies from government, and a number of them are being put in place. More will be required without question.But financial institutions and companies in Canada and elsewhere around the world react to those policies and they react to the values of people. A lot of the work that I've done in recent years has been around getting the market, shorthand, value, value in the market, what's priced, to be consistent with what people care about, what people value, the values, in this case, of Canadians around sustainability and the transition.Capturing the Value of the EnvironmentNate Erskine-Smith: Yeah, I mean, I remember reading your Reith lectures, which then were sort of the basis of the book. And, I know you've got another book we can talk about. But I mean, and the core of it is that idea that disconnect between value and values and, you know, the price of everything and the value of nothing, that old line. One of your examples, though, is, you know, we know how to, we know the value of Amazon, the company and we don't properly capture the value of Amazon, the rainforest. And despite the obvious value to the world, to the climate, to the environment, the world, disclosure gets us part of the way there. So how do you tackle, take that example, that simple example of Amazon and Amazon, what policies should we be looking at to solve that problem? Mark Carney: Yeah, absolutely. And so, and just to make the challenge greater, the price on the Amazon, the rainforest actually occurs when the trees are cut down and they start farming. So it's the exact opposite direction of what the planet needs and what future generations deserve. So how do we solve that? I mean, first and foremost, this is about the translation of what people care about, what people want through the political process, and setting in place objectives, clear objectives, policies today, and the prospect of more policies in the future, that are consistent with achieving those objectives. What the financial sector can do, what it does well, it does lots of things not well, just to be clear. Nate Erskine-Smith: You've lived it.Mark Carney: I've lived it, and people have lived the consequences of it. Yeah, we've spent time clearing up those messes. But what it does do well is it pulls the future to the present. It sees where the world is going and then it will put money behind where the world's going. So if it becomes inevitable or at least highly likely that we're going to address this problem, then money starts to flow to those solutions. Okay. Now let's go to the specific major issue around nature and the Amazon specifically. So how do we get to a point where we ensure that there is, not just disincentives to burn the Amazon or cut down the Amazon, but also what's now needed is to reforest the Amazon. You know, let's put this in context for those who are still listening. So speaking to my immediate family now… The, you know, deforestation in the world last year was 10% of global emissions, just the mere act of cutting down trees.We lose the size of the Netherlands in effectively tropical rainforests, not all deforestation. So not including the wildfires, horrible wildfires we had in Canada, but just actually the harvesting of the tropical rainforest. So it's absolutely enormous. And so we need to stop that and then reverse it. And so one of the things that we're working on is with the Brazilian government and other governments around the world, is how can we get payments for reforestation and the value to the planet of that reforestation? Political Challenges to Climate ActionNate Erskine-Smith: Okay, positive, because payments for reforestation make a lot of sense. I can imagine, because of the profile of the Amazon, I can imagine knocking doors and saying, we're gonna deliver more dollars to international climate finance, and that's gonna help make sure that we protect the Amazon, and that's the work we need to do as Canadians, as leaders around the world.I can also, though, imagine a world, because we've lived through it, where there's a Bolsonaro government in Brazil that doesn't care. I can imagine a world because if the election was tomorrow, it might well be a Poilievre government that is going to not only cancel the price on pollution and an effective and efficient way of reducing emissions, climate disclosure might be by the wayside. Who knows? Who knows what they have in store? Because climate is not part of their agenda. It's not a going concern.And how do you maintain that sense of optimism when we live in the political world that we do, and the political reality is that progress doesn't always exist. That voter might care in my riding and in certain ridings across the country, but collectively with ‘First Past the Post’ especially, we're gonna wake up potentially to a majority government that doesn't have this on the agenda at all. Mark Carney: Well, okay, there's a lot in those questions slash statements.Nate Erskine-Smith: We have a progressive government that doesn't even deliver the climate finance internationally at least that is required to do the work you're even talking about, and that's a progressive government. So, you know, the backsliding we're going to see is going to be incredible given we were starting at a place that isn't even sufficient. Mark Carney: Okay, so let me unpack a few, I'm to say a couple of rapid fire things and then you can pick up on any of them to drill down and, and full disclosure for those listening, there, there is, there's a lot beneath what I'm about to say.The first is in terms of payments for, for example, reforestation in the Amazon, my judgment is that that is predominantly going to come from the private sector through something called the private voluntary credit market. And that is going to be a consequence of a number of major jurisdictions, hopefully Canada included, but certainly the European Union, the UK, most of Asia, depending on the US outcome in the election, the United States as well, requiring companies to be reducing their emissions, including what's called scope three. Okay. So I said a lot there, but it's a lot of it will come from that. Nate Erskine-Smith: And jurisdictions like the EU forcing it upon others through carbon border adjustments and everything else. Mark Carney: Okay. So that's the next point. So very important point. Sorry, I talked over you, but a carbon border adjustment mechanism, which Europe is putting in place, and I think underappreciated, the Biden administration has made pretty clear that they intend to put that in place. Obviously, it won't be the Biden administration, he's not running again. But if it were a Harris administration, I think it's reasonable to expect that. There's something called, this is in the public domain, the Climate and Trade Task Force. It's headed by John Podesta, who's one of the most able public servants in the US government. And it's looking at what's called, well, it's looking at a carbon border adjustment and specifically how much carbon is in a product delivered to the United States. They use the term “embodied carbon”. So the issue is if I'm exporting steel, how much carbon do I have in that steel that shows up in the United States? And if it's a lot higher than what's in the US, then they're not going to let it in. I mean, or they're going to have a very large tariff on it.Because after all what they've been doing, and we've got to think about this for our industries, is huge efforts to get carbon down and it doesn't make sense to do that and then just import all the carbon from China or some other jurisdiction. I think actually the Americans are going to go further, and the Europeans are going to go further, in the following respect, which is not just to say how much carbon is in the steel that shows up here, but how much carbon is in all the steel you produce as that company, because we don't want you just dumping the green steel over here and then polluting over there.And that's a fairer way of doing things for the US company, and let's keep it close to home, for the Canadian company. So we're going to quickly move, I think, over the course of the next 5, 10 years, certainly over the horizon when any business decision is being made to a global trading system or the core of the global trading system, Europe, the US, under certain political circumstances. But I would argue, if not the next administration, the administration after that will do this. We're going to move to a system where it matters how much carbon you have in your product when you export it there. Now, fast forward to the next Canadian government after the next election. So are they just gonna walk away from that reality? I mean, we're a trading nation, we're an exporting nation. This is our most important market. I mean, you can live in a fantasy land and say, this doesn't matter, and it's all about the other guys, but that is not the way the world works and is going to work.And, you know, one of the things we've talked about this, and it's part of the reason I'm doing this growth task force, which we may come to, for the Prime Minister, is that the world's being reshaped. The trading system is being reshaped. That creates challenges, massive challenges if you ignore it, flip side, massive opportunities if you understand it, get in front of it and start to embrace it. And, you know, Canada's in a good position where, we can be in a great position to take advantage of this.Personal Political EngagementNate Erskine-Smith: I mean, one might have, though, expressed a certain optimism around markets and the market that Ontario was in with Quebec and California, for example, then they walked away from it. So politics does matter. So I want to get to politics. And, one can be optimistic and market forces matter and the EU's actions matter and one can be optimistic for certain reasons. But there's a reason to get involved in politics to make sure you push back against the backsliding and to make sure you protect progress. You have gone from a role where you were political but divorced from partisan politics as the central bank governor, both in Canada and in England. You, in 2021, I think, spoke for the first time in a more partisan way at a Liberal convention. You're now, you're occupying a more partisan role, giving, you're the chair of an economic task force for the Party and the Prime Minister. But again, a partisan front, not the machinery of government.Why you've got, you know, you're making money at Brookfield, you've got your UN envoy role. You don't need to throw yourself into the Pierre Polievre tax and the Michael Barrett saying conflict this and “Carbon Tax Carney”. And why, why insert yourself in this way now? Mark Carney: I could ask you the same question and all the people that work for you, which is, you know, I mean, there's, there's a couple levels of it. I mean, there's the personal level, which I, you know, this country has given me so much, virtually everything. I think when I think about it, you know, my education, my values, I've raised my family here. I owe it, I owe it a lot. I've been very fortunate. So, you know, and, and I can give back and there's, there's certain things I can do to give back. And I happen to know something about economic policy, I happen to have some experience, I've got some perspective. I can give it back. That's the, that's the first thing. And, know, I could stop there, but it goes back to what we were talking about earlier is this gap between value in the market and the values of Canadians, the values of society, what we're trying to achieve. There are certain technical things, and they're really important. They're super boring, which is why you rightly diverted off the PRI in person. They're super boring and they're plumbing, et cetera. And I know something about that and I work in it. it's, know, and it's value, I, just trust me, tt's, it's useful work. Okay. It's useful work. But at the heart is getting the, the heart is political in the end because it is translating, it's building coalitions. It's listening to people. It's developing the consensus. It's fighting it out in the, in the House of Commons, in committees, in order to get legislation through and move forward and you know, can be frustrating and it would be much easier for me to just sit back and criticize about this. But I've got some expertise, the Prime Minister has asked, we need to close this gap. I think it's the right thing to do for Canadians because it's living up to what Canadians want, say they want.It's certainly the right thing to do for our kids and grandkids. But also, you know, as time goes on, it becomes more and more an economic imperative. It becomes more and more current, you know, an issue in terms of how fast is this economy going to grow? Are people's wages going to grow? Are we going to lose a lot of jobs that we shouldn't lose or not create new jobs that we could create because we think that this is an issue for other people? It's not an issue for other people, it's an issue for all of us. Nate Erskine-Smith: When it comes to politics, I am not running again, solely because I've got a young family. I still think elected office, for all of its faults, and there are many faults, there's a lot of nonsense to it if you watch the question period or the House of Commons. But it's still the most important way to make a difference, bar none. Having said that, everything you said there gets at that sort of the man in the arena sort of idea, and an opportunity to make a difference. I believe in all that.There's a difference though between giving advice and being a decision maker, and, are you gonna put your name on a ballot at some point? Mark Carney: I'm taking steps to that, support that, support the party, because I believe in the party, I believe in the Liberal Party. I think it's got the right values, it has the right combination of a social conscience and social priorities at its core and that's, it’s demonstrated, it's not, these aren't words on a page, it's demonstrated through decades of delivery and the past years of delivery. So it has its core, but it also understands that we need a strong economy in order to ultimately deliver that. So I absolutely believe in that. And look, the opportunity may present itself. This is what I can do right now and I'm doing it to the best of my ability. Nate Erskine-Smith: And do you think, when you think of politics, mean, you have occupied positions of great power and really difficult crises. And there isn't that same grinding it out, knocking doors, engaging people who are, you know, the example I use is, you've got to be able to go downtown and have Bay Street with my friends from law school. You could do that in a heartbeat, but you also got to be able to go play cards and drink Rye and Cokes with my cousins from Sarnia. And are you, do you see yourself being able to do both? Mark Carney: Well, I used to drink Rye and 7UP. So am I allowed to have? Nate Erskine-Smith: Yeah, that's allowed. That's okay. I don't know if you smoke joints. You can do that too. Mark Carney: That's true. You can now. Thank you. There's progress. Nate Erskine-Smith: Yeah, I know. You're welcome. Mark Carney: Look, I mean, that's, I've been in and around it, I recognize that. I mean, you've got to be connected to the people you serve. And one of the issues, look, it's also an issue, it's not fully analogous, I'm not going to stretch it to that.But even in a role like being a central bank governor, if you're just in the monetary temple, so to speak, and you're not out there talking to people up and down the country, which the Bank of Canada does, I did as governor, Governor Dodge did before me, and I know the current governor, my successors both have done it, I did in the UK, you've got to get out there and talk to people. And it's not just businesses, but, you know, social groups, other groups, to understand how the macro economy, the numbers way up there, are actually impacting people for accountability, but also for perspective and you know, there's something that was impressed on me decades ago, I guess was that you know, you see most clearly from the, from the periphery. So when you look at you know, the economy, how does the economy look if you're unemployed? You know, how does, you know, the, you know, the, the situations where you're under pressure and that provides a necessary, you know, grounding to everything you do. But yeah, you know, you've got to do that and you've got to build, you've got to build a consensus and you have to work. Look, let's, let's take another level of this, if I could, which is one of the issues. So, okay. We have a mini industry in Canada, which has grown up around that we don't have any productivity or we've, know, the productivity or the rate with which we're improving the way we work has slowed, it's basically been flatlined since before the pandemic. Ultimately, that is going to put pressure and it's starting to put pressure on governments, all levels of governments and the ability to, you know, continue to provide the social safety net, our social model, opportunities for children, our education system, all those things. So this is an issue we have to solve. We can certainly solve. And not that there's going to be some magical report at the end of my task force work. I mean, there will be a report. I'm not going to say it's magical.Nate Erskine-Smith: We'll get to that. We'll get to that.Mark Carney: But there will be elements of that in there. But one of the things I think is clear is that the nature of many of the solutions will require something that's fundamentally political, which is political in terms of working across different levels of government, different stakeholders to implement solutions. And we're going to have to do more of that or relearn that muscle, which is, in my experience, is kind of inherent to the Federation, maybe has weakened a bit. Challenges of PoliticizationNate Erskine-Smith: Well, I want to get to what you see as the objectives and what you see as the possible outcomes, what you hope to achieve through that task force and your involvement in all of that. But, I'm still interested in, you know, I like that you're interested in politics. I like that good people are interested in politics. I think it's necessary that serious people are still interested in doing this. And I worry that when you've got a certain crass attack before anything else approach to politics, you push good people out. Why are good people gonna wanna get off the sidelines and do this if you're gonna join committee in 2021, which you did at the industry committee that I was a part of, and I was at a front row seat to Pierre Poilievre before he was the leader, just spent, he was the only Conservative to speak for that two hours of time, and just try and run roughshod over you, knowing that you might be in politics one day. That's the approach. It's, you know, take no prisoners. So I'm glad you're interested. At the same time, you know, there are some challenges that will be thrown your way and I'm interested in how you navigate them. So you've got, on the one hand, a politicization of the Bank of Canada with Pierre Poilievre saying Tiff Macklem should be fired. You've got other folks though, like Stephen Gordon, who have said, well, you know, Mark Carney, he was the central bank governor. If he joins partisan politics, then that also puts some independence of that institution at risk. Do you take stock of that in any way? What's your answer to that? Mark Carney: Well, I think a couple of things. I think my track record at Bank Canada, others can judge it, I, know, inflation was at 2%. Our financial system was the strongest in the world. We had financial stability. We got through crises, got through a few crises.I'd note that I was appointed by Stephen Harper as governor of the Bank Canada. Then I was appointed by a Conservative prime minister in the United Kingdom, David Cameron. And then I was asked to extend my term by a Conservative prime minister, Theresa May, and a Conservative prime minister, Boris Johnson. And in all of those cases, I discharged, did the best of my ability, I did my job. I ceased to be governor of the Bank of Canada in 2013. We are 11 years later. We've been through a few governors. The world has changed. Look I mean if we were, if we were in a situation where the stakes weren't so high, in part because of the start of your question in part because of the unseriousness of some of those in public life, I mean it's serious, but the facile… Nate Erskine-Smith: Yeah, serious what’s at stake but a childish approach to it.Mark Carney: Facile is probably, is a euphemism. So I'll just leave it at that to describe the approach that's taken. It's not trying to find solutions, it's trying to destroy and cut down. And who knows what comes after that, it's not clear what comes after that. So the stakes are high, so that pulls me towards trying to be part of it, because this is our country, it's my country, and I care about it. And so wanting to be there.I think the thing though that's in your question, as someone who's been through crises, who lived through Brexit and the intense, everything was politicized in Brexit in the UK. The King, the now King was politicized. The Archbishop of Canterbury, the head of the Church of England was politicized. The governor of the Bank of England was politicized. In other words, we were all attacked in various ways by various, well, one faction, I guess, on the referendum.And many, many others, everything basically. So I know what I'd be getting into. I know what I'm in. Look, I'm in it now in the following respect. As you said, in 2021, I'm a private citizen. I'm invited to a committee. Nate Erskine-Smith: Getting grilled for no reason.Mark Carney: I don't mind being grilled, but just getting, you know, sort of insulted, ad hominem attacks, basically being insulted. And well, four other expert witnesses have to sit there mute.And just watch it. And just watch it for two and a half hours. I mean, that's, you know, that's a waste of taxpayers' money. It's a waste of time. It's not advancing the cause. And so I know what's involved. Nate Erskine-Smith: So you're ready to put up with that absolute nonsense when it comes, like right now you're living through people attacking you to say, he's no. I mean, Andrew Scheer, I love that Andrew Scheer is the spokesperson they put up, as if anyone likes Andrew Scheer, but Andrew Scheer is saying, there's no difference between Trudeau and Carney, carbon tax Carney and like, you are the object of their attention as much as anyone, and probably because they're worried about you, but also there is, you are going to put up with an incredible amount of of hate and an incredible,you know, look what Trudeau's got to put up with. F**k Trudeau flags, and his kids have to listen to f**k Trudeau chants at ultimate fight events. So you're ready for that?Mark Carney: Look, yeah, yes, is the short answer. I think we're, you know, this is an overused phrase, we're better than that. Canada's better than that. We should be better than that. And, but you've got to stand up. I mean, if you think that, you think that, you act it, you stand up, you stood up for the Ontario leadership. I mean, it's, you know, these are difficult.Nate Erskine-Smith: You'll come in with more name recognition than I did, I will say that. Are you also ready? So I think your name recognition will... Mark Carney: I’m really touched by your concern about my welfare. The Benefits of Lived ExperienceNate Erskine-Smith: It's not for the faint of heart, that's for sure, especially in a leadership role. And they'll come at you with everything as you've already seen, they're coming at you as a citizen. The other challenge you will have to navigate if you get there is every time your name comes up, like I'm here in The Beaches and people will come up and say, what about that Carney guy, is he gonna run? And so there's obviously an interest. At the same time, there will be another cohort, often people in the Liberal Party who have lived the wars who will say, yeah, but what about Michael Ignatieff? And the comparison comes up all the time. Why? Because intellectual, someone who has not lived through partisan politics throughout a career, and is coming to it as an intellectual who's earned a reputation as an intellectual. And do you see that comparison? Are you concerned with that comparison? And how do you answer that comparison? Mark Carney: Well, think there's a couple of things. One is we don't want to restrict politics only to lifelong politicians. I hope not. I mean, that's first and foremost. Nate Erskine-Smith: Having done it for 10 years, I was also saying I hope we don't limit it to that. Mark Carney: You understand, you're going to go off and do something else for a while. Hopefully you'll come back into political life. Maybe you won't. Maybe you will have served that tenure. Nate Erskine-Smith: Yeah, who knows? Mark Carney: But we'll see. I'm not casting aspersions on people who are lifelong politicians, although if somebody is a lifelong politician and they're talking about, for example, as only someone like Pierre Poilievre who's been a lifelong politician talks about the market in a way, and the economy in a way, that betrays very limited understanding of how the economy actually works undervalues institutions, undervalues people, doesn't know this relationship. Nate Erskine-Smith: I like when he talks about electricians and lightning personally. Mark Carney: Yeah, Yeah. the capture, there's a few things that doesn't understand. So that's, that's the first thing. So I don't think this is a sort of simple, you're ruled out unless you've gone through the school of politics. That's number one. Number two, I think with, with the respect to Michael Ignatieff, I've been in the, I've been as close to the political arena as you can be. I have been a public figure through crises in Canada, elsewhere around the world. I've been there for making tough decisions. I've worked with a variety of governments. I've been in and around. Look, I know how to deal with tough issues and not just talk about them, but implement and get things done. So, you know, we'll take where we started today, this discussion on climate change and what's going on in climate change. Three years ago, there were no major, there were $5 trillion of money managed by financial institutions that was going to be managed towards net zero. Today, there's 150 trillion. 150 trillion. That is 70 times larger than the Canadian economy. I helped marshal that. I chair the group that put that together. I know how to get things done. I have a track record. So I have experience in working with a wide variety of stakeholders across different geographies, countries, continents, political classes. As I mentioned earlier, I've been appointed by the Conservatives. And so that brings something to the table. Does it answer every question?And look, and Michael Ignatieff is a better intellectual than I am. I mean, I would not, do not aspire…Nate Erskine-Smith: It comes down to connecting with people. And you mentioned it before we started recording, just everything, I forget exactly how you phrased it, but sort of everything is about authenticity. Because there's no perfect candidate and not everyone's going to see everything about themselves in any particular candidate. I was struck, I did my Master of Law in the UK at Oxford and my wife was there doing her Master of Nutrition at Oxford Brooks andwe visited the Imperial War Museum in London, and there was a genocide exhibit at the time. And I like, I recognize that voice. And there's a film of Michael Ignatiev in a Jeep. Mark Carney: That was Blood and Belonging probably, right? Nate Erskine-Smith: Right. And he in some ways ran away from that. It was Michael's just visiting. And there was no answer to say, you're damn right I've been overseas. I've been a Canadian overseas being, as Canadians act, we deliver for the world. We act in the best interests of people around the world. And I've been out there addressing genocide. I've been out there speaking about human rights. I'm proud of that record. And I'm coming back to Canada to make sure I deliver on those values as a leader here in Canada for Canadians. I think it was a disservice to be skittish about that record. And you don't have the same challenge in that you've had a high profile position here in Canada. You are now entering into partisan politics in a, you know, you're not jumping right to a leadership position. You're playing, I don't know if you have a view of- Mark Carney: I'm in the trenches. I'm in the trenches. Nate Erskine-Smith: Well, one question I would have is, do you see a value in elected office as a backbencher or as an MP before a higher profile role.Mark Carney: I mean, there's, you can't map these things out. Of course there's value in that. But let me pick up, something popped into my head while you were using that example. So one of the knocks on me that the opposition makes, or part of the opposition makes. Nate Erskine-Smith: You're a WEF global elite. Mark Carney: Exactly. I'm a WEF global elite.Nate Erskine-Smith: John Barrett is too, I don't know, campaign coach here, that never comes up. Mark Carney: And you know, when... Nate Erskine-Smith: He's banned his ministers from going to World Economic Forum events to cater to conspiracies and you've been a board member for over a decade. Mark Carney: I've rolled off the board, but that's absolutely right. I had a board member there and I used to go there with the Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, when he was there, and etc. But let's be clear what you know, my international experience. I understand how the world works. You know, I know other world leaders, I know people and I understand, I know people who run some of the world's largest companies and understand how they work. I know how financial institutions work. I know how markets work. I know, and I know the good and bad of that. I've experienced it. I've had to, in some of my roles, discipline it, discipline the financial system, discipline, with others, the world's largest banks, the, you know, the Wall Street banks in America after the crisis. So I understand how the world works. I'm trying to apply that to the benefit of Canada, you know, so I'm not going to run away from the fact that I understand how things work. And actually one of the issues, one of the things that has drawn me more into, into politics, right now is that we have

On this episode Prime Minister Justin Trudeau joins Nate to discuss the next election, successes and failures in governing, and what comes next.Watch the full podcast on YouTube:—Transcript:Nate: Welcome to Uncommons. I'm Nate Erskine-Smith, and on this episode I'm joined by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and you should know at the outset there were no pre-approved questions. Now, before we get to that conversation, two quick public service announcements. We've started these weekly update videos of the week that was in Parliament. We of course call it Uncommons Weekly, and you can check it out on our social media @beynate.The second thing is, do me a favor. If you like what we're doing, go to your platform of choice and leave us a positive review because it does help us reach a wider, greater audience. And I could do a big preamble, but you know who the Prime Minister is. So let's jump to the conversation.The Importance of Conversations in PoliticsNate: Justin, thanks for joining me.Justin: Oh, so good to be here Nate.Nate: I was laughing. So, you, in the same week, you're looking at your itinerary and you're doing the Colbert show, and then you're looking, you're going “Oh, and I'm doing Uncommons with Nate. What is – what is happening? How did these two end up on my schedule the same week?”Justin: Yeah. You know, it's actually, it's actually just right, because a big part of what I've been trying to do is have as many different conversations in different places about, about the challenges we're all facing, because one of the things we learn and we've learned over the past years is, if we don't go to where people are, then people aren't listening. It's not like I can give a speech on the steps of Parliament and know that most Canadians will have tuned in to the speech, through the nightly news or through – no.Nate: Five people are really fantastic.Justin: Well, and it's great that they're then, I'm happy to give speeches for them. But if I don't start, if we don't start making, you know, space for real conversations that actually do filter through everything that people are either bombarded with or just busy doing in their lives, then we're not doing right in terms of either representing or serving people.Nate: So for those who are regular listeners, they know a bit of my background. But for those who may be tuning in the first time, because we've got you joining us, this is a Liberal MP’s podcast, but, you and I have not always seen eye to eye. And I get asked all the time, well, what's your relationship like with the Prime Minister, thinking that there's some, you know, animosity that’s between us.How would you describe our relationship to sort of set the stage for this?Justin: Well, when people ask me “So, how do you put up with Nate?” I actually laugh because you're actually one of the MPs that I have a better type of conversation with than many others. And we have all, and we've had some, some pretty important conversations over the years or at least crunchy conversations over the years. But I've always thoroughly enjoyed it. And for me, it's a feature, not a bug, that I have thoughtful MPs who come at this with, you know, ways of challenging me with strongly felt beliefs, with points where we will diverge on things. And as long as I can have, as we have always had, and perhaps better than many others who are sometimes more divergent in their perspectives, as long as we can have really good conversations where you understand where I'm coming from and I understand where you're coming from, then there is, I mean, that's almost the way democracy writ large is supposed to work. As you know, people come together to vote on, you know, what direction the country's going to take. If we can't have these conversations, then, then nothing else is working in democracy.Reflections on Leadership and GovernanceNate: Yeah. And a reasonable disagreement is, I think, central to not only our politics writ large, but also to the Liberal Party as, as I hope many of us see it. But when you think of, the Liberal Party, when you think of, you know, you've got, I will never be an anonymous MP in the media, I think it's cowardly, but you've got any number of colleagues who are now speaking out in, less than helpful ways, if I'm putting it more politely. You've got others who are going on record and raising concerns, and the concerns are mixed. Sometimes it's about direction, sometimes it is about you and, and they try to cast it as it's not about, you know, fair or unfair criticism, but you know how people feel. When you look at it, you know, you're in this for nine years. And I want to start with a bigger sort of question of why. You articulated the need for serious change heading into 2015. Many people like me left this, got off the sidelines to participate, because of that call to do things differently, when you think of what's to come next, you've got anonymous MPs raising complaints. You've got people who are, who are, frustrated for this reason or that reason. Governing wears on governments. Why do you want to do this again?Justin: It's interesting that you go back to 2015, right. And that, the why we did this, because first of all, there were a lot of people, you know, telling us that we were wrong, that I was doing things the wrong way, that I wasn't, I wasn't, you know, tackling the right things the right way. There was a lot of skepticism about what that was.And it was an opportunity to actually give Canadians a choice that I think was absolutely necessary for the country to say, okay, we've got to double down on fighting climate change and growing the economy at the same time. We got to step up in supporting the most vulnerable. We got to move forward on reconciliation. We got to, we got to figure out how we navigate through a much more challenging world that has impacts on us.Those are all things that the Harper government wasn't doing, and those were all the things that drove me to saying, “Yeah, Canadians need that choice to be able to make,” well, that's sort of the same choice they're going to make in the next election. Choice whether you’re moving forward on the fight against climate change or whether we just basically throw up our hands and go back to leaning heavily on fossil fuels with the kind of short term thinking that is going to end up being so costly for Canadians just a few years down the road, not just with, with the, the, the costs of climate impacts and wildfires, but also, with the missed opportunities to participate in where the global economy is going. That question of, okay, at this time of backlash against progressive policies of inclusion and diversity, you know, are we going to double down on making sure that everyone gets to participate, or are we going to continue to drive wedges into people and, and, you know, group Canadians into, into subgroups that are angry at each other?I think all those questions are just as important now, if not even more important, because back in the run up to 2015, I think everyone got a sense of, okay, yeah, we just need to find an alternative to Stephen Harper and whether it's Mulcair or whether it's Trudeau, the winds were turning in that sense. Yeah, this is going to be harder on a lot of levels, because it's, it's, a time where people are frustrated.But the choice to make a deliberate choice to say, no, we're going to continue and even double down on the things we know are going to get us better, which is more protection of the environment, more inclusion of people, more understanding how you have to build the economy from the bottom up, from the center out, instead of from the top down, which Poilievre is still proposing. Like, this is going to be a much harder election in 2015. It always was going to be.Nate: Set up, but set up that choice. So I agree, I want to protect the progress. Right. So we, leading into 2015, there were over 100 communities without clean water, Indigenous communities. And there's imperfect progress, unquestionably imperfect progress, that there's still communities. It's still a failure of any community that doesn't have clean water, but we have massive progress. Over 80% of those advisories have been lifted, any new advisory that's come on has been treated with seriousness. There's water projects in most communities already underway, and many short term advisories have been addressed as well to avoid them becoming long term advisories. So I care about progress on climate change. We're finally bending the curve on emissions, there's a comprehensive, serious climate plan.We can fight pricing pollution. We should defend pricing pollution. But it's about much more than that. you look at poverty reduction, you look at addressing the opioid crisis. I run down the list of issues and I care about protecting that progress. Now, I'm gonna, you know, if you're speaking to, a Canadian who's sitting at home and saying, yeah, I agree, I don't, I don't want Pierre Poilievre.I don't, I don't want to move in that direction, but we, we need to protect that progress, and we need to put our best foot forward. And you’ve probably had some reflections, because I'm sure this is not the first time someone said, well, look at what's happening south of the border. Obviously your brain didn't melt on national television the way the Biden’s did, but, Kamala has obviously put that party in a better position to win, although still a struggle, but a better position to win.Why do you think when you take a step outside of yourself and look and say, I still think I'm the best person to, to fight that fight?Justin: Well, first of all, let's, let's look at, you know, people who are saying, oh, I'm not sure. Would they be saying that if I was ten points ahead in the polls right now?Nate: No.Justin: Right. I mean, are there a lot of Liberals who who are thinking, that, you know, Justin's priorities aren't in the right place or Justin doesn't have the fight in him, or Justin, you know, is wrong to be continuing to believe in protecting the environment and growing the economy and protecting women's rights and stuff. In terms of the substance of what we're doing, I think that's pretty much the fight.There's a question on whether or not, I still have the drive, the fight or the ability to win this fight. And I sort of say that that's obviously a question that I have to ask as well. Do I still have the drive to do this?Nate: You’ve got the drive, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not dismissive of that.Justin: And do I still have the- okay, but do I still have the understanding of what this is going to take to win the next election? Yeah, absolutely. Better than just about anyone else, because I have been fighting through crises and fighting against Conservative opponents who are trying to undo this and bring Canadians, you know, backwards, and polarize them.Like, I know exactly how hard this fight is going to be. And I also know that I am absolutely roaring to go, because this kind of fight that is so fundamental to, you know, how Canadians come out or come through what have been really, really difficult years, I think, is exactly why I got into politics to make sure that we are delivering the absolute best future for Canadians.Poilievre and Choices Within the Upcoming ElectionJustin: And I think one of the interesting questions that, even as people ask me why I want to do this all the time, nobody's asking Poilievre why he wants to do this, what is it that he is being driven to fight for? We know what he's fighting against, what is he fighting for? And he hasn't even come, and we've been watching him and debating him, and trying to counter him for years now, 20 years in the House, he's been we know what he's been all about fighting against. He hasn't even begun to articulate what he's fighting for. And I think and I'm happy for people to be asking me the question as you are, I think more Canadians need to be asking Poilievre who and what he's fighting for, other than himself and his desire to be in power.Nate: I mean, there is, obviously in that choice, the choice matters, it's not just a referendum on you. I've told the story before, but there is, senior in a legion in Sioux Lookout who said, you know, I don't like your boss, too much spending, too many apologies. But I know what I'm getting with Justin. I don't know what I'm getting with the other guy. And I'm still going to vote for you. And so there is a bit of, there is a choice there that really matters. I mean, he's obviously walking away from some of that 20 year record. He's got a 20 year record of anti-labor advocacy, and now he's trying to, you know, more boots, less suits, and he's wearing- wearing a suit while he says it, but regardless, he's he's trying to, you know, win over labor in the Monty McNaughton kind of style. Whether that works or not is an open question. But he does articulate, relentlessly to the point that it's now seared in my brain, the “axe the tax”, “build the homes”, “fix the budget”, “stop the crime”.And, you know, I want to build the homes, too. And I don't think his plan stacks up particularly well as against our more recent ones, certainly. Axe the tax is a silly slogan and belies the fact he doesn't have a plan on climate change. And the carbon rebate makes most people better off. And we can run down the list. I'm less interested in, for the purpose of this, at least combating that absurdity, however you want to frame his, his arguments. But for you, you know, I've said this to you before, I think I said it in January. I said it again more recently. But when your father ran that final time, he articulated five things that mattered to him that he wanted his final term to be about. And it was international peace, it was economy, energy, fighting Quebec sovereignty and delivering the charter. Whatever one thinks of his success, obviously the charter got delivered and that is part of who we are as Canadians and and rightly so. How would you articulate the two, three, four – what do you want to see through in your final term?Justin: Even before we get into that, though, I think in your very first story, there was something really, really telling in that, you know, someone may disagree with me on this or that and the other things, but they know. They know the frame that I'm working from. They know what drives me. They know what matters to me.And that is not something to simply shrug off, because what we've seen over the past number of years is crises that nobody ran on. Nobody asked me in 2019 how I was going to handle an eventual pandemic that was going to hit the next year. Nobody talks about, well, how would you react if Russia were to invade Ukraine.Whatever this next election is going to be about, I think the pattern of crises that we've hit, whether they've been economic or military or geopolitical or health, have not been something that was on the ballot or even discussed in the debate. And that idea of knowing someone's values, knowing the frame with which they approach challenges is not just important, it's ultimately sort of the only thing when you are picking your representatives, whether it's, picking you to, to, to represent them, in Beaches-East York, or, whether it's picking a prime minister, having confidence that the person both sees you and is going to make decisions with you in mind that align with what you are most preoccupied about is what democracies and elections are supposed to be all about. And often we get pulled away from that. So for me, you ask me about the things that drive me more than anything else right now is understanding that we are in a moment in this world where everything's changing. People are saying, oh, it's going to be a change election.Yeah, it's going to be a change election. Everything is change. Not just climate change, but the way we work, the way AI works, the way, the way the geopolitics happens, the pressures on everything. The world is in a massive pivot moment right now, and we don't know what the biggest issue is going to be. For the past year and a half, Poilievre has been screaming his head off about, you know, inflation, and it's all my fault on inflation. Well, inflation is now down, because we've got “justinflation”.Nate: We’ve got inflation down to 2%, to where it's supposed to be, and that's the whole thing. But, yeah.Justin: Who knows if whatever issue we're picking is actually going to be it. And it was, it's sort of lovely to look back on my dad's last term and say that was what he was saying. We don't know what crises are going to hit the world. We only know there are going to be. And the question on who has the capacity.Successes and Failures in GovernanceNate: Not a question on crises, I’ll push back a little bit though. So I think that's fair. And I think actually, if I were to articulate some of the successes, I want to get to successes and failures. And if I were to articulate some successes, chief among them is actually the Covid response, imperfect as it was, people could see you in front of that cottage every morning, and you were there, and we, you know, we could point to emergency benefits, we could point to, we could point to vaccine rollouts.Justin: The fact that we bounced back faster than other countries.Nate: Yeah, and overwhelmingly, I think Canadians do feel that. We just did a survey over the summer, and the number one thing people feel strongly about that the government's done well was the Covid response. Dental care came a close second. But, but having said all that, there are still things, and I'll use an example.You're a dad. You've got kids that you love and Canadians can see that. And if I were in your shoes, I've got kids, too. And the Canada Child Benefit childcare has made a massive difference in so many people's lives. And now we're promising healthy school food, for the, to set kids up for success to an even greater degree.To me, and I could add, we're protecting kids online. So let's take that package of delivering for families with kids. Poilievre doesn't talk about it. He doesn’t want to talk about it, because there are successes there that he doesn't want to point to. But you could talk about it and you could say, we have delivered for families with kids in a serious way, and you could point to progress, but people don't just want to vote for your record, they want to vote for what comes next.And you can say credibly, because people know you care, they know you care. And especially about families and delivering for families with kids. And here's what comes next. If I, I'm in this again, this is what I'm in it for. And I do think there needs to be more of, yes, it could be, It's change and it's high level, but it sounds a lot like when Biden talks about defending democracy and it's, it's important and I, and I, believe in that but it's a little bit disconnected from people's day to day. And if instead it's, you know, I think, protecting the environment where people have seen flood risks, people see insurance premiums going up, they see the forest fires, they feel the forest fires. But when we're connecting issues like that, and there's another issue that I, you know, you've already talked about, but that is, I think, central to what you want to do next.I do think it doesn't have to be so like, it doesn't have to be so, you know, cartoonish. But I think telling that story. Stories matter in our politics and you telling the stories of what you're in it for, I think is, is crucial.Justin: Yeah. No, I entirely agree. And that's very much what we're, what we're putting together and building on. I mean, part of, but part of before we can properly pitch the next step, we, as you pointed out, we have to sort of highlight some of the things that we have done and that, quite frankly, are at risk. I mean, the Canada Child Benefit, the last time there was a vote on that, Poilievre voted against it.Is even that at risk, let alone everything else you mentioned that he has actively opposed, from dental for kids to, to school foods to, to child care. We know he's nowhere on child care. These are things that have concretely helped, but also concretely improved our economic performance, improved the jobs, improved the opportunities. As a country, that is always the thing we're doing.But if Canadians don't understand the things that we've done and that we've delivered, then there's, there's a real challenge in saying, oh, we're going to do this. Go, why should I believe you did this? You haven't done anything else. I mean, what are you talking about that we didn't do anything else. I mean, that's, and that's something that you’ve, you're, you're in caucus every week.I mean, this is what we struggle with Nate. I mean, we. we're really trying to, trying to dig into how we both have Canadians understand what it is we've done and what it is at risk in the next election, because Poilievre has basically said he's going to undo everything that we, we did. The only thing we do know is he's going to continue to, to give tax breaks to the rich, he's going to reverse some of our tax breaks, that ask the wealthiest to do a little bit more. I mean, these are things that are really tangible. And we also have to have that positive ambition of this is what we're going to do together, in the next mandate. This is the next step of what we're going. And that's something we're busy putting together with, with caucus and everyone right now.Nate: I think there's a lot. So there are certain issues like build the homes where we have to win that fight that matters too much to so many people, especially young Canadians, into our economy when you think of productivity. There are other issues, axe the tax is a powerful political message because especially when it's not tied to anything environment related. and it's just a broad, sweeping promise to axe some tax. Those who know us about the carbon tax and care a lot. Okay, it motivates a certain base. Just like how gutting the CBC motivates a certain Conservative base. But on some issues, we just have to fight them to a draw, right? We have to articulate the things we've done on auto theft.We have to articulate the things we've done on climate. We just fight some of those things to a draw, axe the tax, stop the crime and fix the budget. And we hopefully win build the homes. But there are other issues that we need to, on fixing health care, we did deliver dental care and 6 million Canadians don’t have access to a family doctor, on delivering for families, as I mentioned, on protecting the environment. There's other issues that we have strength on, that we have credibility on, that we have a record on, and there are other things we want to do next. Taking the fight to Pierre doesn't just mean pointing out his inadequacies and his 20 year record. It also is to push him on issues the same way we did say gun control and environment with Andrew Scheer and Erin O’Toole, taking the fight to him, we've given him a little more of a free pass, I think since he was, since he was elected leader than I would maybe have if I could go back and do it again.Justin: I've heard that a lot. And, and for sure to a certain extent, there absolutely was a theoretical path or was a path where we came out of the gate, greeted him when he became leader, the same way I was greeted by Stephen Harper.Nate: You did a bit of it with Bitcoin, right? You did a bit of it.Justin: Yeah, a little bit of that. But, but I mean, he actually did that to himself as much as anything else.Nate: He mostly does it to himself. He can’t help himself.Justin: Yeah, the thing that happened when I first came out, with, when I became leader, Stephen Harper, you know, attacked me out of the gate, greeted me with a, millions of dollars of ads. Nate: Just not ready.Justin: No, that was, that was the last. That was the last one.Nate: What was the first one?Justin: The first one was oh, he's just not serious. He's, you can't, can you imagine him as prime minister? They had, they sorts of little. None of that really worked, but they came out and greeted me with that right away. Did it define me? Not particularly because Canadians sort of had an idea who I was. Canadians don't have much of an idea who Poilievre, he's been in the house for 20 years. Nobody knows who he is. There would have been an opportunity. At the same time, one of the things that gave me real pause on whether I would come out and start defining him right now is, we were busy governing through a really tough time, and we were fighting for Canadians and for me to come out and pick a fight with Poilievre right out of the gate. He's the new sort of leader, and I'm suddenly so worried about him that I'm going to put a millions of dollars of ad buy to try and tell Canadians how scary or reckless or dangerous he is. It could have worked, it might have worked. We might, you know, be sitting on couches ten years from now saying, oh, man, I was right, Nate. I wish we'd done.But at the same time, there was something that didn't feel true to me, in terms of, now I'm going to pick a fight with him when I should be fighting for Canadians, when I should be trying to tackle inflation. That was a big challenge then, which we successfully tackled. So there's also part of the sequencing too, right. If if I'm going to, you know, drive someone down in the polls a year or two before an election or even 3 or 4 years before an election, is that the best time to knock them down and lift myself up, or do I want that to happen a little more organically, closer to the actual day when people choose?Nate: Well, I won't dwell on it, but in Toronto–Saint Paul's I would have liked to have seen as an example some kind of paid ad, I would say, that is Pierre Poilievre, you have stood with the convoy in a public health crisis. He doesn't believe in serious climate action and he wants to gut the public broadcaster. Does he represent Toronto–Saint Paul's, and some version of that like I do think.Justin: I like that. I can't argue against that, particularly knowing the, the result in Toronto–Saint Paul's, it certainly wasn't what we wanted. So I would have said, yeah, I wish we did something.Nate: Yeah, because you want to set it up as a choice, but it was going to require work to set up as a choice, because there's a lot of work on the other end to set it up as a referendum on just you and your socks. And if that's the case, then it's, I don't even know if we have.Justin: They're not even that bad today.Youth, Long-term Thinking and Politics TodayNate: But okay, so, I mentioned we're getting to successes. I got a little ahead of it and that we, at least in my community, I can say there's certain obvious successes that people would point to, to, not only Covid response, navigating through the first Trump presidency. God, God help us if there's a second one, looking at social programs in general, Canada Child Benefit, child care, dental care, there's a lot of hope around pharmacare, although I know we're at the beginnings of it, but people would point to, I think, navigating through crises and delivering social programs as, I think, these successes in some ways, when you reflect though, like not listening to my constituents, not listening to a survey, when you think back, you know, you've done this for now, nine years elected and you've been in this for much longer as leader, what do you look back on and say, if I hadn't been there, this wouldn't have happened, and I'm so glad I was there to make this happen.Justin: I think a part of that frame for me is, well, what you did earlier Nate, which is go back to my dad. When we think of what my dad did, it's the things that still have an impact today. And that, fairly or unfairly, is the frame I tend to put on the things we did. So, you know, a particularly good policy that was right in the right moment, okay. But is it something that is going to make a material difference for my kids, two of whom are teenagers right now, ten years from now, and they're trying to buy a home? You know, 20 years from now when they're dealing with, you know, their kids in childcare or whatever it is, these are the things that is the frame for me.So everything from the first moment when I was welcoming in that very first Syrian family in the airport in Toronto, in an evening in December, where I'm like, okay, decisions we made as a government have changed this family's life for the better forever. That's meaningful. Things like the Canada Child Benefit where part of the benefit is, yeah, putting more money in families pockets every month. Hundreds of dollars a month, tax free. That makes a huge difference. But the real impact of that is the adults that will have had that extra money in their pockets, in their families, all the way through childhood, having better outcomes, you know, having had more opportunities as kids, having been lifted out of poverty, being able to contribute even better.Same thing on childcare. Yes, big difference right now in the workforce, certainly in the lives of moms who can choose. But you think of that, that leveling and that opportunity for early childhood education, that you don't actually feel the response to until 20 years from now. Same thing on climate change, like the things that we're doing now. Yeah, as Poilievre loves to point out, didn't prevent, you know, your, your price on pollution didn't prevent Jasper from burning. What a failure that is, let's just stop doing it. I mean, even a ten year old can see through the logic, the logic holes in that. But for me, I know that maybe what we're doing now means Jasper doesn't burn again 25 years from now, when everything is so much worse. Maybe we've actually managed to, to bend the curve in a way that is going to have a material impact.Justin TrudeauSo one of my challenges, I know in retail politics, that's all short term, is I do tend to get wrapped up in the long term, and I think it's probably a product of having spent so many time with, so much time with young people. I came into teaching.Nate: Yeah, you were the youth minister, you made yourself the youth minister.Justin: I was. I made myself the youth minister as prime minister at the same time, but, but I came in as a teacher. I came as an environmental advocate, and I saw that young people were frustrated because we were making long term decisions in government, successive governments that we're not, we're not putting them and their future at the center of it. So bringing in long term thinkers, because that's what young people are, they're imagining, okay, what's my life going to be like 40 years from now, not just four years from now?Harnessing that and keeping that in mind has been, I think, a real guide to how to think about and reflect on our successes. And that maybe, is why I don't wander around saying, we just did this really big thing, because people won't really feel the impact of it for another ten years, and maybe that's part of why I am so incredibly motivated that we've got all these things set up to ensure real success for Canada over the coming decades.The danger of, of squandering that, that lead we have over so many of our competitors around the world, whether it's on the environment and the green economy, whether it's on child care and a responsible safety net, whether it's on all sorts of different things. These are the things that, that, oh my God, we have worked so hard for so many years to get Canada to a position where the coming decades are going to be so good for us, that the idea that a short term, you know, mistake, like electing a Conservative government that wants to bring us back to some past that never actually existed, and give up on climate change and give up on, like, all these things. It just would be so devastating to everything that, that we have been able to build that's going to make the future better for so many.Nate: So you talk, I mean, that was a lot of different issues you point to as successes. But I take the overall point that you would say it's hard to judge in some ways, the things you you care about the most, the things that matter most to you are the longer is the longer term vision for the country, whether it's helping families but with a longer term view for long, long term outcomes, or whether it's climate change.Electoral ReformGoverning wears on governance, as I've said. And there have, there have been challenges and, and mistakes made over nine years. You reflect on some of your successes there and, and what you see is what you want to leave and make an impact on the country for your decision making. Well, what do you see as, if I, if I could have that one back, I would do it differently the next time.Justin: Electoral reform.Nate: Ah, yeah. Music to my ears. You said that just for me, right?Justin: I don't say that just for you. Actually, in one sense, I do say it just for you, because I know in just about any other interview.Nate: I was going to raise it. Justin: Any other interview, the interviewer’s eyes glaze over.Go, okay, yeah, but give me something real that you regret, right?I said, no, no, no, this is real for me. I look at where the world is going and where polarization has happened, and where excesses of populism have been able to come in. And the winner take all version of first past the post that we have right now, where you can get elected as the MP for 100% of people in your riding with 30, you know, 32% of the vote if it's properly divided, if it's divided amongst other parties, is not just devaluing the votes of so many others, but it's giving you a false sense of, you know, being the only legitimate voice for your community.Justin: And I, if I could do things differently, I don't know exactly how I would have, but I certainly would have done things differently around electoral reform to try and make sure that we are not going to be fighting this next election under first past the post again.Nate: Yeah, this, easily in nine years, the worst day I had, as a Liberal caucus member, was the day we broke that promise. it looked, I mean, there's there's, it looked a little bit cynical to say, oh, we couldn't we can't figure out a path. And so we're going to, you know, just burn it to the ground, never talk about it again. That's probably not how you would feel about it.Justin: I made two, two big mistakes on this one. The first one, because of some very strong voices in my caucus who were very, very clear that they wanted to, at least be able to make an argument for proportional representation, which, which I, I feel very, very strongly would be a mistake for Canada. I left the door open to proportional representation instead of ranked ballot, even within my own team.And that made, made, a whole bunch of people who heard me say “last election as first past the post”, translate that into he's going to bring in proportional representation, which I was not, which I never was going to, and I wasn't clear enough on that. We can have the argument about making it.Nate: But it wasn't, so it wasn't last election on our first past the post, it was make every vote count. Make your vote count. Justin: No, no, the vote was.The vote.Nate: Yeah, I know the language. You know, I know, but make every vote count was in our, was in our platform. Make every vote count was language lifted a little bit from FairVote so that it was like a few different ways that it was, it was like, oh yeah.Justin: Oh yeah, no, no, no. And that was, and that was deliberately that people wanted to, to make sure that we were bringing in the FairVote people. And I, even though I had been very clear with caucus and at the Liberal convention in 2012 how much I am opposed to the idea of proportional representation, I couldn't, I it was something that I had to leave a little bit of a door open to, and unfortunately, because of that, it got further. And when people realized that, no, I was not going to let that move forward.Nate: Yeah, you were never going to go there from the get go.Justin: I could have been clearer on that because, I mean, we could talk about why, why, why I think proportional representation is, is dangerous for the country, and it doesn't have to do with as much with sort of, augmenting fringe voices, although that is is one of the arguments I think is interesting. The big one is I am really worried about decoupling members of Parliament in the House from a community of people who both voted for them and didn't vote for them, that they have to serve, you know?Nate: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't think anyone, I don't think any advocate in Canada is arguing for doing away with, anyone who advocates for more proportional systems, advocates for doing away with local representation.Justin: But, but then you also give people who got elected because they were on a party list, and you have MPs who owe their existence as MPs to a political party, as opposed to specific Canadians. So anyway, but that’s not the point.Nate: Yeah, but you could do open lists. Justin: I said two things on that.Nate: What was the second one?Justin: The first one was I wasn't clear enough that I had real concerns.Nate: And he turns into a nerd on electoral reform, I guess. Justin: Yeah, we knew this was going here because we're both total nerds about it. Right?The second one is, me not using my majority to bring in, to bring in the model that I wanted, right, right. Because I could, I believe in ranked ballot. I think that if you give people choices to rank one, two, three, parties will try to pitch to be people's second or even third choice. and that brings in more cooperation and overlap between political parties in a way that counters anyone who is aggressively trying to polarize.That's why I love ranked ballot, I think. I think it's also an easy switch where people get to write one, two, three, because it doesn't change the ridings, doesn't change anything, doesn't even change the ballots. You just, you know, instead of an X, you put one, two, three or four or five or whatever. But the consequences of changing our electoral system are so significant. It's not like bringing in a budget or a policy that you don't like, that you can then vote out the next election. When you change the way people are elected, it becomes really hard to change it because by definition, whoever won under that new system likes that system a lot. And, and that idea of needing consensus across, and not having it was why I chose to say, okay, I'm not going to risk an irreversible change just to fulfill a promise I made to, to change that.So that was it was, it was a difficult day for you. It was a gut wrenching day for me to decide that I couldn't move forward on something that might hurt Canada in the long term and be

On this episode Lisa Raitt joins Nate on the podcast to discuss the complexities of political life, the challenges of balancing political and personal life, and the importance of fostering collaboration across party lines. They reflect upon the challenges that Canada faces, including changes in Economic growth and productivity, the role of corporations within this change, and how housing affordability impacts Canadians.Lisa’s background includes service as a Member of Parliament for eleven years, working in the ministries of natural resources, labour, and transport. Lisa also shadowed former finance minister Bill Morneau before serving as the deputy leader of the Federal Conservatives under Andrew Scheer.She now works for Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) as the Vice-Chair and Managing Director of Global Investment Banking.Lisa and Nate explore the pressures that are placed upon politicians in their day to day lives and the increasing importance of co-operation across Canadian politics.  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.uncommons.ca

On this episode Matthew Mendelsohn joins Nate on the podcast to discuss the issue of wealth concentration and its threat to democratic stability. They discuss practical solutions to address wealth inequality, trust in democratic institutions, the role of the federal public service and the need for a competent and responsive government.Matthew's extensive background includes serving as the Deputy Secretary to the Cabinet (Results and Delivery) in the Privy Council Office of Canada, where he played a key role in developing and implementing the federal government's policy agenda.His work focused on achieving measurable results and improving government performance, particularly in areas related to inclusive economic growth, tax reform, and public service effectiveness.Nate and Matthew explore the concept of inclusive growth, which focuses on equitable and sustainable economic growth benefiting both communities and individuals. They also highlight progress made on Indigenous issues and the need for transparency and risk-taking in the civil service.Watch on YouTube: Transcript:Nate: Welcome to Uncommons. I’m Nate Erskine-Smith, and on this episode I’m joined by Matthew Mendelsohn, a great thinker in Canadian public policy over the last number of years. He has done many different things in this space. He has been a professor at TMU and Queen’s. He has founded the Mowat Centre, which was at U of T and the Monk School, and obviously canceled because we had a Doug Ford government here in Ontario after 2018. He, federally, he was the chief architect of the 2015 election platform for the Liberal party.He led efforts to write and create openness around those ministerial mandate letters out of the 2015 election, and he led the Prime Minister’s results and delivery unit from 2016 to 2020. Now more recently and currently, he’s the CEO of Social Capital Partners. It’s a great organization focused on the social good in many different ways, from social enterprise to employee ownership to so much more, including a more recent focus on wealth concentration and wealth inequality.That’s a big part of this conversation. We talk about wealth inequality, what we can do about it. We talk about democratic resilience and the connection to a lack of inclusive growth, a lack of equality, and too much concentration in wealth.And we talk about the ability, or inability at times, of the federal public service to get big things done.Statistics of Wealth ConcentrationNate: Matthew, thanks so much for joining me.Matthew: Thank you for having me, Nate.Nate: So you and I have come across one another when you were working in the federal government, but you were no longer working in the federal government. You left in 2020. You're still doing very interesting things. And before we get into some conversations about your work in the civil service and your history in politics and in public service, you're now at Social Capital Partners. And the current work of Social Capital Partners is very much focused on wealth concentration, which is an issue that I have a great interest in.So let's start there and let's start with social capital partners, your role there, and the work that you're doing on wealth inequality.Matthew: So Social Capital Partners is a not-for-profit that has been focused on impact investing, social enterprise, financial inclusion for over 20 years. Over the last five years, we have started to focus on the issue of wealth inequality, wealth concentration, the threat that it represents to democratic stability and democratic societies, the fact that it's not getting nearly enough attention, I think, in the public debate.And we have been focused on very practical solutions. So at Social Capital Partners, we have always been interested in very practical, actionable ideas to push back against, earlier time, financial inclusion, but now wealth inequality.So we've been leading the work that your government has supported around the creation of employee ownership trusts, making it easier for retiring business owners to sell their businesses to their employees rather than to private equity or to a competitor. And this creates options for business owners, but it allows workers to build state equity pathways to wealth in the businesses that they are working for and building. It also creates more community resilience, that you have small and medium -sized businesses that are being run and owned, and with equity and deep roots in the community, with the people who work there and live there rather than being run by multinational global private equity funds out of New York or heaven forbid Toronto.So that work is really important to us and we think that the wealth concentration question is not getting nearly enough attention in any of our discussions. The productivity discussion and the democracy discussion, the economic growth discussion. And our goal is to identify really practical policy and legislative changes that can push back against what I think everyone sees as a huge problem, which is the pooling up of wealth, like unbelievably mammoth pools of wealth in fewer and fewer hands, and more and more challenges for young people to buy a home, to save for retirement, to build economic security. So that's what we're focused on.Nate: And let's dive into the specifics of that challenge in some ways, because StatsCan counts some of the numbers, but they count it very poorly in comparison to what we see in other jurisdictions, especially in the US. And I was following along with the work that Social Capital Partners has done through Billionaire Blind Spot, a report that better tracks wealth inequality in this country. And it's shocking. So it's...Correct me if I'm wrong here, but it’s that the top 1% owns 26% of all wealth in this country, and the top 0.1% owns more than 12% of the wealth in this country. And it's not as bad as the US, but it's close to as bad as the US, and it's much worse than the picture that StatsCan provides to us.Matthew: Yeah, that's right. And I don't want to overstate the accuracy of our work, but what we did, Dan Skilleter, our Policy Director, combined a bunch of different publicly available data sets. I'd also point out that the Parliamentary Budget Officer did good work on this and their work is out there publicly. And it's just very different than what StatsCan reports. And I think it's useful to remember that whether it's StatsCan or PBO or an academic study, a lot of these things are estimates, not just on wealth, but on lots of the data that we use publicly. We use it because we need to use something, and it helps us understand the world, but certainly around how one measures wealth, what gets counted, what gets reported. I mean there's lots of uncertainty and ambiguity there, but the point that you make, and that Dan's report highlighted, was that StatsCan’s numbers are like an extreme outlier in terms of their estimates for wealth concentration. You know, talking about the top 1% from, you know, our estimates and PBO that hold, say, a quarter of all Canadian wealth and the top 0.1% owning, holding, you know, 11 or 12% of the wealth. It's an enormous concentration. And, you know, while I recognize that StatsCan has some challenges, the US Statistical Agency does a much better job, European agencies do much better jobs, and I would like StatsCan to do a better job. But if they're not going to do a better job, they should at least be a lot more upfront in how bad their data are, and maybe stop recording it, because they put it out and then everyone talks about it and it gets picked up, and yeah, they'll have a footnote or they have a paragraph that highlights that the data probably aren't so accurate. But by the time that gets into public discussion, media discussion, from my perspective, the damage is done. And it allows us to tell ourselves this story about how equal we are and everyone has a fair chance. And sure, obviously, if you're born wealthy, you're more likely to end up wealthy. And we recognize, you know, challenges for people growing up in more economically vulnerable situations. But we tell ourselves a story about how good we are, compared particularly to the United States. And for me, as someone who believes deeply in democracy, you want a story that citizens hear that aligns with reality. And it just doesn't align with reality.Young people without access to family wealth in Canada today know how difficult it is to save for a home, pay for rent, pay off student debt, forget about saving for retirement. We understand all of these things are huge challenges. And not only the media narrative doesn't, you know, highlight these enough, but then there are these StatsCan reports that keep getting picked up that say, yeah, no, things aren't so bad after all.The Role of Capital Gains Taxation Within the Fight Against Wealth ConcentrationNate: And then you have, unfortunately, and you track even over the last 10 years, over this Liberal government's tenure, you have a situation where when we first came into office, there was a conversation around inequality, but it was focused on income inequality. And you had measures focused on addressing that challenge. It wasn't until 2021 in the throne speech that we started to see a small commitment, but a commitment nonetheless, on tackling extreme wealth inequality, although I would argue we haven't really seen commensurate policy action until fairly recently, and other countries are having a more serious conversation in this regard. I know more about this in part because the OECD has done work on assessing wealth taxation, net wealth taxation around the world and what works, what doesn't, and assessing effectiveness. There are academics in the US that have done some very serious work. Obviously, Piketty has done some very serious work on this. But in the UK, there was a wealth tax commission that was comprised of a series of experts that put work out. And so I actually, in the last parliament, put together a motion to address wealth inequality, pulling from that more international literature and expertise. And capital gains taxation is very clearly part of the answer. And we don't really always frame it in that context even in the course of this debate that we're having. But starting from the point of wealth accumulation, the fact that you've written this, that the benefits from economic growth have increasingly gone to capital rather than workers. Well, what are the solutions? We know we have a problem, so what are the solutions? And net wealth taxation is one answer, and it can be a bit fraught on implementation. And one other answer is to address capital gains taxation and accumulation of that wealth and the increased concentration of it as a result. Do you think we've sufficiently placed that debate around the recent tax changes within this broader conversation around wealth concentration?Matthew: So this is something that we could talk about for an hour, Nate. So there's so much in what you've just said. I think that the first thing is, you know, are the points you make about growing wealth concentration during the last decade, to me, these are not a commentary on a failure of any particular government. These are global trends that have been taking place. And as you say, in 2015, as you know, I was involved in writing the Liberal platform in 2015, the Canada Child Benefit and other measures were really focused on income inequality. But over the last number of years, the issue of wealth concentration has become much more important, and much more prominent. And I do think where in Canada we are behind is that we have not engaged with this debate nearly as much as, I mean, you mentioned Piketty, the European Tax Observatory. There are all kinds of processes going on in European countries and other countries to talk about these issues. I'm not saying they've made lots of progress, and there are lots of problems with a lot of wealth tax proposals, and we're seeing that, but other countries have really, I'd say, engaged in this debate. And in Canada, I really do think that our public discourse, our economic commentary, our established economic think tanks are not engaged with a deep, meaningful, serious, sophisticated debate about what's going on in the economy and what to do about it. And when we talk about these issues, people say, well, you're going to just raise taxes on the wealthy and then you'll have capital flight, and that's going to be a problem and people are going to take their money to tax havens or to the United States and all of those things are true and we can talk about how to tax wealth in the most effective, efficient ways but there's also a whole series of policy initiatives like employee ownership and others that we can talk about that create more pathways to accumulating wealth and assets and equity for working people. And so, you know, some of the things we're talking about at Social Capital Partners, and in a number of stakeholder communities, you know, are how do you get lower cost financing to small and medium -sized businesses in small town and rural Canada, which go to big commercial banks, which are highly concentrated, which have very high interest rates, which think about risk in ways that are often quite difficult for small and medium -sized businesses, Indigenous business owners, Black business owners, to get access to capital. BDC, the Business Development Bank of Canada, in my view, could be doing a much better job getting access to capital and access to financing to small and medium -sized businesses in this country.We have an entrepreneurship problem, but we have an entrepreneurship problem in part because our economy is becoming more and more concentrated. Our economy is becoming more and more concentrated and our financial institutions are not transparent. So there are whole bunch of different things that we can be doing in this country through policy tools, not just tax the rich, although we can talk about that. We can talk about how you, how you tax people's third or fourth properties as income. In this country, we have not wanted to take on mom and pop real estate investors. We don't want to take them on for their, because we're concerned about their retirement savings. But plenty of mom and pop real estate investors have six, seven, eight, nine, ten, twelve properties, and those properties are not being taxed appropriately. So there ways to get at these things through taxation, but there are also ways to get at these things through policy. And I think, unfortunately, in Canada, we have not framed this issue, wealth concentration, wealth inequality, challenges for young and working people to build assets, as an emergency, as a crisis that requires that we need to focus on it.Nate: It's interesting, I was in a conversation not so long ago where the couple I was speaking to was quite concerned about the capital gains changes. But when placed in the context of the unfairness we see in housing, when placed in the context of the unfairness generally we see on wealth accumulation, and this is one small way to raise revenue in a more fair way, but also to then take that revenue and deliver it to priorities like housing, the objections soften significantly, especially when they learn that we were taking into account small business considerations and entrepreneurial considerations and that this wasn't about hurting a sense of real entrepreneurship for small business owners. And I think you're right, that there are many things. You're talking about broadening the ownership of the economy through things like employee ownership. We could talk about how we're a country of oligopolies and we need to break up those oligopolies and have much more competition in this country if we care about productivity for sure, but also if we care about fairness. We can talk about the financialization of the economy and housing is the example of this when it's such an absolute necessity, it is the necessity and yet we have unfortunately treated it as a financial instrument such that it's run away from so many people.We can talk about tax shelters, and we can talk about the use of corporate profit shifting and all that. We still, of course, have to talk about taxation, even though it's very fraught politics, as politicians discover, for better and worse. But this conversation around capital gains changes, I found really interesting because when I went down this rabbit hole of net wealth taxation, and my initial instinct had been something more along the lines of what Jagmeet Singh and the NDP had proposed of this very high net worth, a small percentage hit every year or so, the implementation is very difficult. Just the assessing the value of individual wealth can be difficult. It's not to say it's not doable. I've seen others like Gabriel Zucman say it's doable and here's how.But, when I engaged with the OECD and engaged with folks at the Wealth Tax Commission in the UK, their view was, a one-time wealth tax is very achievable because you don't have capital flight risks in the same way. And then beyond that, the best approach would be some combination of capital gains taxation and inheritance taxation. and gifts taxation. If you combine those measures in a thoughtful way, you reduce the capital flight challenges that we would otherwise see, and you're addressing the challenge still in a very significant way. We at, in fits and starts have talked about this as a generational fairness issue and a taxing very wealthy families and estates issue, but I don't think we've framed it in the context of this broader wealth concentration challenge. There are different ways of approaching this challenge and here's the most efficient way of doing it.Matthew: So again, there's a lot there and I agree with that. I don't want to underestimate the complexity of trying to do wealth tax, and the challenges of implementing it, and the difficulty in getting it right and fair. All of those things are true and countries have tried to do it and have been unsuccessful at it. But it does speak to the broader question of our lack in Canada of really sophisticated tax policy debate. So obviously, most people aren't going to be tax experts, but we have a very, very narrow range of people who are to speak on media panels about tax issues. And we need a much broader understanding of tax. We need more capacity. We need more research, people doing this from all kinds of different perspectives. We have a kind of narrow C.D. Howe Institute business perspective on taxation issues, whose instincts are, if you tax capital it will have a productivity hit. And the evidence of that is mixed, but it keeps getting repeated in our mainstream media narratives. And I just think we need a more sophisticated conversation about that. And at Social Capital Partners, you know, we are going to be doing that and supporting that kind of work so that we can have a sophisticated fairness and productivity tax policy discussion that isn't just repeating things that people read in the first five minutes of Macroecon 101 in 1977. There's a much more sophisticated understanding of how the economy works than what, unfortunately, a lot of our commentators want to repeat and then get repeated in the mainstream media. And there are a whole series of non-orthodox critiques of how economics and finance operate, that we're just not talking about in Canada, and they're talking about them way more in other places because to me the biggest risk, the biggest emergency is not a productivity emergency that all our mainstream orthodox business lobbyists and Bank of Canada want to talk about. Our biggest crises and emergencies are housing, infrastructure. For those in Toronto recently, the fact that the city gets flooded when it rains, like that's a problem for productivity and that requires investment. But to me, the biggest emergency and crisis is for young people without family wealth trying to build a stake in society, to build economic security, to build economic security that allows them to go be an entrepreneur, that gives them freedom to fail and make choices and start businesses. So I think we really need to be focused on that issue because if people lose hope that their democracy is delivering them a fair chance, then we've got a real problem.Defining and Achieving Inclusive GrowthNate: Well, I want to get to that real problem when we fail to deliver results for people. But before we get to that particular question around resilience in our democracies, you've mentioned fairness and productivity, and sometimes they can be at odds, but on housing they certainly go hand in hand. And as you have written previously, there is growing evidence that more inclusive growth isn't just more equitable, it's also stronger growth. And that fairness and productivity can very much go hand in hand, taking a lens of inclusive growth. I've seen politicians talk about inclusive growth. I was at a talk recently where I asked Mark Carney about this around wealth concentration and what his views on, what did he mean by inclusive growth. Canada Child Benefit is an example of how we might tackle inclusive growth, as one example among a variety of different policy instruments. But when you talk about inclusive growth how do you, how do you best explain it, so it's not at some international forum for policy experts to talk about, but people actually feel it?Matthew: So most of our public debate at the moment, and all of the, you know, the orthodox economic commentators and the business lobbyists, are speaking about growth and GDP per capita, and we have to increase that. Growth is good. I'm pro -growth, but all growth is not created equal is just not true. And the fact that GDP per capita goes up doesn’t tell you anything about whether people are doing well, whether the economy is sustainable, whether communities are healthy, whether people are building economic security. GDP per capita going up is fine, but it’s just a number. And we have to know the distribution of that GDP, of that economic growth, because if it is creating enormous pools of wealth, and depression in other places, that’s not good. And I do sometimes draw a comparison with public finances and when we look at the budget, the budget reports on numbers, or budget reports on spending. But we don't do a good job thinking about is this in the medium term economic interests of communities and working people? Is it in the medium term and long term interests of the environment? If you spend a billion dollars, the federal government, if it comes up next budget cycle and a minister comes up and says, I would like to take a billion dollars and set it on fire, and you guys all approve that and you vote for it, it's a billion dollars spent in the budget. And that's how it's booked in public finances. And if you take a billion dollars and invest it in early childhood education, it's also booked as a billion dollars. They both look the exact same, but one is an investment, one is inclusive, one is creating medium term value, and one is obviously doing nothing. That might be an extreme example, because I don't think anyone's going to propose that, but it is an example which highlights that we have to look at these things, not just in terms of how much they cost or whether it creates growth, but what the sustainable long -term benefits are.The Consequences of Economic InequalityNate: I have so many questions about the way to measure government spending, which I will get to later on. But I first want to ask you about the failure to deliver that kind of growth, the failure to ensure that you're bringing more disadvantaged communities along, that you're bringing people along who don't have generational wealth in their own families, that you're making sure that there is opportunity for everyone, that there’s, we don't use this language as much in politics as we used to, but there is that equality of opportunity that is substantive and real. And if we don't have that equality of opportunity, what are the pitfalls? And you have written that wealth concentration is destabilizing democratic societies and that authoritarian populists are winning in many places because in part, the benefits of economic growth have been accruing disproportionately to capital, and so walk me through how you see this inequality challenge, especially around wealth inequality, but the lack of equality of opportunity, how that translates to undermining democratic resilience.Matthew: Yeah, that's a great question, Nate, and there's a lot there. And there are some facts that are important to highlight that are part of this discussion. You've indicated some of them, but that the benefits of growth have accrued disproportionately to capital rather than labor over the last 30 or 40 years is undeniable. And so that creates concentration, that creates more and more people who earn more and more of their income, and we'll call it income, could be called different things, from passive investment, or even active investment, or investing in housing and financialization of housing, rather than their labor. And that creates a real chasm, it creates resentment, and it creates social chaos, and eventually it can create social collapse.You know, I don't want to overstate it or be alarmist, but you know, who is watching what has gone on in the United States over the last 15 years, as more and more people both felt completely economically isolated and disadvantaged, but also that comes with that, not respected, not valued, not seen, not part of the mainstream, creates huge social problems and people opt out of the system. I think that we in Canada really need to look at what's going on in the United States, and Canada and the United States are quite different countries and there's some facts on the ground that are quite different, but we really have to be attentive to that and we really have to think about what populism means.One of the things that I'm not super happy about in Canada or in some progressive circles is that we assume populism is bad or that all populism is authoritarian. And that's just not true. I mean, some of the great changes in Canadian history have been populist ones, like challenging the power of concentrated capital, challenging the power of banks to steal people's houses during the Depression, the CCF and the social credit, you know, focusing on the challenges for farmers and working class people at periods of economic dislocation, and building a social safety net and Canada Pension Plan and Medicare. Like all of these things were populist initiatives opposed by the elite at the time. And so, I think that it's a problem that Donald Trump and MAGA take up so much of our mental room, because there's so many other versions of populism. There's the authoritarian version of populism. And I think that your government, the Liberals over the last number of years, have been building progressive populist agenda, practical populist agenda, challenges around competition, challenges to financial institutions and the amount of interest they can charge, questions around junk fees, and the ability for individual consumers to have access to their banking data and to be able to switch cell phone providers. I mean, there's a whole series of things, which there's lots of cross party support for, I’m not suggesting that this is particularly a Liberal agenda, but there's a whole populist agenda that pushes back on the narrative from, you know, the Business Council of Canada and the business lobbyists, that is focused on the financial interests of working people. It's a coherent agenda. It's a populist agenda. It's a pragmatic agenda and I think every party at this moment, Conservatives and NDP are good at it, probably historically. Liberals often focus more on elite accommodation historically, but every party needs a populist agenda right now and those will look different between different parties. But every party has to be speaking to working people who are participating in the economy, who are struggling to pay bills and pay rent, and what specifically is each party going to do about it. And the authoritarian populism view is one that only leads to destruction and death. And this is another observation that I would make, which is that I think the business community, which spends a lot of time talking about productivity and taxes and taxes on capital and are concerned about the capital gains tax. I would love the business community and smart, sensible, thoughtful, sophisticated business leaders to get engaged in the question of democratic resilience and the protection of our democratic institutions because, you know, I looked at that Republican convention and the labour leaders there, and the business leaders there, they were terrified because it's not good to live in an authoritarian country. It is not good to live as a business person in a country where there's no rule of law, where the ability of your business to succeed depends on the whims of a party in power. Like we know this, and Canada's huge advantage is we are a country of rule of law, we are a country of opportunity, we are a country of democracy. We believe that our civil service for all its flaws is independent and professional and nonpartisan. We believe our courts are independent and will enforce the law and we will disagree with the decisions they make. But the business community should be concerned about what's going on in some other countries. And they should start figuring out now how they invest in the stability and resilience of our democratic institutions and the rule of law and the protection of human rights.Communicating Policy and Establishing Trust in GovernmentsNate: It's interesting channeling populism, and let's bracket off more authoritarian populism for a moment and some we see obviously out of former President Trump. But in Canada, we have seen, at different points in time, see, let's take the current Conservative leader. He's certainly, I would say, weaponizing a kind of populism on criminal justice to be anti -evidence, anti -following the evidence to, whether it's actually improving public safety, helping people who are suffering from substance use addictions, following the evidence, saving lives in that case. Certainly not helping follow the evidence of what police chiefs have called for even. But it is weaponizing people's fears and it's playing on a certain populism that I think is a little bit worrying.On the other hand, we have at times failed to channel, and I'll use telecommunications as a fairly obvious example, but we see it in, when we think of our country as a country of oligopolies, you talk about a consumer agenda, a competition agenda, I think we have in fits and starts moved down that path, but we've failed to truly embrace an agenda that would channel that populism to the most that we can, in terms of the collective good. And it can be a challenge sometimes on the tax front especially, because the benefits of the spending from those capital gains dollars are gonna benefit far more people than the tax is impacting, of course, but the level of outrage in the media is outsized because of the ability for certain people to communicate, whether it's the Canadian Medical Association or tech entrepreneurs. But we've done a fair job at times channeling that populism to make some tax changes, whether it was the middle class tax cut when we first got elected and the taxing the 1% a little bit more. It does increasingly become a challenge. There's non -spending populist measures that are easier to channel. On the spending side, part of the challenge, raising revenue, reducing revenue, reducing spending, I should say, in other places, but you take a tax cut as an example, or a tax expenditure, or a new benefit. If the middle class doesn't feel it, and if the bulk of Canadian society doesn't feel it, it's, like, take the disability benefit or the dental care benefit that we're in the midst of rolling out in two parts, a lot of families are not gonna feel that, and it becomes a lot easier to roll it back. So one of the successes of the Canada Child Benefit is it is felt by so many people that it's an impossible policy to get rid of. And I'm glad you were part of plucking it out of the Caledon Institute at the time. Now most of the folks at Maytree, but you plucked it out of there and Sherri Torjman and Ken Battle, and you guys made it a reality. That was successful populist politics, channeling a sense of fairness, and a sense of income inequality and frustration at it to say we're going to do something really important that is in the interest of the collective good. It's tough when it's, Pierre Poilievre’s, promise of a broad -based tax cut. That's sort of a populist measure. He's not told us how he's going to pay for it, he has not told us what it looks like. It's going to be very expensive if it's going to be a broad -based tax cut of any significance. And it does get harder, at least on the tax expenditure side, and or, the benefits side, to do one of these big programs to touch so many people in a meaningful way that people feel it and that you have successfully managed the politics of it. And so if you want to go from channeling populism in a collective good kind of way, in an important way to preserve democracy and democratic institutions, it's tough to navigate that in a way that it's truly good. You might do it, but is it going to be felt by people in a way that translates into their voting intentions?Matthew: Yeah, I mean, there's a lot there. I do think we need some significant tax reform. You know, I look forward to engaging with, you know, more specifics, if the Conservatives are making specific proposals because, I mean, the Liberal government tried to deal with the question of individuals as corporations incorporating themselves, and there have been some capital gains tax changes now. But there's a lot of change going on in the economy. mean, one of the StatsCan interesting tidbits. If you look at, you know, changes in income over the last 10 or 15 years across cohorts, like the rich, the top cohorts are not earning a lot more income now than they did 10 or 15 years ago. But that's because so much of their income, in quotation marks, is no longer income, right? They're hiding that income in corporations or in other mechanisms and schemes which are perfectly legal. But you certainly have, at the top end of the income distribution, a lot more people who are earning “income” that doesn't count as income and isn't taxed properly. So I think that there are a whole bunch of things that we should be looking at in the tax system. But I would also say to your question about the government being able to deliver a big program. If there is a good big program to deliver, a party will make a case and they might be able to win that case. And sometimes it takes 30 years. And many of us have talked about early childhood education for a very long time. And eventually a policy window opens up and the right constellation of factors comes up. But I'm always hesitant to conflate, you know, bigger government with more equitable, good results on the ground for people. To me, the reality is, you know, the federal public service has been growing a lot. I haven't looked into the data, I'm sure a lot of that is valuable. Some of it may be less valuable. But the reality is that just growing the federal public service doesn't translate into impact and results and outcome on the ground in communities.My experience is just an observation, is that the federal public service is far more removed from the day -to -day delivery and understanding of what's going on in communities than provincial or municipal governments would be. And while provincial and municipal governments are usually interested in trying to solve problems, the federal public service is usually more interested in managing processes, delivering programs, but whether those programs have an impact or are achieving their results, those things are less important. And for me, a policy person, for you, a politician, I'm sure every day you think about how can a government initiative help solve a problem for a person. That's how we think about the politics and government in policy.Whereas I think for federal public service, that is very, very abstract. Obviously, individuals care about that, but the system doesn't try and solve problems. The system tries to manage risk, manage process, create process and deliver programs, whether they're effective or not. And so, yeah, I do worry that if you're growing the federal public service or increasing tax revenues, some of those may be useful or not in particular cases, you know, more money in Ottawa, you know, can just get absorbed into the ground around Tunney's pasture, like summer rain. Like it just disappears into the ecosystem of Ottawa-Gatineau without ever being felt in Red Deer or The Beaches or Halifax.Nate: It's interesting though, it's interesting pulling the two threads together of capacity and delivery in the civil service and effectiveness, and the effectiveness certainly when you're pointing to outcomes rather than just spending. But it's also interesting to pull both threads, that and also the conversation on wealth concentration, and then to pull them both towards that democratic resilience and that question of trust.There are many different ways you go about building trust and engendering trust among citizens in your democratic institutions. And one is they feel like there's fairness being delivered and they feel the benefits of growth and they feel the benefits of, that the benefits are shared in some more fair way. And that's really a question around policies and taxes and benefit programs. And my concern there is just, how do we make sure they're felt by people in a real way? Because sometimes there can be this huge expenditure, but if it's not felt by people, it's not gonna be a lasting policy. But you're exactly right, that there's trust in a completely different way. That if someone might feel the benefit from the childcare program, and that's a check mark for the government, and then they go to get their passport renewed and it's another disaster, and they see an influx of temporary residents, especially international students, that are causing major challenges in an acute way on housing in their small or large community, things start, the Canada is broken narrative, that sort of populist narrative that is trying to tap into a frustration with things, starts to be more successful and starts to break some of that trust.Matthew: Yeah, trust is the foundation of democracy. Convention is the foundation of democracy and that's trust in all kinds of ways. That's trust in institution, that's trust in opponents, that's trust in your fellow citizens, that's trust that the rules are fair, that if you're following the rules or working hard, you have a chance to succeed. And there are lots of people right now, mostly our geopolitical enemies, who

Nate is joined on this episode by Dr. Jane Philpott, a former federal Health Minister and currently the Dean of Health Sciences at Queen’s University. She has recently published her book: Health for All, A Doctor’s Prescription for a Healthier Canada. Before politics, Dr. Philpott practiced family medicine for over 25 years, including important development work in Niger. She was elected in 2015 and served in cabinet in a number of roles, including in Health and Indigenous Services. She was a member of the Liberal caucus until the SNC-Lavalin affair, after which she ran as an independent candidate in the 2019 election.Nate and Dr. Philpott discuss her book 'Health for All' and the need for improved access to primary care in Canada, a better focus on the social determinants of health, and why we should treat substance use as a health issue in the midst of a devastating public health crisis. They also discuss her time in politics, including her reflections on how she left, and whether she would be interested in returning to political life. Watch the full podcast here: This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.uncommons.ca

Nate is joined by Mohamed Shuriye, Director of Community Safety and Well-being at the City of Toronto to discuss police reform and more effective alternate public health responses. Mo has led the city’s efforts to develop an alternative community safety response model that is now rolling out across Toronto. While conservatives seem intent on fighting a renewed war on drugs and pursuing fear-based policies, the evidence continues to point to a public health approach for people in crisis, in collaboration with community partners.Watch this podcast live at Beach United Church: This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.uncommons.ca

Nate is joined on this episode by Conservative MP Arnold Viersen. They talk about his legislation to protect people on porn platforms, his social conservative views and advocacy on abortion, and the role of social conservatism in today’s Conservative Party. In the interest of full transparency, Nate invited Arnold on the podcast to talk about C-270. However, Arnold had introduced a petition to protect the preborn in early May, and has a history of advocacy against abortion. So Nate also asked him questions about his social conservatism, and only after a half hour conversation about his legislative work on pornography. Arnold emailed Nate to say he felt ambushed and that he would not have come on the podcast. We’re posting the whole thing, unedited, and you be the judge. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.uncommons.ca

Nate is joined on this episode by Columbia law student Safia Southey and thoracic surgeon Dr. Amgad Elsherif.Safia participated in the encampment at Columbia that helped to spark similar protests at campuses across North America. She speaks to the importance of protest, the role students can play in raising awareness and affecting change, and the need to differentiate between criticism of Israel and antisemitism.Dr. Amgad Elsherif is a thoracic surgeon based in Ontario who has been on the ground in Gaza to provide emergency medical care. He shares his firsthand experiences of the devastating impact of the war on children in Gaza, including the impacts of the inability to access basic medical supplies.Chapters:00:00 Introduction and Background of the Guests01:24 The Distinction Between Criticism of Israel and Anti-Semitismwith guest Safia Southey (3:00)3:00 Safia’s Background and Initial Involvement05:10 Details of the Columbia Encampment07:44 Safia’s Personal Motivations and Experiences12:42 Addressing Antisemitism and Criticism of Israel20:23 Complexities of Zionism and Palestinian Rights20:45 The Complexity of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict24:43 The Need for a Ceasefire and Protection of Civilian Lives32:04 Challenges Faced by Student Protesters at Columbia University34:26 Media Coverage of the Crackdown36:46 Threats and Intimidation by the Schoolwith guest Dr. Amgad Elsherif (43:18)44:12 The Reality on the Ground in Gaza53:08 Effectiveness of IDF Messages to Civilians59:15 The Human Impact of War on Children01:02:51 Recognition of a Palestinian State This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.uncommons.ca

Nate is joined on this episode by Neil Hetherington, CEO of the Daily Bread Food Bank, to discuss the recent surge in food bank visits, the diverse demographics of those in need, and the crucial role of policy reform in alleviating poverty and homelessness.Neil Hetherington joined Daily Bread Food Bank as CEO in January 2018. Neil’s non-profit experience includes 16 years as CEO of Habitat for Humanity in Toronto, and then New York City, and two years as CEO of Dixon Hall, a multi-service agency with 240 staff serving thousands of people in Toronto through its social programs, shelters, seniors’ programs, youth initiatives and community revitalization efforts. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.uncommons.ca

Nate is joined on this episode by economist Trevor Tombe for a discussion on the price on pollution, its impact on food inflation, wealth and capital gains taxation, and the government’s acquisition of the TMX pipeline. Trevor is a professor of Economics at the University of Calgary and a Research Fellow at The School of Public Policy, with research exploring a broad range of topics, but focused mainly on international trade, macroeconomics, and fiscal federalism. He is also a co-director of Finances of the Nation. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.uncommons.ca

Nate is joined on this episode by Green MP for Kitchener Centre Mike Morrice for a discussion on the Canada Disability Benefit, the successes and shortcomings of the government’s climate plan, and the importance of acting as a voice for one’s constituents. Mike was first elected in 2021 and has been a strong local advocate for greater climate action, as well as the need to lift people out of poverty and more meaningfully address wealth inequality. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.uncommons.ca

Nate is joined on this episode by Conservative MP Marilyn Gladu for a discussion on the challenges faced when protecting civil liberties in Canada, as well as a wider conversation on areas of common ground and disagreement. Marilyn represents the riding of Sarnia—Lambton. She is a professional engineer by trade, who worked for Dow Chemical for 21 years in a variety of roles locally and globally. Her work in the house has ranged from work to ensure greater access to palliative care, better pension protections and her current role as opposition critic for civil liberties. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.uncommons.ca

Nate is joined on this episode by Minister of Environment and Climate Change Steven Guilbeault for a wide-ranging discussion on Canada’s environmental policy, the work being done to combat attempts by the Conservatives to undermine that policy, and the importance of communicating what is being done to ensure that any progress is lasting. Steven Guilbeault was first elected as the Member of Parliament for Laurier—Sainte-Marie in 2019. He has previously served as Minister of Canadian Heritage. Prior to politics, he was known for his activism with Green Peace and as the founder of Équiterre, the largest environmental organization in Quebec. To read more of Nate’s writing on the carbon price below: This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.uncommons.ca

On this episode, Nate is joined by MP for Victoria and NDP environment critic Laurel Collins. The discussion covers a range of issues including Nate and Laurel's shared desire for a youth climate corps, Canada’s climate progress more broadly, and Laurel’s work to address domestic abuse. At the end of the episode, Laurel highlights a virtual event taking place on Monday Monday, March 18th where young activists & MPs from across party lines will discuss the creation of a national Youth Climate Corps.Click here to RSVP.Lastly, starting with this episode, you will be able to watch full episodes of the Uncommons podcast on YouTube. Click here to watch. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.uncommons.ca

Nate is joined on this episode by Housing, Infrastructure, & Communities Minister Sean Fraser to talk about the single most important issue in this country at the moment: housing affordability. The lack of housing affordability is a generational challenge. Young people are worse off than their parents. It is as simple as that. And it's also an economic productivity challenge. Young people are leaving in significant numbers because they can't afford to stay and that has knock-on negative consequences for labour productivity, and talent retention. Sean is relatively new in the role, and it certainly seems as if he's been firing on all cylinders ever since taking it on. While we've seen steadily growing federal action on social housing and homelessness since 2015. We've seen more serious action in recent months to address restrictive zoning, waive GST on rental construction, and to get all kinds of housing built. So how does the Housing Minister stack up his plan against the competition? What more can and should we be doing to get housing built? And how can we best communicate our plan of action when the scale of the challenge is so great, and it takes time for new policies to be realized on the ground? This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.uncommons.ca

Nate is joined on this episode by Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow for a discussion on federal-municipal cooperation, navigating the city's difficult financial situation, and what she hopes to accomplish with her first budget as mayor. You can listen to the #UncommonsPod wherever you get your podcast, or at Uncommons.ca where you can also find Nate’s recent substack posts including one on federal-municipal cooperation. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.uncommons.ca