Premier John Horgan stopped in Coquitlam Friday morning on a Metro Vancouver campaign trail that continues to swing through suburbia in its first week.
Metro Vancouver's suburban ridings are expected to play a key role in determining who will form the next government, with at least two Tri-Cities ridings up for grabs.
Horgan was joined by all of the NDP’s Tri-City candidates, masked and bumping elbows as the premier stepped off an empty coach bus, which in a normal election year would be packed with a his political entourage and a hoard of reporters.
Coquitlam-Maillardville MLA and Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing Selina Robinson spoke first, setting the stage for a series of speeches that framed the NDP government’s last three years as a giant step in the right direction for housing security and affordability.
Flanking Horgan, Tri-City NDP candidates Rick Glumac, Mike Farnworth and Fin Donnelly had what would be the standard photo opportunity scuttled as social distancing and mandatory masks kept everyone at arms length.
Behind Horgan’s impromptu podium in a park rose the Como Lake United Church Housing Hub project, where construction crews continue to work on the 75-unit facility built in the old parking lot of the church.
The redevelopment, announced by Horgan nearly two-and-a-half years ago in Coquitlam, is part of a $12.4 million provincial spend to help the B.C. Conference of the United Church of Canada redevelop some of its land in Vancouver, Nanaimo, Richmond and Coquitlam into a total of 414 new rental homes.
“Single-bedroom condos in the sky are not for everyone, and although that’s an important part of the housing stock, there’s a whole bunch of other housing that needs to be built,” Horgan told a crowd at the church in 2018.
The projects are part of the government’s “HousingHub,” which aims to broker agreements with non-profits, developers, faith groups, property owners, local and federal governments and Indigenous organizations to locate, use or redevelop land in communities where affordability is an issue.
And while it’s a plan set in motion before the COVID-19 pandemic put massive holes in the province’s budget, Horgan doubled-down on his government’s promises to invest in housing affordability, framing it as a wedge issue between his party and the BC Liberals under Andrew Wilkinson.
“[Wilkinson would rather] make it a place to invest, instead of a place to put down roots,” said Horgan, attacking the BC Liberal leader’s plan to do away with British Columbia’s Speculation and Vacancy Tax. “Do we want to have a government focusing on the needs of people, or the wealthy and well-connected?”
The BC NDP weren't the only ones talking housing Friday. In a press release from the BC Liberals titled "What the NDP forgot to tell you... on housing," a spokesperson for the party claimed Horgan and his NDP government "have broken their promise on housing," and are far short of a promised 114,000 affordable homes.
"At the NDP's current rate, it will take them 100 years to keep their promise," stated the press release.
It’s no surprise Horgan has pushed to have this election’s ballot box issues centred on social spending, say some experts. After months of massive spending to backstop the financial fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, Horgan’s NDP government is looking to use that track record as a spring board to electoral victory, said SFU political scientist Stewart Prest.
“One of the reasons why the NDP was able to do a fairly effective job [is] the NDP was wiling to take on that spending,” he said. “They were ideologically positioned to take that stance.”
But, added Prest, the fact voters are going to the polls ahead of schedule during the COVID-19 pandemic?
“We really don’t know how it’s going to affect voter intentions.”
— with files from Mike Howell
