GREAT EXPECTATIONS — SEAN FRASER spent the summer getting briefed up in his new role as minister of crisis management — aka minister of housing, infrastructure and communities. The Nova Scotia MP's job: Find a way to build more homes. Fraser is open to options. During a summer Cabinet retreat, the former immigration minister made news when he told reporters his government might consider a cap on international students — the number of which has ballooned in recent years — in an effort to ease demand for housing. But Fraser is getting into the housing weeds with cities. He urged the mayor of London, Ont., to approve four units on a single lot as part of its application for a piece of the federal Housing Accelerator Fund — a C$4 billion pool of money meant to help cities speed up homebuilding. The city council unanimously approved that change. The minister isn't shy about contrasting his approach with PIERRE POILIEVRE, who has vowed that cities either meet housing targets or they'll “face big financial penalties and have portions of their federal funding withheld. Playbook spoke with Fraser about his new portfolio. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. What housing issues aren't getting the attention they deserve? A lot of people do not realize how hard done by some of their neighbors are. And for somebody who's never lived with homelessness as part of their life experience, it's very difficult to even imagine what your neighbors are going through and how it impacts every aspect of their lives and every moment of their day. There needs to be a change in approach because even though we reentered the conversation around housing through the National Housing Strategy, the focus was disproportionately on low-income, affordable housing — which is important. But increasingly, I'm hearing from students who cannot find a place they can afford within an hour commute of their campus. I'm hearing from seniors who are retiring into a very different economy than they had planned and saved to retire into, given the experience of post-Covid inflation. And perhaps most commonly, I'm hearing from working families, sometimes where there are two people working in the household, and they cannot afford a place to live in the community where they work. International students have become a flashpoint for immigration and housing debates in Canada. How did that sneak up on policymakers? What we've seen in the last couple of years, since the economy reopened from the pandemic, is an explosion in the number of study permits that are issued. And in particular, we've seen an enormous increase in the number of permits issued by colleges. That's not to say all of the colleges are bad actors. Many of them are phenomenal institutions that are providing education in exactly the areas the economy needs. But I'm convinced that there are others who are not interested in the well-being of the students who come, who do not provide a quality education, and who are using international students as a cash cow to further the private interests of the institution or the people who own them. We need to root out those bad actors, which will create an opportunity to reduce any pressure on the pockets of Canada where we have a high concentration of new arrivals. But it will also provide an opportunity to respect the talent that international students bring to our communities. Pierre Poilievre says he’d withhold federal funding from cities that don't build enough housing — sticks instead of carrots. You recently sent a letter to the mayor of London, Ont., that encouraged his city council to promise certain kinds of housing in an application for federal funding. Is that hands-on approach a carrot or a stick? It's a more hands-on approach because I'm a more hands-on person. I can't stomach the idea of not squeezing every ounce of productivity out of the programs we put on the table. We have used taxpayers' money to incentivize the building of homes more quickly through the Housing Accelerator Fund. And I think to myself, what good am I doing if I am leaving extra homes on the table by cutting a check for somebody who's doing less than what they could do? I identified a couple of areas where I thought the city could do more, and I sensed they would be willing to do more. They responded to my letter, and indicated that in two of the three areas they actually had plans in the works. They were doing those with or without the Housing Accelerator Fund. But on the other area — building four units as-of-right without requiring a zoning bylaw amendment — they said, "You've asked us to do four; we had been planning on three. But if you're telling us this is what will allow us to partner, then we won't just tell you we'll do it. We're going to present a motion to council and we're going to vote on it and have it passed unanimously." Are you writing similar letters to other municipalities? We've got many drafts. Let's just say I'm going to be very busy over the next couple of months. | 
