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?Chapters:00:00 Introduction to Housing Crisis in Canada01:52 Understanding Housing Needs Assessments05:14 Historical Context of Housing in Canada09:09 Long-Term Solutions for Housing16:10 Market vs. Non-Market Housing22:24 Addressing NIMBYism and Zoning Reform27:39 International Examples of Non-Market Housing34:53 Financing Non-Market Housing39:56 Protecting Renters and Tenant Rights41:21 Addressing Homelessness with Compassion46:39 Conclusion and Future DirectionsTranscript: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

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 fut

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 Ju

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 th

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