Surrey Mayor Brenda Locke says she's not prepared to "wade into" federal politics after receiving what appears to be a "partisan" letter from Liberal housing minister Sean Fraser on Oct. 30 seeking her response to what he says is a Conservative plan, if that party forms government, to back out of a $95,641,500 Housing Accelerator Fund deal between Surrey and the feds.
"Earlier this week, the leader of the Official Opposition announced that if the Conservative Party were to form government, he would cut this program," Fraser, also minister of infrastructure and communities, wrote to Locke in an emailed letter his press secretary forwarded to the Now-Leader on Oct. 31. "These funds went to your community based on your ambitious commitments that will make it easier and faster to build homes."
Fraser asked Locke to respond to him in writing with her "feedback on this proposal" by Nov. 8.
"By your analysis, you have told us that this funding will lead to an additional 16,500 permits issued for new homes in your community over a 10-year period. I am interested in learning more about the impact of the Official Opposition’s plan to cut $95,641,500 from Surrey. I would also encourage you to take this opportunity to inform members of your community about the impact this cut would have to your plans to build more homes," he told Locke.
Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has referred to the Liberal's Housing Accelerator Fund as "a photo-op fund" under which houses don't get built. He announced he would abolish the program and instead use the money to fund his plan to scrap the federal sales tax on new homes sold for less than $1 million.
Last year, during a news conference, Poilievre called it a “disastrous program that has led to less homebuilding and more local bureaucracies.”
"What this is is a photo-op fund," he told reporters. "It allows Justin Trudeau to show up in places where housing was already being built with a cheque to do a photo op. We don't need photo ops."
Locke told the Now-Leader on Oct. 31 that the City of Surrey "certainly appreciates the funds, there's no doubt about that. That's important money for the city" used to supplement its housing initiatives.
Asked if she's heard from the Conservative party about this, she replied "no, I haven't heard anything about that and I'm not going to speculate about what a government is going to do or not going to do, or whether they're going to win the election or not win the election. We will work with whoever is in power just like we will work with whatever government is in power provincially, we will do that federally. I'm not going to wade in on it."
She said she considers Fraser's letter to be partisan in nature. "I was surprised about that but I'm not going to wade in on where we sit as a city with regard to which government – I will tell you though, that housing accelerator fund has been an opportunity for Surrey to do a lot of things, to introduce new technologies, to develop our artificial intelligence compliance tools, just many, many things we've used it for so it's important for us to help unlock some of the housing opportunities that we have."
Asked if she will write the minister back, Locke replied "I haven't really considered that."
"They gave it to you?" she laughed.
"It's certainly an odd way for him to communicate with the mayor by sending it to the media. Anyways, we appreciate the money; I've had no indication that a Conservative government would do anything different. They've never said that to me and certainly this money is very important to the city. Everybody knows, and hopefully, well obviously, Mr. Fraser knows that the downloading onto local government has just been such a challenge for us to be able to facilitate some of the things that the Province and the feds want us to do. So this money is important for us to facilitate housing."
– with a file from Canadian Press
