Jagmeet Singh pledges to fight for Montreal rather than insult its mayor « Canada’s NDP
MONTREAL – On Friday, following a meeting with Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh pledged to fight for more affordable housing funding for Montreal in the next federal budget. This is in stark contrast to Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, who spends his time criticizing mayors and voting in Ottawa to cut federal funding for affordable housing.
“After 8 years of Justin Trudeau, everything costs more, and people can’t find affordable housing. Instead of wanting to work with mayors, Pierre Poilievre keeps insulting them and then he turns around and votes in Ottawa to cut housing funding,” says Singh. “Municipalities don’t need less investment; they need more support from the federal government. For the next budget, Montreal and Mayor Plante can count on the NDP to fight for more investment and measures for affordable and social housing. Compared to the Conservatives, the NDP is using its power in Ottawa to help people, not cut funding.”
In particular, the NDP is committed to fighting for more funding and guaranteed low-interest loans for the construction of new affordable and social non-profit housing. We know we’ll need all types of housing to solve this crisis, but right now not enough non-profit housing is being built because of funding cuts by successive Liberal and Conservative governments decades ago. The NDP also wants to see the rapid housing initiative continued and expanded. In its agreement with the Liberals, the NDP succeeded in extending this initiative by one year and will try to make it permanent in the next budget.
“I had a very productive meeting with Mayor Plante. She has an ambitious vision and plans to continue moving Montreal in the right direction,” said Singh. “If Poilievre wants to criticize someone, he should look in the mirror because when he was in power with Stephen Harper, he let 800,000 affordable housing units disappear. No wonder we’re facing a housing crisis today. The NDP will continue to use all its powers to force Justin Trudeau’s out-of-touch Liberals to act with the urgency this crisis demands.”