OTTAWA — Five Conservative MPs have written letters to the Liberal housing minister asking him to grant their communities funding from a program that Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre this week called disastrous and promised to cancel.
Housing Minister Sean Fraser made the revelation in the House of Commons Tuesday while responding to a question from Poilievre.
“What (Poilievre) doesn’t know is his caucus colleagues have been going behind his back, writing me letters advocating for their communities to receive funding through the housing accelerator fund because they believe it will get more homes built,” Fraser said.
“My question for the Conservative members of his caucus, will they have the courage to stand up and tell him he is wrong?”
The letters reviewed by The Canadian Press were sent between September 2023 and February 2024 by Dan Albas, Michael Cooper, Adam Chambers, Lianne Rood and Rob Moore. The MPs represent ridings in British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and New Brunswick.
The Conservative MPs asked Fraser to approve their communities’ applications to access the housing accelerator fund, a program that invited municipalities to compete for a pool of money based on the ambitiousness of their plans to build more housing.
Poilievre announced on Monday that 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.
He attacked the housing accelerator fund during a news conference, calling it a “disastrous program that has led to less homebuilding and more local bureaucracies.”
However, Conservative MPs who sent letters to Fraser suggested the program would help their communities build more housing.
Cooper asked the minister to approve an application from St. Albert, Alta. to build a mixed affordability housing project.
“The requested federal funding is critical to making this needed development a reality — a development that will help address the significant shortage of affordable housing options in the community,” Cooper wrote in his letter sent in February.
In a letter sent in January, Moore vouched for the application of Butternut Valley, N.B., which he said “will provide much needed housing in this area.”
Chambers wrote in November 2023 to support an application from Midland, Ont., which “has proposed a plan to increase housing within the municipality.”
He said the town is “prepared to consider any recommendations or conditions the government may encourage to improve their chances of a successful application.”
