Skinner blasts Monsef’s housing ‘fairy tale’
About 100 people attend Market Hall debate between election rivals
Conservative candidate Michael Skinner said Liberal incumbent Maryam Monsef’s “fairy tale” Peterborough is one where it’s possible to build 2,000 affordable apartments over the next two years.
At a debate at Market Hall on Monday evening, Skinner said it takes developers two years to get all the permits they need to start construction — even as homeless people are living in tents downtown.
A Conservative government would have a minister devoted to reducing red tape who would decrease barriers for development, he said.
Otherwise, he said, “it’s going to be impossible to build 2,000 homes in two years.”
“We lie to people — we lie to people on a regular basis,” he said. “We need a practical approach which is based in fact — not fairy tales.”
Skinner was responding to Monsef, who’d just mentioned that the Liberals introduced a $55-billion National Housing Strategy that has funding available for private companies to build 2,000 affordable apartments in Peterborough over the next two years.
It’s not at all impossible to build 2,000 apartments in two years, Monsef said — and she’s not interested in what supposedly cannot be done.
“I’m interested in how we, as a community, can come together
and dream big,” she said, adding that she believes it takes people to “work together” to build affordable apartments — including the MP.
“I’m committed to that.” About 100 people were at Market Hall on Monday for the debate on economic development that also included the NDP’s Candace Shaw, the Green party’s Andrew MacGregor and People’s Party of Canada candidate Alexander Murphy.
Murphy wasn’t initially invited to participate in the debate, but organizers did invite him after the leader of the People’s Party, Maxime Bernier, was invited to join the televised leaders’ debates.
The debate was organized by a consortium of seven business organizations including the Greater Peterborough Chamber of Commerce and the Peterborough and the Kawarthas Homebuilders’ Association.
The other candidates also spoke about housing and homelessness.
MacGregor spoke of the Green party’s promise to fund construction of 25,000 new homes annually, and to introduce guaranteed livable income so people to increase affordability.
Shaw said the NDP would build 500,000 new affordable homes in 10 years and would also offer rent supplements “so people can pay in hot markets such as this one.”
The debate was three hours long and continued past The Examiner’s print deadline. Other areas were discussed, such as the opioid crisis and climate change (see online for further reporting).