New housing minister says he’ll ‘leverage’ his past as Vancouver mayor in new role

OTTAWA — Canada’s new housing minister says he didn’t have the tools he needed to address housing affordability issues when he was mayor of Vancouver — the country’s most expensive housing market.

Gregor Robertson faced questions about his record on housing affordability from reporters ahead of his first cabinet meeting on Wednesday, less than 24 hours after he was sworn in as Prime Minister Mark Carney’s housing minister.

“I’m here to leverage my history as a mayor. I know what works on the ground,” Robertson said.

Data from Greater Vancouver Realtors shows that the price of a benchmark home in the region more than doubled during Robertson’s time as mayor from December 2008 to November 2018.

Robertson argued that many cities across Canada saw similar surges during that period.

Over the same period, the national benchmark home price rose by 78 per cent, data from the Canadian Real Estate Association shows.

Robertson also said he “wasn’t getting the help” he needed from higher levels of government when he was mayor. He said the Liberals’ housing accelerator fund — cash set aside for cities that lower barriers to home construction — is one program he thinks will help to address affordability concerns.

The Canadian Press asked Robertson if he felt home prices need to go down to restore affordability.

“No, I think that we need to deliver more supply, make sure the market is stable,” he said.

When asked the same question Tuesday, Carney said that while there are things Ottawa can do now to help with affordability — such as cutting the GST on new builds for first-time buyers — the long-term solution is to boost supply.

He said that Robertson’s experience will help the federal government understand better how to get municipalities to cut costs and regulation impeding construction.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre on Tuesday attacked Carney’s decision to appoint Robertson to the housing file.

“If this is the new blood that Mr. Carney is bringing into the cabinet, then sadly for Canadians, nothing is going to change,” he said.

Robertson said that there’s a “huge shortage” of affordable housing in Canada due to a lack of government efforts to bring those units to market.

During the campaign, the Liberals pledged to create a new agency to develop affordable housing and promised funding to streamline homebuilding through technologies such as prefabricated homes.

The Liberals also pledged to get cities to cut development charges in half and to restore immigration rates to “sustainable” levels.

While Robertson said the federal government’s goal of doubling the pace of home construction is “very ambitious” and will take years to “scale up,” he struck a note of optimism.

“We’ve got a lot of work to do on this and it doesn’t happen overnight. Housing is a slow-moving creature and we’ve got to do everything we can to speed it up,” he said.

B.C. Premier David Eby was asked whether he agrees with Robertson’s comments at an availability in Victoria on Wednesday.

Eby did not speak to home prices specifically but said the province’s focus is on lowering the cost of housing, getting more rental housing built and driving down rents, in part by reducing the cost of land for development.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 14, 2025.

Craig Lord, The Canadian Press