Last month, six provincial premiers wrote to Justin Trudeau demanding a First Ministers meeting on the subject of the consumer carbon price. Naturally the Prime Minister didn’t bite. But the provincial grandstanding was another sign of the deteriorating relationship between our orders of government. It seems the days when federal and provincial leaders could come together to forge ambitious national undertakings, as they did in 2018 with Canada’s climate plan, are far behind us. And yet we desperately need the prime minister and premiers to work together again: this time on the issue of housing.

First Ministers meetings are still relatively rare phenomena, with only 80 having taken place since confederation. Such meetings are crucial moments for federal and provincial governments to coordinate at the highest level on issues of national importance and overlapping jurisdiction. Delivering better housing outcomes certainly meets that test. 

As we’ve heard repeatedly over the past several months, Canada is facing a crippling housing crunch. And every order of government shares responsibility for how we got here. When we released the Blueprint for More and Better Housing earlier this year, its 140 policy recommendations were split among federal, provincial and municipal governments. This wasn’t for the sake of symmetry, it was because each order of government holds fundamental pieces for solving the housing puzzle.

For instance when it comes to building more densely within urban boundaries – which is the fastest, most cost effective and greenest way to add new housing supply – no order of government can do it alone. Municipalities need to expedite building permits and overcome NIMBY-ism; provinces need to simplify rules and hold the line on urban boundaries; and the federal government needs to ensure every dollar of its infrastructure and transit funding is tied to these municipal and provincial actions. 

This kind of coordination among governments doesn’t happen by accident. It requires active leadership, starting with prime ministers, premiers and mayors.

Right now that collaborative spirit is lacking, and not every government is pulling its weight. Witness the motley response to the recent announcement by the federal government that $5 billion in funding will be tied to precisely the kind of performance expectations our Blueprint advocates for.

On one hand, you’ve got British Columbia implementing densification policies with an eagerness to stack dollars with Ottawa. On the other hand you’ve got Ontario blankly refusing even the most basic steps towards density. 

Even more concerning, my home province of Alberta is attempting to forbid its municipal governments from working directly with Ottawa on housing growth, adding ironic red tape and superfluous intergovernmental churn to the housing formula. 

While these kinds of showdowns among governments make great political theater, jurisdictional divide-and-conquer isn’t solving our housing problems. I suspect we’d solve this “wicked” problem more efficiently if our governments worked together.

It is indeed a wicked problem. Hence why every time we talk about housing, we find ourselves also talking about affordability, immigration, skilled labour, energy, and climate imperatives. Housing pulls on a number of tricky threads that could all benefit from more federal, provincial, territorial and local coordination. 

One thread that is particularly relevant right now, given wildfire evacuations happening across parts of western Canada, is the climate resilience of our housing. As governments look to coordinate more closely on housing, it simply cannot be with a view to building the same kinds of homes we’ve built for the past hundred years – it needs to be with an eye on the next hundred years. Worsening climate impacts mean we need our next generation of homes to be more energy efficient, lower-emissions and situated out of harm’s way. Anything less would be a disservice to Canada’s next generation of homeowners and renters.

Only coordinated federal and provincial measures can deliver the outcomes Canadians deserve. Meanwhile, as a former mayor, I’m not convinced that a First Ministers meeting would be fair or effective without local government leaders at the table. This would be true at any time, but especially so at this time, given the attitude of certain provincial governments right now. So a new form of convening may be needed.

Between 2016 and 2018, a series of First Ministers meetings culminated in Canada’s first-ever truly national climate plan. It was a monumental achievement. While it might be too optimistic to hope for a similar Pan-Canadian Framework on Housing, Canada would at least be well served by its federal, provincial and local leaders coming together to find a shared and ambitious path forward.