As a general rule, I am pretty opposed to overstating the influence of myself, my community here, and my influence to anyone who actually matters. It’s vain, and only serves to reinforce groupthink and make clear that the people involved actually have no influence. To the extent that I have any, however, it’s clear that that influence exists in the progressive wing of the Ontario Liberals, with supporters of Nate Erskine-Smith and those who considered his leadership bid a better outcome than Bonnie’s. This site, and me as a person, is some very small meeting ground for both those people in specific and those ideas in general.
I’ve obviously been sceptical of Crombie in recent times, both during and after her run, and I think I have been mostly right. There is little I would take back about her, because underneath the sheen of “Nate supporter trashes Bonnie”, I have tried to be fair to her. Have I always succeeded? I’m sure the party people I have been reliably told were quite pissed at me last week would disagree, but I think that piece represents a warning sign for the party, and it’s fully reasonable and in fact necessary for such a critique to exist.
But in the spirit of fairness, and the pragmatic progressivism I claim to champion, it’s time to say a sentence I honestly wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to say unironically.
To any progressives reading this, Bonnie Crombie just made clear she is the best progressive option, and it’s time for us to focus on moving her in the right direction and stop flirting with other options.
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Crombie’s announcement today - eliminating Development Charges for all but truly luxury property (and not “luxury” as defined by some left NIMBYs), eliminating the Land Transfer Tax, and a suite of other housing initiatives is genuinely one of the most transformative policies offered in modern Canadian political history. It is incredible. It will reduce prices, raise affordability, increase enforcement of renters’ rights by clearing out the backlog of cases needing review, and it will make it easier for developers to build houses across municipalities by not requiring them to have to pencil out the differential DCs by city, even when they’re trying to build units a few minute drive away. As great as Steven Del Duca’s DC cut in Vaughan is, it’s still asinine that a developer trying to build homes in Vaughan, Brampton, and Markham have to face three different tax environments for the exact same development proposal. The cost savings from standardizing compliance standards and financial projections alone should help lower costs, let alone the actual savings from eliminating DCs.
I must confess I am not an expert on Manitoba’s phased-in rent control proposal, but here’s the thing - that’s, at least to me, besides the point. The reason this announcement is so gratifying as a longtime Crombie sceptic isn’t the details, but the fact that she called in the smartest Housing experts around and let them tell her what to don this is a policy with the fingerprints of Eric Lombardi and the broader More Neighbours movement written all over it. These are people who (in broad strokes, making no comment on behalf of the people named) used to rail against Mayor Crombie and the NIMBY Mississauga council. Now they’re helping write party policy. She has shown a capacity to listen and to evolve.
My problem with Crombie this entire time has been the fact that I didn’t, and still often don’t, know her values. I don’t know if she is a liberal cosplaying as a centrist moderate to win or a small-c conservative running for the Liberals because that’s the available door to power. But with this announcement, she did make one thing clear - she is not actually wedded to bad ideas just because she has previously held them. Her record on Housing as a Mayor is bad, and I don’t really care if I piss off anyone by saying it. But she has listened, learned, and gotten better. I’m really fucking glad she has.
I’m glad she has not just because of the housing consequences, though reducing housing prices is a good thing and I desperately want her to win and enact these policies, however. The real reason I’m excited about this announcement is that Crombie has just confirmed that she can be persuaded, that she can be converted. Electoral pragmatism is still important to her, but it’s clear from today’s announcement she is willing and able to be convinced on the merits of policy. And that is fucking great for progressives.
If Bonnie was a closed minded leader who refused to engage with anything beyond her close advisors, I’d be worried. But this makes clear she does value the input of people who have not always loved her and of people who in some cases even supported Nate. And that is how this party revives itself. What those of us who supported Nate want is not for Bonnie to become a cheap copy of him, but to know we will be listened to, and not dismissed. I feel more confident today that we would be able to pressure a Premier Crombie into a better position on, to choose the topic I ripped into her last week, safe injection sites than I did when I wrote that column. And that is a reason to stay in this fight.
Will I feel the elation I did today when she announces other policies? I don’t know. I still don’t love that we led with a tax cut that does fuck all for the bottom 50%, but the difference is today I trust more implicitly the assurances that something will come on that front, because I trust that Crombie is genuine about building a big tent. This was hugely important for her, and I am so glad it came.
I led this piece with a reflection on influence and my place in this space for a reason, and that’s because I take what influence I do have extremely seriously. There is a reason I am as harsh on Crombie as I am when it’s deserved - I am holding her to the standard she set herself when she said she wanted a united, strong Ontario Liberal Party that didn’t descend into the kind of factionalism of past Federal parties after tight races. In my view, the best way to achieve unity is to hold everybody to a basic standard, both winners and losers.
The implicit bargain is simple - Bonnie needed to reach out to those that opposed her, and those that opposed her needed to be willing to hear that pitch when it came. I’ve been critical that it took this long, and lord knows I’ll offer a thousand more ideas on how to do the basic bits of political sales better between now and election day, but let’s be clear. With this housing announcement Crombie has done a significant outreach to her critics. It’s on us to meet her, or else she will rightly decide that placating the left is not worth it.
If we want to be taken seriously as a force, this is a moment we need to step up. Do you think I, Evan Scrimshaw, as a person who has spent as much time fighting Bonnie as I have, takes pleasure in saying any of this? Of course not. But I’m being honest. Bonnie has done her job by offering us a progressive dream of a housing policy. Now it’s time for progressives to meet her halfway. Or else we will deserve the irrelevance coming to us. That doesn’t mean abandoning core principles or becoming what we oppose, but it does mean living in reality - and Crombie is the only person who is even remotely worth our vote. Stay in the tent, and we can make her better. Abandon her, and we’re fucked.
Crombie’s housing plan is comprehensive and detailed. It goes right to the heart of the matter. It is also very technical. How many Canadians know what development charges are? How many people understand that rental tribunals protect both landlords and tenants against abuse? Crombie needs to get out and explain, explain and explain. She has an excellent plan, selling the plan is not that hard, explaining is.
When she does this, it will also explain to people that provinces have an important role to play when it comes to housing. So far provincial governments have been able to let Trudeau take the blame for literally everything. Once people understand that Doug Ford (and other premiers) are the real culprits, Trudeau will see better political fortunes as well (or least more fair fortunes).
Her plan will have no effect on affordability, and MNTO is a soft front for the developer lobby. If you ask the MNTO people and actually get a straight answer, they do not actually believe any of their proposals will result in lower prices, just a lower rate of growth of prices (if that). In fact, it's right in the name of the org - "More Neighbours". It's not about affordability, but about increasing development. Many of the things they propose are good ideas (development charges are bad! Zoning is a disaster, there's too much red tape, land transfer tax is bad, etc etc), but none of those will have any effect on affordability, theyre good policies because those things have other bad effects.
The private housing market cannot and will not ever deliver affordability unless there's a population crash. It can't. To think that it will is to believe that landowners will voluntarily destroy the value of their asset by overbuilding.
The _only_ solution to the affordability crisis is non-profit building and ownership of housing: co-ops, land trusts, not for profits, and yes, social housing. That's it. Anything else is window dressing.