Housing not on Tories' radar

Allen Garr, Vancouver Courier
Published: Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Canada's housing minister Monte Solberg failed to turn up at last week's meeting of provincial and territorial housing ministers in Vancouver. It is not as if these meetings are an everyday occurrence. It was the first housing summit in two and a half years. And it was the first time in at least the past decade that a federal minister of housing refused to go to such a gathering.

It was also the meeting where municipal leaders planned to lobby Ottawa to continue three federal housing programs which terminate in 2009. They want a national housing strategy. We are the only major country in the world without one.

Solberg came up with a number of excuses. He told the Province he wanted an official count of the country's social housing stock before any meeting with ministers. "Until we had that we didn't feel it was the best use of anyone's time."

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