In the 2015 British election, the Labour party campaign team underlined their commitment to keeping their promises by literally carving them in stone. When the leader, the hapless Ed Miliband, showed up to unveil the eight-foot-tall limestone slab, he turned to his spin doctor and said: “Bob, doesn’t it look a bit like a gravestone?” Miliband was assured they’d put some balloons on it and it would be OK. But it wasn’t. The “EdStone” became known as a physical monument to a party and a leader that were not ready for power.
A pattern of political missteps
I repeat all that, in part because it is irresistible, but mainly because it shows that when political operatives gather together, there is often little room for common sense. In the annals of political cock-ups, the announcement by the federal and B.C. provincial governments of a plan to buy up distressed condos from even more distressed developers will barely rate a footnote. But it has become apparent that both Prime Minister Mark Carney and Premier Dave Eby now consider the idea as toxic as proposing amalgamation with the Americans.
Carney and Eby backtrack
Late last week, Carney said he had not done a particularly good job at rolling out the policy that has been criticized as a bailout of developers at the expense of the taxpayer. He said the scheme had been thought up by the province and, in any case, federal involvement was limited to 10 per cent of the potential condo purchase price of $1.5 billion. That was at odds with his enthusiasm the previous week, when he said the government was taking action because developers were stuck with high-priced condos and didn’t want to take a loss.
Eby’s endorsement was even more lukewarm by the end of last week. “If people hate it, that’s OK. We don’t have to do it,” he said. Trial balloons used to be potential policies that were leaked to the media to gauge public reaction before they were announced. Now, it seems, irresolute governments just throw their spending plans at a wall to see what sticks.
Details emerge after the announcement
Eby told reporters that Ottawa wanted to announce the plan before all the details had been finalized. “I think in hindsight, we should have waited and made sure all the details were available,” he said. He added that “the numbers don’t work in Vancouver,” so any purchases would be made on Vancouver Island or in the Okanagan Valley. That was certainly not the impression given by the prime minister and the premier when they made the initial announcement flanked by condo towers in Vancouver.
Questionable connections
So how did we get here? The different levels of government are pointing fingers at one another, but it remains unclear who was pushing the concept of the condo bailout. Carney denied that developers had lobbied for the policy, but the federal Liberal party and the real estate industry in British Columbia are so closely intertwined, it is hard to see where one stops and the other begins.
