Trudeau says ‘densification’ is key to fix housing crisis. Is it enough?
When Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his cabinet went into a huddle at this year’s cabinet retreat in Charlottetown, it was clear that housing was top of mind. When Trudeau emerged from the retreat last week, he told reporters some of the measures Canada most needs.
Among those was the need for densification, a growing topic dominating conversations at the municipal, provincial and federal levels.
“We have been working closely with provinces and municipalities on the issue of housing,” Trudeau said. “Whether it’s the Rapid Housing Initiative or the Housing Accelerator Fund, that’s $4 billion for municipalities to accelerate zoning changes, increase densification, create more affordable housing. These are the kinds of things that we’ve been doing. But yes, it is clear, there is a need for much more co-ordination.”
When asked about the Doug Ford government’s plan to build housing in Ontario’s Greenbelt, Trudeau said he saw “densification” as a better solution than building on protected lands.
“We see densification, we see proper partnerships with municipalities across provinces as being essential to do that (build more housing). And we don’t think that the only solution is to build on protected lands,” he said on Wednesday.
But what does the term really mean? What are the most impactful ways to densify neighbourhoods — and can densification be enough to fix Canada’s increasingly urgent housing crisis?
Trudeau’s comments reflect the government’s stance that densifying Canadian cities is a solution to the housing crisis, even though it’s a measure it cannot do on its own.
A spokesperson for Housing Minister Sean Fraser’s office told Global News that support from municipalities is crucial, and a key reason why the federal
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