Mark Carney launched his new “Build Canada Homes” initiative with the Liberals at a construction-themed event, complete with hard hats, lumber, and the imagery of homes being built. Mainstream outlets like CBC and BNN Bloomberg covered the announcement and confirmed the backdrop included construction visuals and talk of modular housing. However, Conservative MP Barbara Bal and several CPC social media accounts have claimed the set was little more than a temporary stage — alleging that when they returned to the site, nothing was actually there. It is important to note: these allegations come from partisan and social sources, not from mainstream media confirmation.

Even if one accepts the stronger claim that the site was a prop, the larger problem is not theatricality but the substance. After nine years of Liberal government under Justin Trudeau, housing affordability has collapsed: mortgage interest costs have more than doubled since 2015 according to Statistics Canada, rents have spiked across major cities according to CMHC, and Canada now has the fewest homes per capita of any G7 country. Liberal promises to “get housing built” ring hollow given this record of failure.

That is where the hypocrisy cuts deepest. A party that has presided over a historic affordability crisis now rolls out a former Bank of Canada governor to stage glossy announcements about “change.” Whether or not the Vaughan backdrop was literally a Potemkin village, it symbolizes the Liberal pattern: photo-ops and slogans standing in for tangible progress. Canadians don’t need props — they need homes they can afford.

 

References