LILLEY UNLEASHED: Carney is bailing out developers in B.C.

Mark Carney's Vancouver condo bailout.It's not quite as advertised, but still scary enough.Hi, I'm Brian Lilly, political columnist for the Toronto Sun.You may have heard that Mark Carney and the Liberal government in Ottawa wants to spend $3 .2 billion to buy 2 ,200 unsold condo units in British Columbia.It's been widely reported, discussed online.This is horrible.

It's a bad condo bailout.Well, well, it's not quite as advertised.Is it still bad?Absolutely.But let's take a look at the numbers.Look, if they were spending $3 .2 billion to buy 2 ,200 condo units that are unsold in the Vancouver market, well, that would mean that the federal government was spending well over $1 .4 million per condo unit to buy it.

With that kind of money, you could be buying places like this down on the Vancouver waterfront.You could have a gorgeous two -bedroom condo overlooking the Bay.It'd be wonderful, wouldn't it?And then they could claim this was affordable housing.For who?I don't know.

That's not actually what the government is promising to do.Let's take a look at the Prime Minister's news release on this.They're promising $1 .6 billion over 10 years, matched by British Columbia, thus bringing it to $3 .2 billion over 10 years to reduce development charges.That's very similar to what the federal government is doing with the Ontario government in places like Toronto and Vaughan and Mississauga, Hamilton, Ottawa, and elsewhere.They're trying to reduce development charges because these charges are too high, and they're driving up the cost of building and therefore purchasing a new home.The $3 .2 billion, that's not going to buy those unsold condos in Vancouver or across British Columbia.

But here's the problem.We don't know what that is.Vancouver's MP and Liberal Housing Minister under Mark Carney, Gregor Robertson, answeredthis question when he was in Toronto, doing an announcement with Ontario Premier Doug Ford.

Just to be clear, there was some confusion around the numbers.$3 .2 billion was mentioned.That is the combined investment in infrastructure of Canada and B .C.that we announced.And this investment in vacant homes effectively that we are pursuing with BC is another tool that we're looking at.

There'll be more details to come.

Now, just for the record, when Ford and Robertson were doing their announcement together, I texted one of Ford's top aides and said, are you guys doing a condo bailout like they're doing in BC?And the response was quick and terse.Absolutely not.So don't expect that.If they do, we'll hold their feet to the fire.But for now, this is a Vancouver model.

And the Carney Liberal government, working with the EB government in British Columbia, is still going to be doing a condo bailout.The problem is, we don't know what it is.Is it $3 .2 billion?Well, it's not the $3 .2 billion they've announced already.But could it be that much?Absolutely.

Could it be less?Absolutely.We don't know what it's going to be.They're just talking about it being innovative financing models and that this will bring about affordable housing.While the unsold condos in Vancouver area across the BC Lower Mainland, they're not affordable units and that's why they're not selling.They were built when prices were rising, when speculation was running rampant, when foreign money, be it from Saudi or especially from mainland China, flooding into the market, pushing up prices.

Well, that's not happening to the same degree now.And therefore, you've got all these units that were built at times when prices were inflated, unable to sell.The right thing to do wouldto let the market correct itself, and the developers would lose some money.Mark Carney doesn't want to do that.Mark Carney, as someone recently said to me, doesn't actually believe in markets.

Yes, he was the Bank of Canada governor, the Bank of England governor.Yes, he worked at Brookfield.But people that know him well say he doesn't actually believe in markets.And you can kind of hear that in some of the comments that he made at this announcement.Bottom line is we are going to be bailing out developers.The worst part is we don't know what it's going to cost and we won't for some time.

Let me know what you think.Drop a comment down below.Share this on social media and don't forget to subscribe to our channel.