The candidates in the running to represent Moose Jaw in this year’s provincial election met with members of the community during the All-Candidates Forum on Tuesday evening.
All four candidates answered questions from the audience and discussed policy residents shone light on the key issues facing our community. At the top of mind for many was the housing market in the city, be it purchasing a home, private and public rentals, and affordability in general.
Moose Jaw North’s NDP candidate, Cheantelle Fisher, was first up to pitch solutions to issues seen in Moose Jaw’s housing situation.
“Thousands of housing units sit empty when they should be providing housing to families. We have the highest rate of child poverty in Canada and the rents continue to go up and up, making the cost of living even worse. Under Carla Beck in the Saskatchewan NDP government, we are committed to rent protection. We are one of the only provinces without a rental protection act. This act will limit how often and how much your landlord can raise your rent.” explained Fisher.
“We will also open up vacant housing units, getting people into safe housing and bringing prices down for everyone.”
Moose Jaw Wakamow’s Saskatchewan Party candidate, Megan Patterson, suggested that national factors are driving up the cost of living, before outlining her party’s approach to the issue of housing and rental costs in the area.
“To comment on rent rising, one of the primary reasons people are struggling and one of the primary reasons that the cost of living is going up so much is because of the NDP-Liberal coalition. It is because of the carbon tax. The carbon tax is continuing to increase year after year, that is increasing fixed cost. It's increasing the cost of energy and so rents need to be increased in order to cover these.” explained Patterson.
“The Saskatchewan Party will continue to take action to increase housing supply and make housing more affordable. With this, what we need to do in Moose Jaw is increase density of housing.”
She continued, outlining current and proposed strategies to help improve access to affordable housing in Moose Jaw and Saskatchewan in general.
“We have a secondary suite incentive grant that provides 35 per cent of the cost to build the secondary suite, we have a renewed PST rebate on new home construction. We also have promised to increase the first-time home buyers' credit from $10,000 to $15,000. The Saskatchewan Home Renovation Tax Credit will be made permanent.” said Patterson.
“The Saskatchewan Party has invested more than $800 million to develop 11,000 housing units and repair more than 4700 homes across the province. The Saskatchewan Party has also introduced the Saskatchewan housing benefit, a monthly benefit that helps eligible Saskatchewan renters with their shelter cost. But when I'm hearing at the doors is it's time for change, not provincially but federally. We need to get rid of the NDP coalition federally if we want to start containing our cost of living.”
Moose Jaw Wakamow NDP candidate, Melissa Patterson, addressed the plan to restore vacant Saskatchewan Housing Authority Units and espoused the value of the proposed Saskatchewan Rent Protection Act.
“I am damn proud to stand beside Carla Beck as she will work to make sure that the 4000 vacant Saskatchewan Housing Authority units across this province are back up and running by the end of her first term, 500 of those units will be up and running operational before the end of the first year.” Patterson declared.
“Passing a landlord tenant Rent Protection Act to protect renters and help keep roofs over their heads, limiting how often and how much rents can increase and scrapping the harmful changes made to the Saskatchewan Income Support program to have direct payment of rent and utilities restored. All of these are going to allow us to add more affordable housing units to the market here at home in Moose Jaw and right across the province.”
Tim McLeod, Moose Jaw North’s Saskatchewan Party Candidate, levelled criticism at the NDP’s approach to increasing the availability of housing, citing the reasons why there are 4000 housing units currently vacant in the system.
“I would just start by pointing out that the NDP plan to renovate 4000 vacant housing units ignores the fact that those housing units are vacant for a reason. Many of those are no longer inhabitable and the NDP plan doesn't mention how they're going to afford to make an uninhabitable home habitable again.” said McLeod.
“That's why they're sitting there vacant. It's not that we have housing supply that we're just waiting for the right customer to come along. There is vacant housing because those units need substantial renovation and there's no plan in the NDP's costing on how they're going to figure that one out.
I would just touch on that where is by contrast, the Saskatchewan Party has a fully costed plan for our secondary suite incentive grants. We have a fully costed plan for the PST rebates on new home construction, for the First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit for the Home Renovation Tax Credit being made permanent. These plans are fully costed, and they're realistic because we know that they can be implemented in a fiscally responsible way.”