Nater refutes claims of hypocrisy as Poilievre vows to scrap Housing Accelerator Fund

By Galen Simmons, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

As federal Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre continues to speak out against the Liberal government’s Housing Accerlator Fund – a program he has vowed to scrap if elected Prime Minister – Perth-Wellington MP John Nater is clapping back against claims of hypocrisy related to his supposed support of the program.

In late October, Poilievre announced plans to scrap the $4.4-billion Housing Accelerator Fund, a program that gives money to towns and cities that commit to reducing red tape to build more homes. At the time, the Conservative leader called the program overly bureaucratic and said he intends to use part of the funding from the Housing Accelerator Fund to support his plan to eliminate GST on the sales of newly built homes with a price tag of less than $1 million.

“In Ontario today, one-third of the cost of every new home is direct taxes,” Poilievre said during the Oct. 28 press conference in Ottawa. “ … When you buy a new home today, more of the money you spend goes to bureaucrats than goes to the carpenters, electricians and plumbers who actually build the house.

“ … The GST was not meant to apply to the basic necessities of food and housing; that’s why the exemption existed in the first place. It is also why today I am announcing that a Pierre Poilievre led common sense Conservative government will axe the sales tax on new homes under $1 million. … Getting rid of the GST on new homes will stimulate 30,000 new homes built every single year. … We’re going to cut two programs for sure and then more beyond that. One, the accelerator fund, has $3 billion left in it. It has been a disastrous program that has led to less homebuilding and more local bureaucracies.”

In response to Poilievre’s announcement, federal Housing Minister Sean Fraser said about a dozen Conservative MPs had written to him in recent months advocating on behalf of communities in their ridings for housing support through the program. Poilievre’s office then released a list of 17 Conservative MPs who had indeed written to the federal government asking for support for housing projects in their ridings.

One of the names on that list was Nater’s, who says he wrote letters in support of local municipalities who applied to the program in the summer of 2023.

Following a recent party directive preventing Conservative MPs like Nater from advocating further for funding through the Housing Accelerator Fund, Nater says his correspondence with the government on behalf of those local communities proves the program did not deliver what it promised for residents of Perth-Wellington.

“Unfortunately, a lot of the public commentary on this Liberal program is nothing more than Liberal political spin and nonsense,” Nater said in an email. “The letters referenced are not about current applications. In my case, they were about applications that were submitted over a year ago.

“ … I do this frequently in support of local organizations and municipalities. However, each and every application from Perth-Wellington was denied. Not a single community in Perth-Wellington benefited from this program. All municipalities in Perth-Wellington that applied for funding were rejected in March of 2024. Therefore, it is false to claim that I am withdrawing support.”

At the time he wrote his letters, Nater said he shared concerns with the government about the funding-stream criteria. Nater says the fact many communities in Perth-Wellington were classified as large and urban according to the program criteria put them in direct competition for funding with cities like Toronto, Mississauga and Hamilton.

North Perth Mayor Todd Kasenberg echoed Nater’s concerns in a letter sent to Fraser on behalf of North Perth council in August 2023.

“With a population of just over 15,000, the Municipality of North Perth was required to apply to the Housing Accelerator Fund (HAF) under the Large/Urban stream,” Kasenberg wrote. “ … Although North Perth has experienced strong growth over recent years, the municipality and our communities are still very much characterized as small and rural. North Perth does not possess the resources or amenities of our large, urban counterparts, including rapid-transit systems, financial tools, or municipal staff focused solely on grant writing.

According to Kasenberg’s letter, under the large/urban stream of the program, North Perth had to develop a Housing Action Plan with at least seven initiatives compared to the five initiatives under the small/rural/Indigenous stream. That meant numerous municipal staff had to reprioritize their regular duties and other projects to prepare a plan that could compete with Housing Action Plans from much-larger cities.

“If it wasn't so serious, it would be laughable to compare communities like Milverton, Listowel and Drayton with those of Toronto, Mississauga and Hamilton; but that's what this Liberal program did,” Nater wrote in his email.

“Now that we have seen the clear failure of this Liberal program, I completely support scrapping this program. Quite frankly, it has failed to build houses. There is no hope for improving the housing crisis under the current Liberal government. Instead, our common-sense Conservative team will remove the GST from the construction of new homes under $1 million; a tax cut which will result in the building of as many as 30,000 new homes each year and save Canadians up to $50,000 on a new home.”

According to media reports, since Poilievre has promised to cut the Housing Accelerator Fund, the federal government has written to warn more than 100 municipalities that already have made deals to secure funding.

Some Liberal MPs have claimed the Housing Accelerator Fund will lead to the construction of more than 250,000 homes in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area. Minister of Defence Bill Blair, who represents a Toronto-area riding, warned that if Poilievre cuts the program, municipalities with ongoing financial agreements could be left in the lurch.