Let’s skip the political appetizers and head straight to the meat and potatoes.
Blanket rezoning for Calgary. Big issue in neighbourhoods of single detached homes. They see fourplexes popping up next to them. Townhouses. Row houses.
People are steamed. Vein-popping steamed.
Let’s make this easy and connect the obvious dots.
Calgary city hall scored $228 million from the Trudeau government for housing.
The Trudeau government isn’t shy about telling us how strings are attached.
The Trudeau types don’t give you the dough unless they get to be the ventriloquist and you get to be the dummy.
There is no free lunch.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has a housing plan. Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek and her think-alike city council majority have a housing plan.
The two sides have to sing in harmony from the same songsheet.
Trudeau speaks plainly about what he wants and how cities wishing to score cash will have to want what he wants.
The prime minister has been in Calgary twice in the past month.
Last week in Calgary, he says he’s put money on the table and lots of it for those who want to be “ambitious.”
Trudeau says cities are “really important players.”
They can change the way housing is built right across their city.
He talks about better zoning. How about four units on a patch of land without having to go through some messy public hearing?
If you agree, he has money so a city can go and do that.
Don’t want to do it, don’t take the money.
Last fall, while Calgary city council was chinwagging about their housing strategy Trudeau’s housing czar Sean Fraser made clear who was the piper and what was the tune.
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Gondek shared Fraser’s demands in a tweet.
Calgary must legalize such housing as four-unit multi-plexes citywide.
The city “must end exclusionary zoning.”
On social media, Gondek warned that federal funding would be jeopardized or lost if the city didn’t play ball.
The Calgary city council majority played ball and scored $228 million from the Trudeau government.
Last month, a story appears in Calgary where a city hall paper-shuffler indicates the city had said they would move forward with citywide rezoning.
But he adds city council is not required to vote that way.
Trudeau’s housing point man Fraser takes to social media reminding Calgary city council if they don’t follow through on what they agreed to do then dollars from Ottawa would be withheld.
This week, Gondek doesn’t want us thinking about the deal with Trudeau.
After all, when your ship is taking on water the last thing you want to talk about is having Trudeau aboard and looking over the shoulder of the captain.
Gondek insists not once but twice how a public hearing at city council April 22 will be about making a planning decision completely separate from the Trudeau dough.
The city politicians will hear from the public and vote on the ability to create more units on a single parcel of land.
When the mayor is asked about whether a thumbs-down to blanket rezoning would put the Trudeau multi-millions at risk.
“That’s not what’s before us. What’s before us is a planning matter.”
And if money is at risk, Gondek says, the city can re-negotiate.
It is said people down at city hall are being told if the blanket rezoning is miraculously defeated on April 22 dollars not paid out to the city by the Trudeau government may be impacted.
This Fraser dude sure doesn’t sound like he’d be in a re-negotiating mood if blanket rezoning in the city was tossed at city council.
Premier Danielle Smith isn’t going to save the day.
Yes, Smith says “this council is divided on whether or not it’s reasonable and appropriate for the federal government to essentially be rewriting all of their zoning laws as a condition to receive $228 million in grants.”
Yes, she’s rolling out a law saying deals between cities and the federal government need a thumbs-up from the provincial government.
But that’s for future agreements. This horse has left the barn.
Sonya Sharp, a councillor who will no doubt have plenty to say April 22, says the issue of the Trudeau money will come up whether Gondek likes it or not.
That’s what happens when you reach for the dangling carrot.
Dan McLean, a councillor known for speaking his mind, sees what’s going down at city hall as “Liberal times two” with the Trudeau government and Calgary city hall “working under the same ideology” and the prime minister and his people “greasing the wheels.”
As for those Calgarians paying attention …
“They know Trudeau is calling the shots here,” says McLean.
rbell@postmedia.com
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