- Toronto New Liberals are a chapter of the Center for New Liberalism. Their main focus is promoting greater housing development to boost affordability.
- Toronto New Liberals gave out pro-development buttons to likely OLP leadership candidates Nate Erskine-Smith and Ted Hsu.
- The group have taken photos with Pierre Poilievre and praised Conservative MP Scott Aitchison. They are happy to meet with politicians from rival parties who share pro-housing policy ideas.
Who can work a room full of federal Liberal cabinet ministers and then be arm-in-arm with Pierre Poilievre the next day? The Toronto New Liberals apparently, and they are happy to meet with almost anyone who shares their YIMBY1Yes-In-My-Backyard values when it comes to housing.
On March 4, the group caused a minor stir on Twitter after two of its members posted a photo of themselves smiling with the Conservative leader, just 15 hours after posting photos of their attendance at the Ontario Liberal AGM in Hamilton.
Since beginning his ultimately successful campaign to become Conservative leader last year, Poilievre has called for densifying housing in Canada. He has promised to require municipalities to build more housing to bring prices closer to affordable levels at the risk of losing federal infrastructure funding for non-compliance.
As members of the OLP, the loyalty of the TNL members to the party was questioned by some partisan Twitter users after the group posted a photo of their run-in with the Conservative leader. The TNL is an officially non-partisan group despite sharing a similar name to the OLP and the federal Liberals, and comprises the Toronto chapter of the Center for New Liberalism
“I personally might not have a lot of things to share with Pierre. But I think it’s good sometimes to reach across the aisle…especially on issues that we can agree on,” says Alex Sonichev, a member of the TNL. “My friends thought it was a good idea to chat with Pierre because his housing policy is not that bad.”
The meeting itself was unplanned. Poilievre held an event in Hamilton on the same weekend as the OLP AGM, and the TNL happened to run into him at a local cafe.
The Center for New Liberalism is a self-described public policy organization “dedicated to forging a new path for liberalism in the age of populism.” With an international focus, the Toronto chapter is one of many across North America.
The Center’s principles include a firm belief in a market economy, albeit with a strong social safety net, and promoting expanded commuter transit alongside deregulated housing policy and relaxed land-use restrictions. With an already strained housing supply, punishingly high rental costs, and a government intent on bringing in 500,000 new immigrants per year by 2025, housing is the main focus of the TNL.
“I would say housing is the most important issue, at least for as long as I’ve been with this group,” says Saeid Hashemi, another member of the group. “It’s been the thing that we’ve tried to bring into the real world more than the other issues in practice.”
At the AGM on the same weekend the TNL ran into Poilievre, the group handed out buttons with labels such as “Liberal YIMBY Caucus” which were accepted by likely OLP leadership candidates Nathaniel Erskine-Smith and Ted Hsu.
Both Hsu and Erskine-Smith are advocates for significantly increasing the housing supply. In the past, the TNL have also praised Conservative MP Scott Aitchison, another vocal advocate for increasing the housing supply to reduce unaffordability.
“At the end of the day, many people of all backgrounds want more housing to be built, and we’re happy to work with them,” says TNL member Shea Cardozo.
Hashemi says that it is important when dealing with Canada’s housing crisis to push for policies that increase housing supply rather than reduce housing demand.
“Supply and demand is a real thing, which is surprisingly controversial, even though it’s a fundamental starting point in the logic of housing policy,” says Hashemi. “Demand is healthy, that’s a sign of our economy doing well and other folks are doing well, so supply should be going up.”
To accomplish that, Hashemi says regulatory levers need to be changed so low-density neighborhoods can be rezoned to allow for condos and apartments. Cardozo says zoning regulations in places like the Greater Toronto suburbs are the biggest impediment to more housing development.
“These badly restrict the supply of cheaper mid-rise construction that is required for young people and young families to become homeowners,” says Cardozo.
Sonichev says that while housing is not the sole issue pursued by the TNL, it affects other policy matters too.
“We have other policy issues that we care about. To name a couple, immigration, climate change,” says Sonichev. “But I think housing touches a lot of them, especially with climate change. If we’re not building in an efficient matter…we’re not really going to be hitting those climate goals”
Sonichev says Canada’s extensive single-family housing, currently comprising 70 percent and 80 percent of residential areas in Toronto and Vancouver, respectively, will make it difficult to meet the federal government’s climate goals.
A 2018 article published by the University of British Columbia reported that single-family homes were among the most carbon-intensive building types. It found that the cycle of tearing down older houses to build new ones, rather than constructing apartment buildings or condos, only added to the amount of carbon emissions being produced by single-family homes.
“New, denser housing construction is often a lot more efficient to heat and cool, saving a lot of energy during winter and summer months,” says Cardozo.
