Canada’s Corrupt Liberal Government

OTTAWA — In a contentious ethics committee, Conservative MP Aaron Gunn moved Tuesday to summon Vancouver condo marketer Bob Rennie, federal Housing Minister Gregor Robertson, and major developers connected to Rennie’s fundraiser for Mark Carney as witnesses in an urgent parliamentary investigation of the Prime Minister’s multibillion-dollar British Columbia condo bailout. A second Conservative, Gabriel Hardy, then walked the committee through a timeline that ended on the most pointed suggestion of the hearing.

Most Canadians have never heard of Farm Credit Canada (FCC).

FCC is one of Ottawa’s largest financial institutions. It’s a crown corporation that belongs to all Canadians. It manages a loan portfolio approaching $60 billion, lends more money to agriculture than any other institution in the country and has generated roughly $5.6 billion in cumulative net income over the past decade. Yet outside agricultural circles, it remains virtually invisible. Perhaps that’s because few Canadians realize they ultimately stand behind the risks FCC assumes as a Crown corporation.

Is Canada a country that cannot build? Increasingly, there seems to be a case for that sad sentiment. Housing targets are set, only to be constantly missed. Subways and tramways suffer endless delays and budget blowouts. And despite decades of talk, we lack the infrastructure to get resources to the coast and international markets, which is especially crushing in the current trade war.

That inability to build doesn’t come out of nowhere. It arises out of a broken process. As yet one more example: last week, the federal government directed Alto — the high-speed rail project from Toronto to Quebec City — to “consider” adding a station in Kingston. It’s a small but illuminating example of Canada’s problems.

OTTAWA — Days before a parliamentary committee decides whether to investigate the Carney government’s multibillion-dollar Vancouver condo bailout, the market-intelligence unit of Bob Rennie, the Carney fundraiser at the center of the controversy, has published data suggesting Ottawa and Victoria would be catching a falling knife with public money — or, in the view of critics, halting a correction that would benefit generations of young homebuyers, before Vancouver’s market is allowed to approach standard measures of affordability.