Justin Trudeau’s recent observation that housing isn’t a “primary federal responsibility” was something of a Kinsley gaffe — the act of inadvertently telling the truth or inconveniently confessing some private thought.
The prime minister was not wholly wrong, per se, when he said housing was not something the federal government has “direct carriage of.” Housing is not like national defence or foreign policy or international trade — areas of policy for which the federal government has sole responsibility. It’s a matter of shared jurisdiction and many of the policy levers and regulations exist at the provincial and municipal level.
There is also something to be said for pushing back against
