Build Canada strong but small

Am I a lunatic? Probably. Naive? Certainly. Hopeful? One must be else one will despair.

After reading this news story below (yes, I'm behind on all the tabs I've opened), I just couldn't help but feel the need to write to the Prime Minister and Minister of Housing to plead that some of the billions they're so eager to drop on housing be spent on organizations like this which will actually improve the homelessness epidemic, instead of all just funding developers and speculators (some of whom are genuinely trying to do a good thing while making money, others of whom are just profiteering).

https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/2026/04/30/business-councils-new-housing-alliance-partners-complete-first-deeply-affordable-project

Previously, Raising the Roof bought and helped develop Butterfly Lodge, taking an abandoned nail salon on Mountain Avenue and turning it into three affordable housing units, including two large three-bedroom suites for Indigenous families, in 2024.

“That was our starting point (in Winnipeg), and it was such a great experience, a great community and the level of need here fits our mandate in terms of the housing solutions we want to provide to Canadians,” Pollett said.

So, here's my letter to the PM and the housing minister

Something positive for once! Raising the Roof is a national charitable housing developer that works with local partners to create and operate affordable housing and shape solutions that make homelessness preventable.

https://www.raisingtheroof.org

This is a strategy to address the housing crisis that is not only effective in increasing usable housing stock, but does so through connections that ensure appropriate considerations are applied for the greatest possibility of success on the social end while also more like to use small, independent sourcing for the labour side also, thus genuinely building Canada not merely further increasing the obscene wealth of massive developers who are out of touch with real people's needs.

And, of course, it's a nonprofit also which again means all involved funds work toward achieving the goals of stable and affordable housing (instead of the goal of making already wealthy shareholders wealthier).

I'd really like to see some of that much vaunted "Build Canada" funding go into accessible, low-bureaucracy, long-term, sustainable grants for organizations like Raising the Roof -- grants that allow significant allocation autonomy on the part of the recipient.

Comments

Winnipeg Transit woes

“We’ve increased support for municipalities year after year because we know strong communities depend on reliable, stable and predictable funding increases,” Municipal and Northern Relations Minister Glen Simard said in an emailed statement to the Free Press Tuesday. https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/2026/06/23/winnipeg-transit-needs-funding-boost-additional-staff-to-follow-new-provincial-accessibility-regulations-city-report This in answer to City of Winnipeg chair of Public Works Janice Lukes plea for the province to cough up money for the needed upgrades. Listen carefully because these are words I won't often say: I gotta agree with Lukes on this one. If the province is handing down new standards, given their higher capacity for raising revenues, they ought to help the city fund meeting said standards. What Simard fails to acknowledge is that those "year after year" funding increases started at the bottom basement after Conservative cuts and likely h...

more journalistic malpractice from Canada's national broadcaster

The government has just rammed through legislation to turn Canada into a police surveillance state where all the democratic and processed based guard-rails have been removed. They used some legislative loophole to force a vote on amendments without debate at a committee meeting at midnight. But this is what the front page of our national broadcaster's news site looks like. Do you see any mention of Bill C-22? Do you see any word of a midnight SECU session with a forced vote? Do you see any mention of MPs in tears at how democracy is being shredded before their very eyes? Do you see anything removing about all legal protections against having your data intercepted, read and kept on file (in a word of hackers and data breaches)? Do you see anything about how experts in Australia (who have already gone partway down the path Canada has just widened, flatted, and turned into a racetrack) are warning Canadians not to do this? No. The CBC is spineless. Just a mouthpiece for whoever wield...

Letter writing success

Last week, several sources linked to a letter appealing to venerable Canadian scientist and nature advocate David Suzuki to withdraw from a supposed climate prize due to its deep ties to an unbashedly colonlialist Israeli organization. The JNF's claim to fame is planting trees in Israel. Pine trees. Non-native trees. Trees that are susceptible to wildfires. Trees intentionally planted atop forcibly-emptied Palestinian villages to try to erase their memory. The letters worked. Suzuki withdrew. I hadn't gotten around to writing before I got the news. So when a follow up letter to other participants in the prize hit my inbox, I rushed to put my own spin on the letter and sign it. Send your own here I urge you to join David Suzuki in withdrawing from the upcoming Climate Solutions Prize (CSP) festival. CSP was instigated by the racist Jewish National Fund (JNF) of Canada with support from the Israeli government. Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennet announced the launch of CSP...

kar0ling

Read more posts by subject (label)

Search This Blog