B.C. Premier David Eby calls out Trudeau for a lack of communication and outlines housing worries

B.C. Premier David Eby voiced his frustrations over a lack of communication with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Tuesday and outlined the impacts it could have on planning and funding for housing issues.

The first minister’s meeting wrapped up on Monday with premiers threatening to pass legislation preventing Ottawa from making housing and infrastructure deals directly with cities.

Eby says Canada’s premiers haven’t sat down with Trudeau face-to-face in a meeting since 2018. As he explains, there were Zoom calls about COVID through that gap, but there hasn’t been enough since.

“We really need a face-to-face meeting and we need to be working together and currently we are not … that can be easily addressed if the federal government wishes, without anyone having to pass a law,” he said.

A contentious issue on Eby’s radar is the Canadian federal government making one-off building funding agreements with cities without provincial input as opposed to a standardized plan across the board that considers provincial priorities as well.

“My concern is that, this next phase, they are talking about refilling the infrastructure funding for the country, and we just can not have a situation where the federal government is entering into a direct agreement with cities around infrastructure without any provincial involvement,” he said.

Trudeau didn’t respond to Eby’s comments on Tuesday, but he did mention federal plans to address housing challenges in a post on X.

“We’re turning surplus federal properties into homes for Canadians – and over the next six years, we’re going to build nearly 30,000 homes with this approach,” he said.

The press release shared by Trudeau features plans to build hundreds of homes in Calgary, Edmonton, St. John’s, and Ottawa by 2029. Plans for B.C. weren’t mentioned in the release.