Last spring, members of the Housing Research Collaborative (HRC) in BC, and colleagues in our Balanced Housing Supply Research Node across the country, contributed evidence-informed policy recommendations for a Federal Housing Policy Framework that we collectively prepared in advance of the federal election. The work was led by HRC members, Dr. Paul Kershaw of the University of BC and Founder of Generation Squeeze, along with Eric Swanson, Co-Executive Director of Generation Squeeze. The Framework was published on the HRC website.
Operating as a massive open on-line knowledge translation initiative (MOOKt) that engages over 34,000 Canadians, Generation Squeeze took responsibility to amplify the potential for the Framework to influence party preparations for the 2019 election by distributing the document to all national parties, along with offers to brief those responsible for platform design.
Now that we are in the election, we know that Canadians are more likely to vote when we understand what the parties stand for, and whether their promises will actually make a difference to advance key goals. The goal featured in the HRC Federal Housing Policy Framework features the goal that all Canadians be able to afford a suitable home by 2030, either as renters or owners – which we adopt from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.
In response, Dr. Kershaw deployed his Lab at UBC to work with Generation Squeeze to cut through the campaign rhetoric to contextualize party promises regarding housing by evaluating the degree to which they align with the evidence-informed policy recommendations in the HRC Framework. The study helps voters judge whether party promises are the right actions for advancing these goals in the light of the best available evidence. It is sent directly to the Gen Squeeze network of over 34,000 supporters, and featured with advertising on Facebook. You can find the interim analysis here; and it will be updated before advanced polling, and before election day.
Rather than simply list party promises, as so much election commentary does, our assessment attempts to make meaning of those promises, individually and in aggregate, by:
- Synthesizing the Federal Policy Framework published by HRC into a visually depicted game plan to address housing unaffordability in order to achieve CMHC’s bold time-line that all Canadians can afford a good home by 2030.
- Translating that game plan into a set of key criteria.
- Assessing the degree to which each major party’s platform addresses the key criteria. The resulting analysis includes:
- Criteria table and scores, where party platforms and commitments are given a score based on the extent to which they meet the stated criteria.
- Detailed commentary that explains how a score was assigned, as well as the assessed strengths and weaknesses of each commitment.
For the 2019 federal election, Gen Squeeze is focusing our analysis on the four major parties that began the race with at least one MP who was elected as a representative of that party, and who are running a national slate of candidates. This includes the Conservative Party, the Green Party, the Liberal Party, and the New Democratic Party.
Both the spirit and substance of our analysis is neutral/non-partisan in that no part of it is intended to portray any individual party or candidate in inherently favourable or unfavourable ways or to direct people to vote for or against any specific parties or candidates.
Our work simply depicts how party positions align with criteria selected in light of academic evidence about housing. Our findings may reveal that some parties align more, or less, with the evidence. Pointing this out doesn’t reveal partisanship. It reveals our commitment to report on alignment with evidence. This distinction is increasingly important for academics to make loudly and proudly in a world where people with fame and power can give “fake news” far greater reach than academic evidence often enjoys.
Through this knowledge mobilization work, we have a genuine desire for ALL parties to improve the scores they receive according to our evidence-based evaluation system. We welcome parties to refine their promises during the campaign, and we will revise our evaluations accordingly. Success for Gen Squeeze on the housing file is that all parties have equally strong platforms to ensure that all Canadians can afford a good home by 2030 so that voters ultimately choose between parties based on other criteria.
We are also open to critique of our platform analyses. We welcome parties and experts to contact Gen Squeeze directly to draw our attention to parts of the analysis they think are inaccurate according to the criteria we articulate, and we will adapt our evaluations accordingly as required by the evidence.
By doing so, our platform study doesn’t just help voters. It helps political parties. The analysis acknowledges important progress that governments have made toward housing affordability in recent years. Just as importantly, we make explicit some of the measures, including no/low-cost policy commitments, which parties can take to improve their platforms in the final weeks of their campaign on route to wooing voters who can make the difference between winning and losing the election.
Written by Paul Kershaw and Eric Swanson.
Dr. Paul Kershaw is a policy professor in the UBC School of Population and Public Health, and Founder of Generation Squeeze. Eric Swanson is the Co-Executive Director of Generation Squeeze. Both are members of the Housing Research Collaborative and the Balanced Housing Supply Node of the national Collaborative Housing Research Network.