Liberal cabinet retreat to focus on housing, immigration

Housing and immigration will take centre stage on Monday as the federal cabinet retreat in Halifax moves into its first full day of meetings.

The annual end-of-summer cabinet gathering is intended to set the agenda for the fall sitting of Parliament which begins three weeks from today.

The Liberals are in a make-it-or-break-it moment, following more than a year of slumping polling numbers and at most a year left before the next federal election.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is scheduled to take questions from the media early Monday morning, something he has done far less frequently since the Liberals lost a critical byelection in a Toronto stronghold at the end of June.

Ministers are also expected to provide updates on the government’s ongoing revamp of the temporary foreign workers program, as well as national child care and electric vehicle tariffs.

The cabinet will also be forced to contend with the still unsettled labour strife within the two national railways, with Teamsters planning a protest at the meeting today.

The government last week asked the Canada Industrial Relations Board to begin binding arbitration to end a work stoppage that began when both Canadian National Railway (CN) and Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC) locked out workers on Thursday at midnight.

The board agreed Saturday to the binding arbitration request but Teamsters President Paul Boucher has vowed to fight it in court and will lead a protest in Halifax today.

But for the Liberals, affordability and the housing supply crunch will remain the main priorities.

The explosion of immigration under their watch has become a significant problem, contributing to soaring housing costs and driving anti-immigration sentiment in many parts of the country.

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