Former Vancouver mayor whose housing policies made him unpopular now federal housing minister

Gregor Robertson, Canada‘s new housing minister, is a former Vancouver mayor blamed by some for presiding over a period of skyrocketing housing prices, but credited by others for bringing in precedent-setting policies aimed at tackling an affordability problem that has persisted since the 1990s. Mr. Robertson, who was appointed to Prime Minister Mark Carney’s new cabinet on Tuesday, had a mixed record as mayor. Notably, he never managed to deliver on his promise to end street homelessness – though its rate of increase slowed while he was in office, and he did persuade the province to fund shelters that ran for the entire winter season, rather than only on cold or rainy winter days.