RHYMES AND REASONS — A political debate that impinges international students? This could get messy. Federal politicians are driving the current conversation around housing, the latest focal point in the shape-shifting, dynamic debate over the cost of living and its upward trajectory in Canada. “I think we have to be very careful,” Prime Minister JUSTIN TRUDEAU said Wednesday in the final stretch of a three-day Cabinet retreat in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, cautioning against slipping into a blame game to identify scapegoats in the housing crisis. “At one point it was foreign homebuyers. At another point, it was developers being super aggressive,” he said, adding that funding failures from different levels of government was another mark. “Now, it's people who say, ‘Oh, it's international students.’” — Insert eyeball emoji: Those people include Trudeau’s immigration-turned-housing minister, SEAN FRASER, who on Monday said capping international student visas is an option worth consideration. Spoiler alert: Quebec isn’t a fan of the idea, according to reporting by The Globe and Mail’s JOE FRIESEN and MARIEKE WALSH. — Rewind the tape: It’s a quick evolution (in government time) from what Fraser said during an April interview with DAVID HERLE about the “explosion of interest” in Canada's international student program, which is uncapped. It brings large numbers of people to “certain highly populated pockets” already feeling housing strains, Fraser said. “It’s difficult for me with the policy levers I have to simply solve the challenge because there is mixed federal, provincial jurisdiction.” On Monday, Fraser kicked to the future and said one crack at solving the problem would be to partner with post-secondary institutions “to understand what role they may play” in remedying the problem. — Department of duplication: MPs are already engaging with institutions on the topic. The House immigration committee clocked two meetings in its ongoing study on “exploitation schemes targeting certain international students” before Parliament rose. Housing was only mentioned once during its first meeting. Conservative MP MICHELLE REMPEL GARNER made it a bigger part of discussion the second time MPs met. She asked Sheridan College President and Vice Chancellor JANET MORRISON if the committee should recommend to the government that educational institutions that accept international students “should be formally required to match their admissions levels to available housing in the area.” “We're happy to be held accountable,” Morrison said, adding if profits were the college’s priority, they would have taken in more international students than they have. “I think the complexity of the housing market is really difficult when there are 70 private colleges with no on-campus housing and thousands of international students living in the communities that Sheridan calls home.” — Political red meat: Conservatives sense opportunity and are doubling down on housing issues to court disenchanted Liberal voters. Liberals, meanwhile, are in damage control as evidenced by Trudeau ending the Cabinet retreat with a daytime, summertime message to millennials to ward off any potential electoral backlash over sluggish housing results. He rejuvenated an old talking point, appealing to “young people who are working hard to join the middle class.” Watch for that throwback phrase to make a pre-election comeback. | 
