Calandra dumps gas on the housing fire

"Situation normal: all fucked up"

ABOVE THE FOLD

CALANDRA GOES FOR ROUND II — A hard and fast rule of political comms 101 is that you don’t create more questions than answers. PAUL CALANDRA, the Ford government’s ringer on the hot-potato Housing file, seemed to break that rule during his first week and back-to-back pressers on the job.

“A trainwreck,” is how one Tory insider described it.

At the podium for the second time this week, Calandra was cagey on specifics while attempting to spin a good-news story out of the Greenbelt saga, pushing the PCs narrative that opening up the protected lands for potentially more development is all in the name of getting 1.5 million homes built — something Calandra’s embattled predecessor STEVE CLARK admitted was a long shot.

What reporters wanted to talk about: Asked if the government would commit to a permanent protected zone, Calandra was evasive. A day earlier, he had said the Greenbelt review could result in more land being opened up. “We can’t put restrictive policies in place,…