Calandra's newest frenemy

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ABOVE THE FOLD

STRANGE BEDFELLOWS — At the moment, there’s no love lost between Ontario and Ottawa — the former has been hounding the latter over carbon tax carve-outs and direct housing cash for municipalities — but the on-again-off-again relationship appears to be back on when it comes to the critical housing file.

In the trenches: Housing Minister PAUL CALANDRA is playing nice and backing up his federal counterpart SEAN FRASER’s call for a “war-time” effort to address the crisis. In a new social media clip, Fraser lays out a fresh but familiar approach to meet housing demands, plucking a page from the post-WWII playbook in which Canada needed to build lots of homes, and fast, as soldiers returned home. Fraser wants to bring that cookie-cutter approach into the 21st century.

“We plan to do that by adopting a catalogue of pre-approved designs that will give timely access to homebuilders,” Fraser said. “The homes that we build in the future might not look quite like the victory homes …