Cringe or genius? Canadians react to federal housing minister's Taylor Swift-themed post

Apr 26 2024, 6:55 pm

Canada’s minister of housing, infrastructure and communities is gaining quite a bit of attention online for his latest “collab” with pop megastar Taylor Swift.

On Friday, Sean Fraser posted a graphic mimicking the Spotify tracklist for Swift’s new album, The Tortured Poet’s Department, but his version is titled “The Housing Poet’s Department.”

“New album just dropped,” said Fraser’s post. “Canada’s Housing Plan is out now,” he added, with a link to the government’s latest strategy to create homes “by the millions” to tackle the country’s current housing crisis.

He also tagged the pop superstar in the post.

Each song title on Fraser’s “album” takes after Swift’s new singles but with a twist related to (you guessed it) the Liberal’s housing plan.

Fraser’s take on the latest Swift album includes parody song titles like “We Can Fix Housing (No Really We Can),” taking after Swift’s song “I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can).”

Other titles include “My Boy Only Breaks Ground,” a play on Swift’s “My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys,” and “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Fourplexes” styled after her new hit “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?”

While Fraser (or his social media staff) may have thought this would have been a fun post for Canadians to learn more about Canada’s housing plan, it drew mixed reactions on social media.

Some folks called Fraser out for being “cringe.”

“My dude, I thought this was a parody,” said one X user.

Another person posted a graphic with other songs they thought were more fitting to be the current government’s playlist.

“Your team put more effort into this tweet than they have [into] the entire housing profile in the last eight years,” quipped another X user.

“Are we really doing this right now,” added one seemingly unimpressed commenter.

Some called Fraser out for being out of touch.

Others applauded Fraser and his team for being creative and harnessing the power of Swift to bring attention to the government’s housing plan.

“Whoever did this was hilarious and also genius,” said one comment.

Another person said it was “good PR.”

The federal government released its new housing plan earlier this month, ahead of the 2024 budget.

The plan is broken up into three main categories focused on building more homes, making it easier to rent or buy a home, and helping Canadians who can’t afford homes.

“I’m not going to promise you that the problem that was decades in the making will be solved overnight. But I think in the medium term, we’re going to be able to build homes that will secure the supply gap. And we’re going to be able to put policies in the place that make it easier to rent or to buy a place,” Fraser told Daily Hive in a recent interview.

“I believe we can build a Canada where you can find a place to live on 30% of your income. I think we can create that opportunity for people at different levels of the income spectrum.”

With files from Nikitha Martins

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