“This has become probably the most important both economic and political problem facing the country right now,” said Tyler Meredith, a former head of economic strategy and planning for Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland.
“And especially given the significant emphasis the government has put on immigration and the relationship between immigration and the housing market, there is a need to do more.”
There’s the inconvenient fact that housing is way more provincial and municipal than federal. The feds can’t (and shouldn’t) be able to tell a town/city what they can or can’t do as per the rules of our democracy.
That being said, the Feds should be building their own public/rent geared to income housing.
One of the biggest hurdles is NIMBY voters who alway turn up and vote against density and constantly jam the system regardless of need - and those who need affordable housing generally don’t show up to vote.
If the feds build their own housing, or blast provincial/local governments who are preventing the proliferation of Federally funded housing the narrative should hopefully flip.
Currently its the spider-man meme of feds, premiers, and municipal governments pointing at each other as the source of housing inequality - and all of them are correct. But it’s lack of public understanding that allows the inaction to continue.
This isn’t something that needs to be profitable, it’s fulfilling the basic role of government working for the people and giving them value.
This would also put pressure on developers collectively refusing to build due to costs. If you’re not developing, the land moves to the feds to be developed instead.
Some things need to exist outside of profit seeking.
The media aiming ire at the Federal Liberals isn’t just unhelpful, it’s actually extremely counter-productive.
Like, let’s say you work at $BIGCORP and you’re embezzling, and you’re not hiding it well. And the CFO says “$BIGCORP has an embezzling problem! We need to fix this urgently! As a result, I’m raising pressure on SomeOtherGuy to stop this problem!”
You’re not SomeOtherGuy, you’re you. What do you do? Do you stop embezzling? Do you shut up and keep doing it? Do you quietly encourage the CFO to keep the pressure on SomeOtherGuy to fix the problem?
Because as long as the press is aiming the ire at the feds, they’re keeping the heat off of the people most able to fix the problem.
Fundamentally, I think the press (and therefore the people consuming the press) is too dumb for federalism. We are not mentally capable of making informed political decisions about accountability in a 3-tier system.
Generally agreed, but also remember that the federal government sets immigration targets, which affects demand