this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2023
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Way too little, WAY too late.
Plus if it's like any of their other demand side policy tweaks (first time home buyers savings account...), it will only make things worse
In fact has there ever been a single Liberal policy that made housing more affordable? Over how many years?
I struggle to even understand what people expect the federal government to do about house prices.
This is a problem that lives 95% in the jurisdiction of the provences and their cities. The most the feds can do is the demand side tweaks like you mention.
I haven't seen any decent ideas from the conservatives on how they plan to address this either, like usual they just seem to be making noise to try to get people angry.
I'm always surprised by the lack of imagination when folks bring up jurisdiction with respect to the housing crisis. The federal govt has an abundance of tools it can use to leverage pressure on the provinces. Even if we were to go by your rather narrow view of the issue, that the federal govt has yet to even begin to make noises about supply-side tweaks certainly suggests that it is simply not a priority for them, that they are comfortable with the seriously disturbing rise of unhoused Canadians and tent encampments in most major Canadian cities.
Personally, I'm pretty shocked that things have progressed to where we are now, and, despite being quite left of centre, this is such an issue in my area that voting Liberal again is simply unimaginable. I'm certainly not proud to be forced into considering voting blue (orange is a much likelier option but i cant say I'm particularly pleased with them having tied their cart to the govt's horse) but I simply can't reward a govt for such inaction on such a fundamental issue.
Like you say the feds have leverage on the provinces, but in reality we just saw how long the provinces dragged their feet on childcare, and they've been dragging their feet on healthcare.
I like to imagine that the feds have more influence, and if they wanted to spend all their political capital they might be able to force through a single issue like this (but take your pick on what that single issue is).
You're delusional if you think voting blue would make this situation any better, orange is a much better bet, but even better, vote red or orange at the provincial level or even better, vote in your municipal elections, both those levels have much more direct tools at solving this issue.
At this point I'm convinced the federal conservatives and provincial conservatives are intentionally trying confuse voters by shifting the blame from the currently in power provincial conservative governments to the federal liberals, and it feels like it's working 😞.
Are they going to call an election soon or something? Why are they suddenly pretending to give a shir?
Housing is like a third of the economy at this point and no one is willing to hurt it when they are at the helm.
They probably see how much success PP is having with his messaging and are getting spooked.
They do have the housing generator fund to bribe cities into approving more housing, which is a nice supply-side carrot. The problem is that municipalities don't deserve carrots. They deserve sticks. I can't stand Poilievre, but he's right there.
The feds don't really have sticks to use against cities, that's the provinces jurisdiction...
They give the cities a bunch of money. Poilievre proposes that they not do that for ones with lackluster performance building housing. I have trouble disagreeing with him despite how disagreeable he is.
Are you talking about funding for infrastructure or other big projects like that?
I'm not aware of any city getting regular blank checks from the feds in the same way they get from the provences.
Typically a city will ask the province and feds to help fund large projects they couldn't hope to fund on their own, this is partially realted to cities having lots of limitations on the kinds of debt they can carry.
https://www.infrastructure.gc.ca/plan/gtf-fte-eng.html
So ya, mostly large infrastructure stuff.