this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2023
44 points (87.9% liked)

Canada

7609 readers
708 users here now

What's going on Canada?

Related Communities

🍁 Meta

πŸ—ΊοΈ Provinces / Territories

πŸ™οΈ Cities / Local Communities

Sorted alphabetically by city name.

πŸ’ SportsHockey

Football (NFL): incomplete

Football (CFL): incomplete

Baseball

Basketball

Soccer

πŸ’» Schools / Universities

Sorted by province, then by total full-time enrolment.

πŸ’΅ Finance, Shopping, Sales

πŸ—£οΈ Politics

🍁 Social / Culture

Rules

  1. Keep the original title when submitting an article. You can put your own commentary in the body of the post or in the comment section.

Reminder that the rules for lemmy.ca also apply here. See the sidebar on the homepage: lemmy.ca

founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
otter
mp3
44
Long way home: Blamed for affordability crisis, Liberals look to pivot on housing (www.cp24.com)
submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by girlfreddy to c/canada
41 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

"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."

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] frostbiker 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Supply and demand are key factors in pricing. If no one wanted to buy houses, prices would go down

I agree that both increasing supply and decreasing demand would move prices down. At the same time, while the different measures that we can take to increase supply would require months if not years to have an effect, there are several things we can do to reduce demand overnight. Here are some examples:

  • Increase taxes on empty homes and homes owned by non-resident landlords. For example, by increasing property taxes while at the same time providing a refundable tax credit for your primary home when you file your income taxes
  • Reduce yearly immigration targets and reduce the number of other visas, such as student visas
  • Do not automatically grant citizenship to babies born in Canada unless their mother is legally residing here
[–] GreyEyedGhost 3 points 2 years ago

So...reduce the demand for homes purchased for income purposes and increase the supply of houses available on the general market.

But yes, those are all excellent ideas and I hope someone implements them soon. But since about a third of MPs have at least 2 homes, it could be a tough sell.