I think some of the finger-pointing obscures that people just... don't all care about the same things. Yes, it was a failure for any number of governments to ignore non-market housing for so long, and this would have led to a ton of accumulated costs and social problems and lost opportunities even if market home prices had stayed normal. But it is also not really honest to blame the explosive rise of costs for market housing on the failure to build 'affordable' housing in the traditional sense. (It probably has some moderating effect on market rate housing at high enough levels, but I also don't see evidence it's an absolute precondition.)
There's a political question about what people want from the housing system that goes beyond technocratic questions about how to get there. Prices are part of that, but so is what we should consider 'good' housing. I am not personally excited about a world where we are talking about non-market housing for people making 180k (like some BCBuilds projects) as an aspiration rather than a deep failure, or one where it's being sold as 'fairness' that the new middle class norm is rental apartments, not just as a stopgap but with no indication that it is not the end goal. I don't see any real economic or policy seriousness from any party, but I also don't think anyone is being 'played' because they like hand-waving about how to achieve the thing they actually want over somewhat more-developed policy that is frankly leading pretty strongly in the direction of just lowering expectations forever.
Fundamentally the slow iterative approach that the LPC has taken to the recent immigration explosion is probably what's killing them. I think they went this path because
a) it's impossible to remedy the immigration situation without inducing a recession; they are covering up per capita declines in income with human QE.
b)Also, without that QE market prices would drop with a bubble burst, "screwing" over existing owners. No politician will want to piss of 60% of the electorate so the LPC is stuck.
That of course is only about a short term blip in prices; given the number of people here + latent demand from them, we can probably expect prices to not decline too much in the long run. In the long run there is honestly no way for prices to drop by 30-50% relative to wages in less than 2-3 decades if immigration is maintained at current levels.
The housing completes to new-population ratio needs to improves significantly until housing construction vastly outpaces population growth for a decade or so. That in turn requires a tripling of our construction industry and all supplier industries like gravel, timber, cement, steel, equipment, etc.
Not unless we want 100B+ in affordable housing spend by government.
They've also advertised their fiscal restraint in a way that nearly requires population growth to deflate the debt as a percentage of GDP, while still running deficits. Immigration isn't the sole cause of housing problems, but population growth does very clearly make the problem harder to solve when we already have a crisis.
I think many of us can see perfectly well that lip-service to housing is not meaning it will take precedence over other priorities if they conflict. Yes, there are some changes on temporary immigration, but targets on permanent immigration don't seem to be being evaluated as if housing were just as important as being able to keep up spending increases.
A serious discussion never starts with false equivalences. Although both parties governed under the ideology of neoliberalism (cut taxes and let the market decide) since the 1980s Thatcher/Reagan Mulroney era both sides have not been equal in the love of the market, privatization and the hate of expanding of the social safety net for a healthier and fairer society. Most Canadian will vote according to sentiments not the serious study of policy. The vibes are very much against Trudeau "we are tired of him" and too many of us don't trust the NDP because they are "socialist and will tax us do death"
Young people voting for PP will get the government they deserve. Paul showed a little bit of balls in going after axe the tax, but it's not just carbon taxes that the Conservatives want to cut, they have deep seated beliefs in that... in the market. Well, boys and girls it's the market having its way that has left us without affordable housing. And it's the NDP that's been going after corporate greed the greatest cause of inflation. More and more economists are saying this out loud. Paul needs to rent a hall in Vancouver, Kareem in Toronto....and call people together willing to protest against unaffordable housing...demanding public housing policies...they can show up in numbers at Conservative and Liberal NDP leaders offices.-this would be a visual demonstration of course picked up by the media...But this would require getting out from behind your computers and organize to show the public the media you are damn serious about this and not just generating essays. Paul could become the Martin Luther King of Canada speaking of Generational fairness-fairness for all-Housing is a human right! Hell, I will even be his campaign manager! How about that!
I think some of the finger-pointing obscures that people just... don't all care about the same things. Yes, it was a failure for any number of governments to ignore non-market housing for so long, and this would have led to a ton of accumulated costs and social problems and lost opportunities even if market home prices had stayed normal. But it is also not really honest to blame the explosive rise of costs for market housing on the failure to build 'affordable' housing in the traditional sense. (It probably has some moderating effect on market rate housing at high enough levels, but I also don't see evidence it's an absolute precondition.)
There's a political question about what people want from the housing system that goes beyond technocratic questions about how to get there. Prices are part of that, but so is what we should consider 'good' housing. I am not personally excited about a world where we are talking about non-market housing for people making 180k (like some BCBuilds projects) as an aspiration rather than a deep failure, or one where it's being sold as 'fairness' that the new middle class norm is rental apartments, not just as a stopgap but with no indication that it is not the end goal. I don't see any real economic or policy seriousness from any party, but I also don't think anyone is being 'played' because they like hand-waving about how to achieve the thing they actually want over somewhat more-developed policy that is frankly leading pretty strongly in the direction of just lowering expectations forever.
Fundamentally the slow iterative approach that the LPC has taken to the recent immigration explosion is probably what's killing them. I think they went this path because
a) it's impossible to remedy the immigration situation without inducing a recession; they are covering up per capita declines in income with human QE.
b)Also, without that QE market prices would drop with a bubble burst, "screwing" over existing owners. No politician will want to piss of 60% of the electorate so the LPC is stuck.
That of course is only about a short term blip in prices; given the number of people here + latent demand from them, we can probably expect prices to not decline too much in the long run. In the long run there is honestly no way for prices to drop by 30-50% relative to wages in less than 2-3 decades if immigration is maintained at current levels.
The housing completes to new-population ratio needs to improves significantly until housing construction vastly outpaces population growth for a decade or so. That in turn requires a tripling of our construction industry and all supplier industries like gravel, timber, cement, steel, equipment, etc.
Not unless we want 100B+ in affordable housing spend by government.
They've also advertised their fiscal restraint in a way that nearly requires population growth to deflate the debt as a percentage of GDP, while still running deficits. Immigration isn't the sole cause of housing problems, but population growth does very clearly make the problem harder to solve when we already have a crisis.
I think many of us can see perfectly well that lip-service to housing is not meaning it will take precedence over other priorities if they conflict. Yes, there are some changes on temporary immigration, but targets on permanent immigration don't seem to be being evaluated as if housing were just as important as being able to keep up spending increases.
A serious discussion never starts with false equivalences. Although both parties governed under the ideology of neoliberalism (cut taxes and let the market decide) since the 1980s Thatcher/Reagan Mulroney era both sides have not been equal in the love of the market, privatization and the hate of expanding of the social safety net for a healthier and fairer society. Most Canadian will vote according to sentiments not the serious study of policy. The vibes are very much against Trudeau "we are tired of him" and too many of us don't trust the NDP because they are "socialist and will tax us do death"
Young people voting for PP will get the government they deserve. Paul showed a little bit of balls in going after axe the tax, but it's not just carbon taxes that the Conservatives want to cut, they have deep seated beliefs in that... in the market. Well, boys and girls it's the market having its way that has left us without affordable housing. And it's the NDP that's been going after corporate greed the greatest cause of inflation. More and more economists are saying this out loud. Paul needs to rent a hall in Vancouver, Kareem in Toronto....and call people together willing to protest against unaffordable housing...demanding public housing policies...they can show up in numbers at Conservative and Liberal NDP leaders offices.-this would be a visual demonstration of course picked up by the media...But this would require getting out from behind your computers and organize to show the public the media you are damn serious about this and not just generating essays. Paul could become the Martin Luther King of Canada speaking of Generational fairness-fairness for all-Housing is a human right! Hell, I will even be his campaign manager! How about that!