I only get to GM for a couple of hours a week. I'd hate that to involve narrative grinding. Although it'd be fair for a character to do it during downtime.
Which policy exactly is consistent with keeping prices high?
The statements around increasing supply without discussing lowering prices.
In the election platform, increasing supply was discussed separately from affordable housing.
Well if what we have currently is "unaffordable" I think it is safe to assume that "Affordable housing" means less than market
From what I've seen, "affordable housing" typically refers to government owned and managed housing that is rented out below market cost. That's consistent with the language used in the LPC election platform. Usually there is a waiting list to get it, and some sort of means test or qualification (like being homeless, etc) to get onto the list.
I'd distinguish that from making open market housing more affordable, either through rent caps, subsidies, changes to tax law, flooding the market, etc. That would lower the cost of housing on the open market.
I think that distinction is real because neither Carney nor the housing minister have said "we will make housing cheaper and more affordable". Instead, they're using Affordable Housing like a proper noun and talking around a very straightforward question.
Who do you believe will get access to it?
I don't know. I haven't seen an explanation of what the Liberals plan.
If spaces are very limited, I hope for a means test, prioritizing people on disability, or the homeless.
If spaces are kind of limited, I hope they limit it by income. Poorer people would get access first.
If it's abundant (which hasn't been promised), I hope that it would be open to all. But that seems really optimistic.
It'll be defined at some point. We'll see then.
As someone who has never had a hope of owning a home in their lifetime, you can get in line behind the people without a place to live and wait with the rest of the middle class.
Eh. A lot of that gain has come since 2019. It's unrealized. Many homeowners bought before the run up and are gonna make bank when younger Canadians try to get into the market.
The longer prices stay inflated, the more of a problem we'll have.
Probably the answer is in the sense that the government's focus should not be where the prices should be but whether there are sufficient homes people can house themselves in.
Government policy moved prices up to where they are, so all three levels of government need to remedy the problem.
The thing these conversations rarely mention is that a lot of retirement savings are tied up in homes. As long as young Canadians are being gouged for rent, it's harder to put money aside for retirement.
Keeping prices high is consistent with the policy the LPC proposed during the election.
The consolation prize of "more affordable housing" is unclear. Affordable means different things to different people, and I haven't seen an explanation of who will get access to it.
As someone who is trying to figure out how to afford a home, this isn't the answer I wanted to hear.
I know everyone loves to hate on the boomers, but most of them didn’t strike it rich, many live in homes that are old and not well maintained, have failing bodies, are being squeezed out of labour jobs, etc. Having a tiny, taxable income stream at a time where society is turning against you isn’t some crazy benefit.
Kershaw and (I suspect) u/wampus are talking about the intersection of rich and old. Someone who is making ~140k/year (or 250ish as a couple) doesn't need a top-up from the feds, regardless of their age. Kershaw's other op-eds have proposed lowering the OAS clawbacks for the wealthy and using that amount to increase payments to poor seniors.
Refining the OAS clawback for households with incomes of more than $100,000 would be transformative. It would free up $36-billion in federal spending over the next five years.
About $12-billion could be added to the Guaranteed Income Supplement to deliver an extra $5,000 a year to the 469,000 seniors who currently fall below Canada’s official poverty measure. This would virtually eliminate poverty among seniors ... . For those who remain near the poverty line, another $4-billion could be added to the GIS to enhance their incomes too.
The remaining $20-billion could be reinvested to double the increases for housing and postsecondary education in the 2024 federal budget, add 50 per cent to child care and cut the deficit by billions.
I think it's more a question of getting rid of the incumbents that presided over the most noticeable part of the affordability crisis.
Trudeau & co initially said our GDP is growing, what's there to worry about? People have a long memory when they are ignored or slighted. Then add that Poilievre focused on affordability issues during the election. Even if the CPC policies suck, his supporters appreciate that he's talking about the problem.
Neither of the LPC or CPC plans looked great for affordability, IMO. If Carney can stay in power long enough, I think they might be able to get 500k starts/year, but that won't be soon enough for the people who are priced out.
I've been living in a small town since the pandemic, and it's pretty good. I'd recommend it, if you're into a small town lifestyle (I'm not).
I'm assuming the federal properties are lands inside city limits. Building housing a few hours from a population centre seems like a terrible idea. But I guess we'll find out more soon.
The Conservatives use gun control as a wedge issue. Carney was quick to drop the carbon tax because it was politically toxic - it isn't beyond the pale to imagine he'd do the same with gun control. 🤷♂️
Yes! There wasn't a lot of meat prepared in my house as I was growing up, so I didn't get any experience with it. Having a meat thermometer means I don't need to guess. It's good.
I've started cooking meat a lil cooler than recommended, in theory that it's more tender. With a meat thermometer I know it's still good.
From what I've seen, it mostly seems to be subsidies - either providing low(er) interest loans or investing in prefab housing.
They also talk about paying private builders to create affordable housing, but I'm not clear who would own those buildings, who would get to live in them, or how much they would cost.
There are a lot of unknowns, and (as far as I've seen) the only timeline is building 500k houses a year by 2035. If that's really the timeline, I doubt it will change the minds of young Canadians who are getting gouged on housing.
It's an op-ed, not an article. It explains the Fraser Institute's point of view (perhaps that of their donors). They raise a couple of good points (notably the one about the infrastructure bank), but it's their chance to get their ideas out. It shouldn't be balanced.
If all op-eds need to be balanced, then we'd see indigenous land defenders having to explain why a company is allowed to despoil that land. Similarly, if a doctor is writing an op-ed explaining why think you should get vaccinated, they shouldn't need to reiterate the talking points of whackos saying it isn't. That's fine for articles, but this isn't an article.
The point of op-eds is to get an idea out. This one is probably a counterpoint to Paul Kershaw's delicious trolling in yesterday's Globe.
That's a really interesting set of protections: they're targeting categories of scams and trying to prevent them.
I can see that causing a lot of problems for people walking relatives through legit tech support, but if it prevent vulnerable people from getting scammed, that may be worth it.