The Liberals and NDP need to up their housing game before the next election. They’re more worried about protecting paper gains for existing homeowners than than getting prices back to affordable levels.
Why is the Liberal Party still droning on about protecting high home values while promising to make new home ownership easy? The Liberals should drop this obvious lie – voters can see the impact of housing speculation on increasing generational wealth inequalities for themselves – and heed their own legislation by focusing on the federal role in ensuring renters’ equal rights.
And why is NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh prioritizing owners’ returns over renter rights? British Columbia, which is the only NDP government in power in Canada, is the most pro-housing supply province. Build on that. Income-based housing targets, leasing public land to scale up non-market housing, and tax change to lessen wealth inequalities should be talking points for the “workers party” right now.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
He called for politicians to get serious about affordability for single parents, students, seniors and others in housing need, by getting many more new high-rise apartments approved by municipalities near federally funded public transit.
On the other hand, there is the problem that Mr. Poilievre correctly highlights: exclusionary zoning by municipalities that continues to block new purpose-built rentals where they are most needed – and not just studios and one-bedrooms, but the kinds of three- to four-bedroom flats that European cities produce.
In fact, 76 per cent of families living in unaffordable, overcrowded or uninhabitable private homes, or who are unable to afford adequate housing in their area, are low- or very low-income households, and can pay a maximum of $1,050 a month on rent.
While the Liberals and the NDP seem to be tripping over themselves to assure everyone that they will ensure that home values will stay high, millions of young Canadians are faced with no viable option except to turn to the only party that is speaking to their shared reality.
The Liberals should drop this obvious lie – voters can see the impact of housing speculation on increasing generational wealth inequalities for themselves – and heed their own legislation by focusing on the federal role in ensuring renters’ equal rights.
Why not talk about the potential of modular housing as an export industry and promote building-code change to scale up family-sized, accessible, energy-efficient flats, instead of trying to outflank the Liberals and Conservatives from the right?
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