Federal Government & Politics II

[biguc]

Originally Posted by Hecate

Yet housing was still relatively affordable back in 2011. So who was it that decided we should double down on increasing immigration in 2020? Harper? lol

And supply and demand isn’t rocket science. The liberals knew there was an under supply of housing when they decided to more than quadruple the amount of people coming here. They didn’t give two shits about the living conditions of Canadians.

We have a great natural experiment here. Did the Liberals decide to quadruple immigration to Canada? If they did, then it would be exceedingly unlikely that the UK Torys would have done the same. Like I said, these is market forces at work that only patient, deliberate regulation, honed over time, will tame. It's nothing short of a fantasy that the Liberals created this problem, or that results would have been different with a different government.

It's the same with the pandemic and ensuing inflation. Governments all over the west took different approaches and ended up with basically the same results.

It's funny that your takeaway from "housing bubble" is "affordable housing"

Originally Posted by lio45

Just because some problems were created by Trudeau, doesn’t automatically mean they won’t outlast him by a long time.

As I’ve opined for a while now, I think JT’s Pet Scheme of Great Real Estate Enrichment has reached near-unreversable levels at this point (which is why I’ve decided I’m not selling all my Canadian RE, despite the looming change in Federal government.)

Like that thread linked above ought to demonstrate, the Great Canadian Real Estate Ponzi Scheme predates Trudeau. Realistically, Canadian real estate should have collapsed in 2008.

For what it's worth, I ascribe tent cities more to acute COVID disruptions than expensive housing. They exploded here with the first lockdown and only now are things about back to normal.

I was recently in Victoria and Vancouver, where the homelessness situation seemed worse than and about the same as I remembered, respectively. I was also recently in Anchorage, which has an absolutely embarrassing tent-city right on the city's front lawn, so to speak. The city also had more people in obvious mental distress than even Vancouver. I'm confident this has nothing to do with Trudeau or Canada's housing crisis.

It's worth noting that most homeless aren't visible. So, while expensive housing causes homelessness, by now tent cities probably indicate over-capacity shelters and generally shit local government more than anything.

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

I think you're getting a bit too caught up in framing this as a partisan, left/right culture wars issue. And for some, it certainly is - but the prevailing criticism both here and across the country right now seems to moreso be one of basic government competence: something which knows no particular ideology - and something that both the British Tories and Canadian Liberals currently lack.

I think for most people, competence & good governance trumps ideology or partisanship when it comes to supporting (or not) a government. Will the Conservatives be any better on this front? I doubt it. But in a democracy, the only way to affect change is to vote out then incumbent - the Conservatives in this case are just the most viable alternative.

If the NDP hadn't completely shit the bed, they might have actually had a shot at forming government in this moment. Trudeau's Liberals are reviled and no one is particularly enthusiastic for PP's Conservatives - but alas, Jagmeet & the NDP braintrust have conspired to ensure they remain a perpetual third party. Realistically, our best case scenario is that PP runs an okay-but-not-great government for 4 years, and then a refreshed Liberal Party comes back in 2029 with some improved leadership and actual vision.

I'm happy to see you and Lio talk about this. I agree, and I think the balance of my post brought around my framing to the reality of creating competent government--it's not something that just happens. Representative democracy calls on us to endorse simple, ideologically driven non-solutions. But competently dealing with problems calls for a deliberate, iterative approach.

Going back to that natural experiment I talked about above, no matter who was in power in 2020, and whether they've stayed in power or not, the sweeping opinion across western democracies is that everyone was and is uniquely incompetent. My point is that, given the wealth and diversity of control groups, this nearly impossible. And, in fact, we've recently seen the fruits of competent government--controlled inflation and a return to economic growth. With time, we'll probably see governments take a similarly competent, drama-free approach to managing housing and immigration. And, just like managing inflation no longer involves breaking union workers' skulls or fixing prices, it won't involve drowning anyone or mass deportations.

Here, people say "Ampel stoppen", which is cute and all because the Red-Yellow-Green "Ampel" coalition government looks like a stoplight. But what have they done that needs stopping? If anything, they need go faster towards competently managing today's problems. The impending change of government here won't help. But the endless bullshit from Russia and the right ensures we'll have to endure more lost years before we get it right.

I do agree that it's time to change government in Canada. It's just a shame it'll mean one of the most poorly suited people for leadership to have ever entered Canadian politics will become PM and have four years to really hurt people, really make things worse, and profoundly embarrass us all. Hopefully the Liberals and NDP can clean house in the meantime.

Originally Posted by YOWetal

I know others disagree but we never had an incompetent government in the way they have had over the past 5 years in the UK.

Thanks for your posts. You're right. I'd only argue that the UK's streak of incredible incompetence goes back to Cameron's stroke of self-defeating hubris in 2016. Each of the cast of oafs playing PM musical chairs since has only made it more obvious. As much as you want Trudeau out, I'm sure you agree that replacing him with a clown car of unelected bozos wouldn't improve anything.

[ssiguy]

Canada needs to do 3 things in order to bring sanity back to our housing market:

1} Reduce immigration by 90% for at least 2 years and entry for the very highly skilled in high demand professions which includes no renewal contracts for students/TFW.
2} A maximum 3 homes per-housing unit and no businesses should be allowed to own any residential property except companies whos primary business is rental. You can't force people to sell but after that 3 home max nationwide, the owners get pounded with exponentially higher property taxes ie $100k/year and/or 30% sales tax. Give all current owners 6 months to sell. This would result in hundreds of thousands of housing unit being put on the market and stop people/companies/money launderers/foreigners from buying homes they don't need.
3} A massive shift in how we build homes to modular buildings which can be built much cheaper and MUCH faster 24/7 365.

Until we do all of these things, no amount of gov't largess is going to make a hoot of difference.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

Canada needs to do 3 things in order to bring sanity back to our housing market:

1} Reduce immigration by 90% for at least 2 years and entry for the very highly skilled in high demand professions which includes no renewal contracts for students/TFW.
2} A maximum 3 homes per-housing unit and no businesses should be allowed to own any residential property except companies whos primary business is rental. You can't force people to sell but after that 3 home max nationwide, the owners get pounded with exponentially higher property taxes ie $100k/year and/or 30% sales tax. Give all current owners 6 months to sell. This would result in hundreds of thousands of housing unit being put on the market and stop people/companies/money launderers/foreigners from buying homes they don't need.
3} A massive shift in how we build homes to modular buildings which can be built much cheaper and MUCH faster 24/7 365.

Until we do all of these things, no amount of gov't largess is going to make a hoot of difference.

#1 and #2 aren't going to happen, #1 because it's fantasy land. #2 crosses jurisdictional lines and would be massively costly to administer, if it were even legal. Can't disagree on #3, but it's a private sector issue. Perhaps some government incentives could help.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by biguc

We have a great natural experiment here. Did the Liberals decide to quadruple immigration to Canada? If they did, then it would be exceedingly unlikely that the UK Torys would have done the same.

The UK didn't quadruple immigration. But they did grow it substantially while actually reducing the number of hospital beds, teachers etc. Population growth greater than growth in services is part of their backlash too. It's why Farage's anti-immigration reform party might actually outpoll their Conservative party.

[BlackDog204]

Originally Posted by YOWetal

No you didn't have the exact same situation. We had a rule not allowing visitors. There was no such rule in Greece. There was no rule against travel. There was a lot of sanctimonious people thinking we should all stay in our houses but we had no such rule. Should MPs uphold an even higher standard maybe but she followed the rules.

With all due respect, you are embarrassing yourself trying to justify her actions.

[Djeffery]

Originally Posted by acottawa

It seems like they were relatively stable before 2016.

https://www.bankofcanada.ca/rates/in...t-definitions/


I know Vancouver and Toronto were already into very high housing prices at that time, but for most of Canada things were still pretty reasonable. We bought a 1500 sq foot infill townhouse in a not glamorous but fairly central neighborhood in Sep 2015 for 354k. The median household income in Ottawa was 86k

An example in the Byron neighbourhood of London, known as a fairly nice, although not top of the scale anymore, like it was known 40 years ago. My sister in law bought a typical for the area 2 story 3000 sq ft house with a pool for $359,000 in 2007. Sold in 2016 for $395,000, barely covering closing costs in that difference. 4 years later, every house on that street sold for $1million plus.

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by wg_flamip

Exactly. The housing crisis was present and accelerating in Vancouver and Toronto long before Trudeau came to power. These cities regions form a huge chunk of the country's population and economy, and it was absolutely naive to think that the rest of the country would remain insulated forever.

Canada's petty regionalisms at work again, blinding us to the first symptoms of our housing cancer and allowing it to spread. It was okay to tell Torontonians and Vancouverites, often with a note of vindictive glee ("Alberta advantage! "), that they didn't have a right to live in their own cities. And if we didn't then, why should any of you in smaller cities have that right now?

This issue can sometimes function as a bit of a partisan Rorschach test, with people either falling into the "it's all Trudeau's fault" or "it started way before Trudeau/is also happening in other countries" camps, depending on where their particular political sympathies lie.

Both have some truth, but largely gloss over the depth of the situation. Canada's current crisis is the culmination of decades of bad policy at all levels of government and under-building relative to demand; and some very bad recent policy.

The seeds were planted decades ago - between restrictive zoning & anti-development policies, a lack of public spending on subsidized & rental housing (lowest in the G7), favourable tax laws and other policies like passports-for-buying-RE that encouraged investment & speculation; while also building fewer new homes than new households being created - we most definitely had a nascent housing crisis brewing in Toronto & Vancouver by the time the last government was in office (though, "bubble" was more accurate than a true crisis at the time).

That said, it's also true that the problem accelerated - very rapidly - during Trudeau's time in office. It's since worsened in Toronto & Vancouver, and now spread to much of the rest of the country. Some of that was just the above issues coming home to roost, while also adding in new, external problems like AirBnb & Covid; but we can also point to specific policies of this government (most notably the population surge) that have exacerbated the problem. Likewise, as much as countries like the UK, US, Australia, Germany, and most other western nations are experiencing housing crises of their own, none quite match our own in their severity. We're not alone, but we're doing something uniquely bad.

As someone made the analogy earlier: the house was already on fire, but then Trudeau showed up with a can of gasoline.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by wg_flamip

Exactly. The housing crisis was present and accelerating in Vancouver and Toronto long before Trudeau came to power. These cities regions form a huge chunk of the country's population and economy, and it was absolutely naive to think that the rest of the country would remain insulated forever.

Canada's petty regionalisms at work again, blinding us to the first symptoms of our housing cancer and allowing it to spread. It was okay to tell Torontonians and Vancouverites, often with a note of vindictive glee ("Alberta advantage! "), that they didn't have a right to live in their own cities. And if we didn't then, why should any of you in smaller cities have that right now?

Vancouver has a structural housing crisis. Demand is high because of the good geography and land availability is low because of the same geography and the Ultra-NIMBY structure of local government in BC. None of Harper, Trudeau, Pollievre can fix that.

Pre-Trudeau, Toronto’s high prices were fairly contained to certain areas of the GTA. From a 2013 Toronto Star article, for example.

The lack of enough houses for sale in Toronto last year to meet demand helped boost the price of a two-storey home by 6.2 per cent, to an average of $668,133 year-over-year by the fourth quarter of 2012. A detached bungalow climbed 4.9 per cent, to $558,345, during the same one-year period.

Toronto condos averaged year-over-year gains of 2.6 per cent, ending 2012 at an average $356,865.

https://www.thestar.com/life/home-an...853e5852b.html

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

#1 and #2 aren't going to happen, #1 because it's fantasy land. #2 crosses jurisdictional lines and would be massively costly to administer, if it were even legal. Can't disagree on #3, but it's a private sector issue. Perhaps some government incentives could help.

What makes #1 fantasy land? We need at least immediate family reunification and will have some sort of asylum claimants but the rest can be frozen for a couple of years until we get our $hit together. We can pay legit colleges and universities to make up for their students and pay for residences to get them back in the foreign student business as soon as possible. 80% at least is very doable.

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by acottawa

Vancouver has a structural housing crisis. Demand is high because of the good geography and land availability is low because of the same geography and the Ultra-NIMBY structure of local government in BC. None of Harper, Trudeau, Pollievre can fix that.

Pre-Trudeau, Toronto’s high prices were fairly contained to certain areas of the GTA. From a 2013 Toronto Star article, for example.

The lack of enough houses for sale in Toronto last year to meet demand helped boost the price of a two-storey home by 6.2 per cent, to an average of $668,133 year-over-year by the fourth quarter of 2012. A detached bungalow climbed 4.9 per cent, to $558,345, during the same one-year period.

Toronto condos averaged year-over-year gains of 2.6 per cent, ending 2012 at an average $356,865.

https://www.thestar.com/life/home-an...853e5852b.html

Those prices seem quaint by today's standards! And to think, that was already 2 years into the "Great Canadian Housing Bubble Thread".