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by rdevsrex 1086 days ago
Well then you know which party to vote for if that's one of the most important issues for you. Or at least, which one not to vote for.
4 comments

> Well then you know which party to vote for if that's one of the most important issues for you. Or at least, which one not to vote for.

No major party that I know of have a coherent strategy to solve the housing crisis and the TFR issue. None. They all have contradicting ideas embedded in their policies. Usually it is a mix of more incentive to own property (e.g. incentives to first-buyers, incentive to construction companies, etc) while also increasing immigration to record levels, what changes is the flavour of immigrants they prioritize (different sectors of the economy, more refugees, etc).

Note that housing is a provincial jurisdiction, so your provincial and municipal votes are the ones that matter, not your federal votes.
Sort of, except that the Federal government controls all sorts of things that influence housing development, such as taxation and significantly contributes to infrastructure spending.

When we look at the last time an enormous amount of apartments were being built in this country, through the 60s and early 70s, the Federal government was deeply involved both in directly subsidizing coops and non-profit housing and also through tax expenditure which aided market housing. There were a great deal of federal tax incentives to build market housing, many of which no longer exist.

Basically Chretien got the Feds entirely out of housing during the austerity budgets of 1993, housing construction plunged for decades and decades and now we seem to somehow have an enormous shortage.

The Feds also are in control of Indigenous reserves, so a failure to build housing there is their fault.

Sad truth about "democracy" - people keep thinking that the other party will fix their problems but it's always more of the same. Rinse and repeat.
There's no one to vote for. All the parties favour lots and lots of immigration.