The National Telegraph - Wyatt Claypool - Liberal Housing Policy Is a Disaster!

00:00:00.000 I think easily two of the biggest issues in the next Canadian federal election are going to be

00:00:04.520 the issues of housing affordability as well as immigration. I think at this point, everyone

00:00:09.260 understands that these two issues are effectively inextricably linked together. Right now, Canada

00:00:14.040 has extremely restricted housing supply because of all the restrictions, high costs and timelines

00:00:20.440 in order to actually build new houses and apartments. At the same time, we have very,

00:00:25.160 very high immigration rates. About 500,000 people are entering the country every year under the

00:00:29.920 Trudeau liberals to become permanent residents and someday citizens. At the same time that we

00:00:34.940 have another 500,000 students entering the country every year who require temporary housing while

00:00:39.800 they're attending university. This is a recipe for disaster. And I actually think Justin Trudeau's

00:00:44.800 liberals are incentivized to keep this disaster situation going on. Just like a lot of the 0.93

00:00:50.300 social security policy that the Trudeau liberals are pushing, the liberals actually don't have an

00:00:55.480 incentive to solve this problem because they think that they get more votes through just keeping it

00:01:00.780 as a problem and then basically bribing Canadian permanent residents and citizens with their own

00:01:06.400 taxpayer dollars in order to pretend that they're solving the problem by giving you little bits and

00:01:11.260 pieces of money to sort of keep you in your house. I don't think this is going to be enough because

00:01:16.480 it's just going to fuel more inflation and housing prices are just going to keep skyrocketing. So it's

00:01:21.160 effectively a circular problem that every time you give people money to pay for housing, the amount

00:01:26.680 of money in the housing market goes up, which means that prices are going to go up because the actual

00:01:31.780 housing supply is not increasing to meet the demand and all that's being added is just more overheated

00:01:37.840 demand through more money, allowing more people to bid on houses. It's just a terrible situation and

00:01:44.380 Justin Trudeau is exploiting it to try and gain voters. I think that the federal conservatives need to be

00:01:49.560 very savvy on this issue and make sure that they don't start backing the same dumb policies that the 0.98

00:01:54.420 liberals are. It's not the federal government's or the provincial government's duty to give citizens 0.88

00:01:59.620 money so that they can buy houses. It's the federal, provincial, and local government's duty to pass

00:02:04.840 policies to make it more affordable to build houses. So on the federal level, if we cut the carbon tax,

00:02:10.400 we cut corporate and personal taxes, developers would have way more money in their pockets to actually

00:02:15.260 build buildings. Same on the provincial level, but on the provincial and local government level,

00:02:20.380 what also needs to happen is that they have to stop restricting the land that houses can be built on

00:02:25.280 and they also need to stop the process from being so long. Right now in cities across Canada,

00:02:31.360 it takes sometimes more than a year to gain approvals to actually start building a house

00:02:35.240 and the amount of inspections and other sorts of taxes and regulations that developers have to follow

00:02:40.660 make it an incredibly grueling and expensive task to actually undertake. As much as people want to

00:02:45.980 demonize developers because of all the money they make on high housing costs, all they're doing is

00:02:51.100 trying to maximize the amount of money that they're getting on the small housing supply that they're

00:02:56.020 allowed to sell. If you made it far easier to build in this country, far more developers would

00:03:00.580 just build more houses and sell them at a lower cost. This is what happens with supply and demand,

00:03:05.220 that when you lower supply, people are going to sell that supply for higher costs. It's not

00:03:09.780 the developers' fault that this is happening. Just like when the NDP and the Liberals complain

00:03:14.220 at grocery stores from raising their prices, well, when you raise taxes and it makes it hard and

00:03:18.880 makes stock more expensive to bring in for grocery stores, they're also going to raise the price of

00:03:23.300 that stock, that more restricted stock. But one of the things that some conservative politicians are

00:03:30.100 falling into the trap of is going along with municipal governments like Calgary City Hall

00:03:36.720 trying to push affordability plans that are effectively just liberal plans in disguise with

00:03:41.920 a nice sounding name on it. Right now, the city of Calgary is pushing this incredibly stupid 1.00

00:03:46.560 task force recommendation report on affordable housing, which is effectively just rent control 0.99

00:03:52.100 in disguise. They throw a few kernels of decent public policy in there, like trying to speed up

00:03:56.820 approvals for new buildings and trying to repurpose some public land for housing development.

00:04:01.320 But at the same time, they've slipped in their rent control. Effectively, all 15% of all new

00:04:07.420 developments in each ward of the city must be offered at below market values. I think this is both

00:04:13.260 for just the house's price as well as renting that unit. This is going to make developers run away

00:04:20.760 from Calgary. It's one of those ridiculous policies where on its face, it doesn't make any sense because

00:04:25.920 all the places in Canada that have incredibly high housing prices like Vancouver and Toronto

00:04:31.900 also have these same affordability measures. They've had them for a while, and their housing

00:04:37.020 keeps going up in price. Because while there's a few lucky people who get rent controlled units,

00:04:42.140 it just basically disincentivizes developers from building houses in the city, and landlords do not

00:04:48.400 want to offer up their properties for rent because it's not worth it anymore. It's becoming an issue in

00:04:53.820 Calgary where people are effectively pretending that simply like that the government just mandating

00:05:00.680 that housing be affordable is how housing becomes affordable. Again, in every jurisdiction,

00:05:06.120 especially places like New York City and LA where they try and implement rent control, all that happens 0.89

00:05:11.300 is 15% of lucky individuals get rent controlled units, and then everyone else has to pay luxury prices

00:05:17.000 to make up for the fact that they aren't living in a rent controlled apartment or house. This is what's

00:05:22.560 going to happen in Calgary if this recommendation report this week is actually approved. I'm very

00:05:28.040 happy that people like Councillor Dan McLean and other councillors have actually been pushing back

00:05:32.820 on this, as well as federal MPs like Greg McLean and other MPs in the city making sure that they know

00:05:39.260 that citizens know that this is not actually a plan to make housing more affordable. It's a plan that gives

00:05:46.640 the government more power over the housing market. I actually did a recent interview with Dan McLean

00:05:53.860 a few weeks ago on the housing issue, and we both agreed when I was interviewing him that it's completely

00:05:59.920 ridiculous that the city of Calgary is trying to throw in all these complex measures to try and artificially

00:06:05.120 make housing cheaper in Calgary. At the same time, they've never thought of lowering property taxes in the city 0.73

00:06:10.560 that would actually make Calgarians have more money in their pockets to be able to afford housing.

00:06:14.860 But government officials never like to pretend that any problem is government caused, and they like

00:06:20.480 to pretend that every issue has a government solution embedded in it. And we even have

00:06:27.180 politicians that are supposedly conservatives like Lila A here, the former MLA, actually endorsing this

00:06:32.380 plan, as well as other MPs like the housing critic for the Conservative Party, Scott Aitchison. I think

00:06:37.520 some of these people like Aitchison, Michelle Rample, and Lila A here are just reading the top line of

00:06:42.960 the affordability plan, seeing that it says it's affordability plan, they're going to try and

00:06:46.800 increase developments, and just assuming that that's what the report does. As soon as rent control

00:06:51.240 entered the conversation in this report, it became nonsense. And the federal Conservative Party has to be

00:06:57.560 very careful at which policies they endorse in order to fix the housing problem. Right now, what would be

00:07:03.040 very good is actually increasing the supply of housing by reducing taxes and regulations on builders

00:07:08.900 so that we can actually increase the supply. And I think on the issue of immigration, the Conservative

00:07:14.180 Party should investigate whether or not we should put in place restrictions on immigration to lower the 0.98

00:07:19.920 number, maybe from 500,000 to 300,000, or at least have a financial stress test for immigrants so that

00:07:26.760 we're not bringing immigrants into the country for them to basically become rent, basically become 0.99

00:07:32.400 serfs forced to rent for the rest of their lives because mortgage payments are too high in Canada.

00:07:36.740 It's not good for Canadians, and it's not good for Canadian immigrants that nobody can afford a house. 0.99

00:07:42.180 It's not compassionate to bring people into the country of Canada just for them to effectively be 1.00

00:07:48.020 having to take minimum wage jobs to barely afford rent for the rest of their lives. That's actually a

00:07:52.540 very cruel thing to do, and it seems to be Justin Trudeau's plan to make more people dependent on the

00:07:57.500 government. In places like the city of Calgary, what we need is less restrictions on building,

00:08:02.320 we need sped up development times, which this recommendation report does purportedly aim at

00:08:09.080 doing, but we shouldn't be trying to mandate that prices be cheaper through such measures as rent

00:08:15.100 control. Developers are just going to flee the city and go to Fort McMurray and Lethbridge and other

00:08:19.420 places that is cheaper to build and flee cities like Calgary, Vancouver, and Toronto like they already

00:08:24.700 are doing. Anyways, hopefully this wasn't too boring today. I know that the issue of housing policy is

00:08:30.100 usually not the most spicy, but hopefully you liked this. Anyways, I also have in the description

00:08:35.280 of this video my usual Gibson Go Legal Fund if you want to contribute to that, as well as the TNT email

00:08:40.040 link. Sign up there so you can get the National Telegraph's emails sent directly to your inbox with

00:08:44.320 our new videos as well as articles that we try and write every day or every week, depending on if it's

00:08:49.840 the medium of writing or video. Other than that, have a great day, everyone.

The National Telegraph - Wyatt Claypool - September 14, 2023

Liberal Housing Policy Is a Disaster!

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