Liberal Housing Policy Is a Disaster!
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
191.5683
Summary
In this episode, I talk about the current state of housing affordability in Canada and why we need to do more to make it more affordable for people to buy houses. I also talk about immigration, which is a huge issue in the upcoming federal election.
Transcript
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I think easily two of the biggest issues in the next Canadian federal election are going to be
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the issues of housing affordability as well as immigration. I think at this point, everyone
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understands that these two issues are effectively inextricably linked together. Right now, Canada
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has extremely restricted housing supply because of all the restrictions, high costs and timelines
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in order to actually build new houses and apartments. At the same time, we have very,
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very high immigration rates. About 500,000 people are entering the country every year under the
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Trudeau liberals to become permanent residents and someday citizens. At the same time that we
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have another 500,000 students entering the country every year who require temporary housing while
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they're attending university. This is a recipe for disaster. And I actually think Justin Trudeau's
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liberals are incentivized to keep this disaster situation going on. Just like a lot of the
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social security policy that the Trudeau liberals are pushing, the liberals actually don't have an
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incentive to solve this problem because they think that they get more votes through just keeping it
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as a problem and then basically bribing Canadian permanent residents and citizens with their own
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taxpayer dollars in order to pretend that they're solving the problem by giving you little bits and
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pieces of money to sort of keep you in your house. I don't think this is going to be enough because
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it's just going to fuel more inflation and housing prices are just going to keep skyrocketing. So it's
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effectively a circular problem that every time you give people money to pay for housing, the amount
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of money in the housing market goes up, which means that prices are going to go up because the actual
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housing supply is not increasing to meet the demand and all that's being added is just more overheated
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demand through more money, allowing more people to bid on houses. It's just a terrible situation and
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Justin Trudeau is exploiting it to try and gain voters. I think that the federal conservatives need to be
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very savvy on this issue and make sure that they don't start backing the same dumb policies that the
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liberals are. It's not the federal government's or the provincial government's duty to give citizens
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money so that they can buy houses. It's the federal, provincial, and local government's duty to pass
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policies to make it more affordable to build houses. So on the federal level, if we cut the carbon tax,
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we cut corporate and personal taxes, developers would have way more money in their pockets to actually
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build buildings. Same on the provincial level, but on the provincial and local government level,
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what also needs to happen is that they have to stop restricting the land that houses can be built on
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and they also need to stop the process from being so long. Right now in cities across Canada,
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it takes sometimes more than a year to gain approvals to actually start building a house
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and the amount of inspections and other sorts of taxes and regulations that developers have to follow
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make it an incredibly grueling and expensive task to actually undertake. As much as people want to
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demonize developers because of all the money they make on high housing costs, all they're doing is
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trying to maximize the amount of money that they're getting on the small housing supply that they're
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allowed to sell. If you made it far easier to build in this country, far more developers would
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just build more houses and sell them at a lower cost. This is what happens with supply and demand,
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that when you lower supply, people are going to sell that supply for higher costs. It's not
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the developers' fault that this is happening. Just like when the NDP and the Liberals complain
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at grocery stores from raising their prices, well, when you raise taxes and it makes it hard and
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makes stock more expensive to bring in for grocery stores, they're also going to raise the price of
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that stock, that more restricted stock. But one of the things that some conservative politicians are
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falling into the trap of is going along with municipal governments like Calgary City Hall
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trying to push affordability plans that are effectively just liberal plans in disguise with
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a nice sounding name on it. Right now, the city of Calgary is pushing this incredibly stupid
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task force recommendation report on affordable housing, which is effectively just rent control
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in disguise. They throw a few kernels of decent public policy in there, like trying to speed up
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approvals for new buildings and trying to repurpose some public land for housing development.
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But at the same time, they've slipped in their rent control. Effectively, all 15% of all new
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developments in each ward of the city must be offered at below market values. I think this is both
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for just the house's price as well as renting that unit. This is going to make developers run away
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from Calgary. It's one of those ridiculous policies where on its face, it doesn't make any sense because
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all the places in Canada that have incredibly high housing prices like Vancouver and Toronto
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also have these same affordability measures. They've had them for a while, and their housing
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keeps going up in price. Because while there's a few lucky people who get rent controlled units,
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it just basically disincentivizes developers from building houses in the city, and landlords do not
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want to offer up their properties for rent because it's not worth it anymore. It's becoming an issue in
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Calgary where people are effectively pretending that simply like that the government just mandating
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that housing be affordable is how housing becomes affordable. Again, in every jurisdiction,
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especially places like New York City and LA where they try and implement rent control, all that happens
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is 15% of lucky individuals get rent controlled units, and then everyone else has to pay luxury prices
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to make up for the fact that they aren't living in a rent controlled apartment or house. This is what's
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going to happen in Calgary if this recommendation report this week is actually approved. I'm very
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happy that people like Councillor Dan McLean and other councillors have actually been pushing back
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on this, as well as federal MPs like Greg McLean and other MPs in the city making sure that they know
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that citizens know that this is not actually a plan to make housing more affordable. It's a plan that gives
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the government more power over the housing market. I actually did a recent interview with Dan McLean
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a few weeks ago on the housing issue, and we both agreed when I was interviewing him that it's completely
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ridiculous that the city of Calgary is trying to throw in all these complex measures to try and artificially
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make housing cheaper in Calgary. At the same time, they've never thought of lowering property taxes in the city
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that would actually make Calgarians have more money in their pockets to be able to afford housing.
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But government officials never like to pretend that any problem is government caused, and they like
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to pretend that every issue has a government solution embedded in it. And we even have
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politicians that are supposedly conservatives like Lila A here, the former MLA, actually endorsing this
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plan, as well as other MPs like the housing critic for the Conservative Party, Scott Aitchison. I think
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some of these people like Aitchison, Michelle Rample, and Lila A here are just reading the top line of
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the affordability plan, seeing that it says it's affordability plan, they're going to try and
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increase developments, and just assuming that that's what the report does. As soon as rent control
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entered the conversation in this report, it became nonsense. And the federal Conservative Party has to be
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very careful at which policies they endorse in order to fix the housing problem. Right now, what would be
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very good is actually increasing the supply of housing by reducing taxes and regulations on builders
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so that we can actually increase the supply. And I think on the issue of immigration, the Conservative
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Party should investigate whether or not we should put in place restrictions on immigration to lower the
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number, maybe from 500,000 to 300,000, or at least have a financial stress test for immigrants so that
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we're not bringing immigrants into the country for them to basically become rent, basically become
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serfs forced to rent for the rest of their lives because mortgage payments are too high in Canada.
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It's not good for Canadians, and it's not good for Canadian immigrants that nobody can afford a house.
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It's not compassionate to bring people into the country of Canada just for them to effectively be
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having to take minimum wage jobs to barely afford rent for the rest of their lives. That's actually a
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very cruel thing to do, and it seems to be Justin Trudeau's plan to make more people dependent on the
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government. In places like the city of Calgary, what we need is less restrictions on building,
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we need sped up development times, which this recommendation report does purportedly aim at
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doing, but we shouldn't be trying to mandate that prices be cheaper through such measures as rent
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control. Developers are just going to flee the city and go to Fort McMurray and Lethbridge and other
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places that is cheaper to build and flee cities like Calgary, Vancouver, and Toronto like they already
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are doing. Anyways, hopefully this wasn't too boring today. I know that the issue of housing policy is
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usually not the most spicy, but hopefully you liked this. Anyways, I also have in the description
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our new videos as well as articles that we try and write every day or every week, depending on if it's
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the medium of writing or video. Other than that, have a great day, everyone.