They better be non-market. I honestly don’t know what premier’s are thinking at this point. In my municipality our mayor unilaterally squashed a vacant unit taxation model making not a single comment. Thankfully it’s being revisited
Probably more like 4x that, but on the other hand, this is finally a project that is starting to get a little close to the level of added housing that is needed in a single city (presuming this is concentrated around central Vancouver, not being placed around smaller towns or something stupid like that.
Most proposals only amount to 10% those numbers, and 10 years is a realistic time scale as building homes takes time in the first place.
They aren’t worth anything until you sell them again. Billionaires hoarding houses is mostly hype, we just (measurably, sources available) don’t have as many houses as other similar countries do, for some reason.
That’s a misdiagnosis of the problem. Hedge funds and REITs are not the primary drivers of demand. People keep saying this, but even though we should build non-market housing, banning institutional investors from buying real estate is not nearly enough.
I love how the conservatives fixate so fucking hard on the imm’grints without acknowledging the need for them and the need for housing to simply support people living longer without paying into cpp/oap.
It must be refreshing to know that for every problem it’s either hyper-educated immigrants, refugees, or just the poors’ fault somehow, and that magically a strong bootstraps policy will trickle golden mana down from the aristocracy.
A thousand times it’ll be wrong, but they’re confident this time it’ll be right.
To play devil’s advocate here, surely the issue isn’t the fact of immigration but the amount happening each year that is worrying? They’re adding 0.6 Winnipegs per year of people without, you know, adding any cities, infrastructure, hospitals, schools, etc to handle the influx. If people can’t find a home now, how does adding more people solve that issue?
Edit: to clarify, I have no issue with immigration or immigrants, Canada’s history is all about immigration. Just questioning the rate per year without additional work going into upgrading current infrastructure.
2nd edit: to run some numbers, BC currently has 5,000,879 out of Canada’s 36,991,981 or 13.5% of the population. If that proportion continues over the next decade, BC will see an approximate increase of 600,750 out of 4,450,000 people based of of this plan (assuming the grown maintains its linear growth). If you divide 600,750 people by 293,000 new units you get 2.05 people per unit, therefore if the people immigrating are bringing their family and living more than 2 people per unit you will see a net surplus of housing, but single people will see a net loss or break even of housing.
All of this is to say, it appears they have planned to create enough housing for the people projected to come here, but not a substantial amount to increase the overall supply. It would appear it will maintain the status quo.
A lot of immigrants work in construction. I’m not sure how many exactly, but I’m guessing it’s a higher proportion than locals. I do agree we should prioritise that instead of executives like we are right now, though.
You touch on a point inadvertently about what makes immigration so beneficial is that the workers can start working as soon as they arrive. Or at least, as soon as their qualifications are transferred over (for example nursing). Which is far quicker than having someone born in Canada and waiting 20 odd years til they enter the workforce.
So, theoretically, the new people can help build homes, hospitals, schools, etc for the other people who need it, and then the new new people will build for the new people, and etc. There just doesn’t seem to be much planning going into it besides bring people in to make numbers go up. Also, major infrastructure works take years, so they’ll never be able to keep up.
Here is the 2020 Annual Report to Parliament on Immigration which talks about why immigration is important, but doesn’t mention plans on how to support the people coming here. It focuses on the financial benefits (a large section of it being international students, which only 1.4% of the “827,586 international students [that] held valid study permits in Canada” were given permanent residence.) and demographics of immigrants.
But which part of that document gives the impression that the idea is to bring people in “to make numbers go up” without much planning? The fact that it doesn’t talk about housing? I think it’s kind of expected to carve out given the scope of the report.
“to run some numbers, BC currently has 5,000,879 out of Canada’s 36,991,981 or 13.5% of the population. If that proportion continues over the next decade, BC will see an approximate increase of 600,750 out of 4,450,000 people based off of this plan (assuming the grown maintains its linear growth). If you divide 600,750 people by 293,000 new units you get 2.05 people per unit, therefore if the people immigrating are bringing their family and living more than 2 people per unit you will see a net surplus of housing, but single people will see a net loss or break even of housing.
All of this is to say, it appears they have planned to create enough housing for the people projected to come here, but not a substantial amount to increase the overall supply. It would appear it will maintain the status quo.”
If they build all the housing they plan to, they will roughly keep pace with immigration. Therefore nothing will change for the better, or our current housing crisis will remain constant.
That is assuming they follow through with the promise to build that much.
I mean, if you’ve ever looked into the process, I’d actually argue there’s too much planning going on, and we need to start over. It’s insane that we’re still the easiest destination apparently, that shit’s Kafkaesque.
Sure, many work may work in construction at the lowest end but that not the limiting factor for if construction actually happens.
You don’t need 10,000 framers and day labourers you need electricians, plumbers, cabinetry makers, engineers, architects, gas fitters, HVAC technicians, etc.
Almost all of those people need schooling and certification and the lack of those people as well as the permitting process and municipal rezoning process is what’s preventing housing from being built fast enough.
Bringing over a million day laborers is not going to help solve the housing crisis, it will stress it.
Most of the people we bring in are, like, doctors, aren’t they? Education is very favoured in the application process, including kinds that they’ll never be able to actually use here (I think I mentioned executives).
So yeah, bring in plumbers, and get them certified to Canadian standards. Zoning needs to die too, and some cities are working on it. Apparently the high interest rates are really biting right now as well.
I stand corrected. Yeah, I hadn’t actually heard that, but you’d expect it would attract immigrants. Construction unions are pretty strong in Canada, so maybe that balances it out.
You’d expect that it would have a neutral-ish impact on long-term housing supply as it is, then.
I mean, it’s not magic, it’s economics. If you’re putting in more man-hours in a competitive market, you should be getting more products out of the other end. Immigrants can plumb just as well as you, of course.
If there were more incentive to build housing then more people would get into construction, not the other way around. People don’t train for industries that don’t pay
I agree - if there is a big-picture target for growth, it’s so important that there are strong lines of communication and collaboration between citizens, cities, provinces, and the federal government if it’s going to work.
To the poster above you - Trickle-down is a thoroughly shitty “¯_(ツ)_/¯”-style policy. But so is any decree from above that lacks clear objectives, regularly measured outcomes, and checkpoints with the citizens. Our system is struggling right now when we reach checkpoint moments. Discussions get railroaded into these ‘oh that’s racist’ or ‘oh we should have 0 immigration’ polarities. Discussing these things is worthwhile & good.
We’re in the middle of a housing crisis. We can take the edge off it by
reducing demand by temporarily limiting immigration
modifying tax regulations to make real estate a less attractive investment
These are steps the feds can take immediately and unilaterally. Everything else will take years, and will need agreement from municipal and provincial governments.
I think it’s probably better to harness immigration instead of limiting it. I’m not sure what the status is now but certainly in the past there have been special immigration categories for investor immigrants.
What if we re oriented those programs towards home building instead of economic stimulation. Like you can immigrate if you build an X unit co-op.
I agree we need to modify tax policies to make real estate more of a purchase and less of an investment
With the way our climate is going I think our current level of immigration is training wheels for whats soon to come, so we need to be making houses both to ease our housing crisis, AND meet our ongoing immigration
No joke. Wearing a conspiracy hat I think a lot of our immigration right now is people seeing the writing on the wall in their respective countries and bailing TF out before the wheels fall off the wagon there.
Total speculation on my part - the Liberals are terrified of the polling numbers and the NDP have been a little more aggressive with their criticisms of the Liberals that the Liberals are worried the NDP will drop their support and we’ll have a spring election. By dragging their feet on these NDP priorities they’re trying to keep the NDP from withdrawing support.
Thats the thing about majority governments, you don’t really get to say shit like that, I don’t think. Are they being good-faith about—nah they’re all liars and thieves. And murders of decency
The story of Canadian politics, nothing for Canadians, everything for foreign citizens. It’s nothing but foreign affairs and scandals, and our government shipping money to other nations, while Canadians drown in the rising costs of everything with zero help from the government.
Unless fossil fuel corporations count as foreign citizens now because of dumb American Supreme Court shenanigans then I think you’ve gotten turned around there, bud.
The carbon pricing redistributes the earnings back to people.
This then does let people have an impact on climate change by influencing them to choose products that produce less carbon and therefore appear to cost less.
The genius is that the price difference is artificial, if on average people in the province choose the more expensive option, they will make back the difference quarterly.
As is the system only really penalizes people who consistently choose the more carbon inefficient options and do it a lot.
Of those who say they receive more than they pay, support for the carbon price reaches 79 per cent. Among those who believe they spend more than they get back, the results are flipped: 82 per cent oppose the tax.
Got it. So people who don’t understand the policy don’t support it, and people who do support it do. That tracks.
Fix the messaging and the problem is solved. This isn’t rocket surgery, but for some reason both the NDP and Liberals are piss poor at messaging (to wit: the Alberta UCP going on an advertising spree about their assinine Alberta pension plan idea while the silence from the opposition has been deafening).
I don't understand why they don't use carbon tax revenues to fund public transit, electric car rebates, and other noticeable benefits. Instead, I pay carbon tax to heat my house, on my fuel and I still have to pay $20 a day in transit.
Instead, it's a black hole of who knows where it goes. This is the Canadian way of solving problems though. More taxes and no accountability until it bites us in the ass.
I'm just going to edit to add:
Electric cars aren't great in Canada. Distances are often too far and cold weather really restricts batteries. We will always need some type of fuel.
Same with home heating. Heat pumps don't work in very cold weather. We will still need to burn fuel.
In both cases we are paying carbon tax when we really have choice of "cleaner" alternatives.
The federal carbon tax doesn't go into a black hole its rebated back to taxpayers.
Atlantic Canada only got limited access to natural gas in the last fifteen years. Most homes are heated by electricity or fuel oil, both more expensive than NG. After the oil shocks of the 70s, governments incentivized switching to electricity. Over 60% of houses in NB are heated that way, mostly by baseboard heaters. Baseboards are roughly 100% efficient, while heat pumps are 2 to 3 times that.
Air to air heat pumps work down to about -20C, after that the heating coils will kick in. That's when heat pumps gets more expensive, on par with baseboards.
Base rwd Model 3 has a range of 430kms. With a 20% drop, you're still at 345kms in really cold weather. Even in Toronto, 75% of driving commutes are less than 25kms, and it's the worst case scenario.
One thing people like to ignore, average house sizes have doubled since the 1960s (1200sq ft to 2400sq ft) even as families became smaller than ever. Add in stupid fashions like 10ft ceilings, and heating costs are going to go nowhere but up.
Ford analysed billions of km from their professional users to determine the range necessary on a full battery on the e-transit, they then increased that number by a good margin just in case.
200km. That’s the number they came up with after analysing the habits of people who use their vehicle daily for work and people who take their car to travel 15km to and from work complain that electric cars don’t have enough range with 300km+ available! Heck, you save so much on maintenance and gas that you can just rent a gas car when absolutely required!
My mother does 35000km a year and she did it with a Nissan Leaf (250km range) until we moved far enough that she decided to get an i3 with the generator (180km electric + gas generator) so she can do it without having to charge the few times a year she’ll come visit, 95% of the time she doesn’t need gas at all and she only charges at home. Before getting the i3 she was renting a gas car once a year to visit our family just because of one stretch where she wasn’t sure the charging station would work. The Canadian average yearly mileage is less than half of that, it’s just excuses to not change to something new even if it’s better.
Not even going to touch on how wrong you are about the carbon tax because others have already covered that.
Edit: Heat pumps work at temperature under -25 and you can use other types of electric heaters for the days that go under that, no need to use fuel.
It’s not a black hole. It’s nearly completely paid back to Canadians evenly such that most Canadians get more back.
What’s also neat is that every single province could do exactly what you’re suggesting. All the federal government mandated was a price on carbon, each province could implement whatever system they wanted.
Like everything these days, our worst problems are at the provincial levels, and people don’t seem to understand or realize that.
I know you had a lot of unbacked up claims in your comment, but I wanted to remind you that most people get money back from the carbon rebate then they paid in.
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