Right now the federal government is set up to continually fail unless it starts imposing some organization on a policy file it clearly has trouble grasping.
Why the heck would we ever demand that the government fix housing when they can’t even figure out their own payroll system? Who got us into this mess in the first place, and why the hell would we ever ask the same people to fix it? We need to get LESS government in our lives. Not more. Fix the roads, keep the lights on, and pay the bills. I’m so sick of all this moaning about how government needs to do more. They need to do less, but get better at it fixing the problems they created first, before taking more on.
I am always amazed at the people that forget that Stephen Harper decided to save money and not test the payroll system. IBM must have just loved that. Then Harper told Trudeau it was ready to go.
The better question is why didn't the government outsource payroll in its entirety to someone like Ceridian? Payroll is not a core competency and does not require a unique, government specific competency.
Actually you don't know that. Just because a company does payroll does not mean that it can do everyone's payroll.
The government does SAP. SAP does payroll. Clearly it was too complex for SAP.
It is obviously terrible software and that is on Harper and IBM. I am a software developer. I have seen the kind of software you get out of IBM and everyone else. If you don't have code reviews you get crap software.
I worked on porting over a program for Nabisco Canada 25 yrs ago. It had been developed for Nabisco US. The software was so badly written that it took me a year at 60 hrs a weeks to port it. Once I was done I re-wrote the entire thing in 10% of the code in 3 weeks.
I would disagree, the national government is not well positioned to understand the local nuances of housing requirements, shifting demographics and a myriad of other variables that contribute to the appropriate allocation of housing density permits within a municipality. What the federal system provides, due to the significant imbalance in taxation revenue, is funding. Allocating funding to the provinces on a per-capita basis (population or immigration stats) and then allow the provinces through their relationship with municipalities, to address local needs.
Creating additional bureaucracy in Ottawa has never successfully address a public issue. To add federal funding with caveats (targets, requirements, etc) will place housing squarely in the same arena as healthcare - too many peas in the pot and no one to blame, a finger pointing extravaganza when it all goes sideways.
This is one file where the Feds need to support through funding and get out of the provinces way, then us citizens will have a singular government to hold to account for housing. Asking the feds to jump in with two feet will lead to nothing but chaos and mayhem, clearly indicated through a litany of policy failures over the past two administrations. Pay up and step aside is the best advice possible.
I came to make roughly the same point. The reason for intervention is that there is something the market is not getting right (e.g. not enough 3 bedroom condos downtown). It's not obvious why the federal government is better equipped to understand these points relative to provincial or (empowered) municipal bodies. Fully agree on the funding issue.
Also fully agree on the second point. I might feel different if there were a qualified MP with some background in housing but it is not obvious that shoehorning someone into this portfolio will do more than create more bureaucracy.
Can you imagine the howls of outrage from the incompetent premiers if the feds stepped in? No way. I think this article is a bit of trolling for the cons because the author must know the feds have no place here. Rage farming anyone?
The responsibility for the housing shortage falls squarely on the shoulders of local leaders. The incredibly slow and byzantine approvals process, insane zoning policies and a constant barrage of NYMBY opposition are 3 of the main reasons why we can't build housing fast enough.
Almost none of it is within the purview of the feds.
I like PP's proposed approach, a little carrot and a lot of stick, aka diplomacy.
The feds increased immigration by 100-200k people. The shortage of housing is likely north of a million homes. Again it is on the provinces and the problem has been 5 decades in the making.
The province stopped building Ontario housing decades ago and never raised the minimum wage. Right now they say you need to make $40 an hour to afford an apartment.
Lets also look at who has been in power over all these years. Well look. It is the Cons AND the Liberals at both the provincial and federal level at least in Ontario.
The answers is not to be partisan. Demand better of yourself. Demand better of the politicians.
Interesting article. Interesting comments as well.
Housing is a Municipal responsibility because of Zoning and permitting. Municipalities are a Provincial construct - as everyone agrees. What is missing is some serious COLLABORATION between all levels of government on this issue. Bureaucracy has always had difficulty collaborating. However, life is too complex. Another issue is construction labour shortages - which ties in to Education. Material shortages - which ties into Supply Chain - and this connected list is long. How about some leadership at ALL levels to help solve this problem. Oh, and did i mention NIMBIEs? This is a citizen problem.
Do you hear that flushing sound? That’s Canada going down the toilet unless we stop electing short sighted politicians who only care about photo ops and getting re-elected! Did no one plan for aging demographics. Infrastructure failures, immigration problems, defence stagnation? Does no one look at policy planning in our changing world? Are there any worker bees or are we going to continue relying on drones?
The Liberals can't bring more housing to large city urban areas or work to reduce the cost of housing, their voting base won't allow it.
The fact of the matter is that the Liberals base is educated, middle aged and boomer urban Central Canadians home owners (Lower Mainland as well). That and big city suburban immigrants, for whom owning a detached home is literally a major reason they even moved here, they love real estate so much. These folks do not want more density, they certainly don't want to see home prices go down in their area. Renters and newcomers can move to Alberta for all they care.
The Liberals are hooped, and the NDP is as well since yes they have class warriors in their coalition, but they also have many of those well-to-do over educated public sector workers in their base. More so than newcomers or the young, who don't vote anyways.
So yeah, Pierre has a road to victory a kilometre wide if he doesn't screw it up. The jury is still out if he does or not though.
Solutions? I think at this stage only the feds can break though the provincial and municipal created roadblocks with their big stick... We need post-WW2 Europe style homebuilding. Pre-formed council housing. Yes, Canada needs Brezhnevka's and in a big way. Slum creation? Slum life is better than homelessness. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brezhnevka
I love these comments on density which seem to ignore the fact that density levels are already set. Most of the city of Toronto and Mississauga are set. We are not going to raze the current real estate to build new towers.
Fact is I don't want to live in a condo and you should not be able to force me too.
I agree with you, mentally people aren't going to want change. They've bought into a level of exclusion on purpose.
But playing devils advocate, you didn't buy into the ability to stop other landowners from razing and rebuilding their own property. But that doesn't matter, we don't have explicit property rights in Canada and majority rules.
The Liberals deserve to lose because they're actively making things worse with their reckless immigration policy and refusal to provide ample supply of housing.
The problem is the Conservatives won't provide the solutions to build more housing, question corporate ownership of housing and lower immigration to lower housing demand.
The NDP are contempt to just side with the Liberals in legislation and refuse to touch on immigration while the working class they're supposed to represent get crushed.
No party is willing to have an actual discussion on immigration and corporate ownership's effect on housing demand. If no party provides an option on the ballot, then trust in democracy will erode. (A bunch of elites enriching themselves with reckless abandon and no care of the country's overall well being)
It's why the PPC has a chance to steal votes of any party next election, they're the only party willing to discuss immigration at least.
Colin, you don’t actually have to reply to everyone just to argue. We are currently experimenting with a lighter hand on comment moderating but half of the comments on one post being a single person replying to everyone makes me want to shut them all down again.
Matt, I listen to you on Canada Talks. Your pretty forceful with your opinion and nothing wrong with that. I doubt you would accept someone else saying what you said here.
I can tell you that if Trudeau made a comment like "𝙝𝙖𝙡𝙛 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙨 𝙤𝙣 𝙤𝙣𝙚 𝙥𝙤𝙨𝙩 𝙗𝙚𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙖 𝙨𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙡𝙚 𝙥𝙚𝙧𝙨𝙤𝙣 𝙧𝙚𝙥𝙡𝙮𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙩𝙤 𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙮𝙤𝙣𝙚 𝙢𝙖𝙠𝙚𝙨 𝙢𝙚 𝙬𝙖𝙣𝙩 𝙩𝙤 𝙨𝙝𝙪𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙢 𝙖𝙡𝙡 𝙙𝙤𝙬𝙣 𝙖𝙜𝙖𝙞𝙣." You would be on him like a dog on a t-bone for a week on your show. Similarly I call BS. Calling me out publicly like you have done here is even more out of line. I don't know maybe you're a PPC supporter and I upset you. Regardless it is not correct.
I consider the whole thing a discussion. There is the exchange of ideas and facts. We have a lot of nonsense on line. Lots of misrepresented facts, and misconceptions of how Canada actually works. When people say things that are incorrect others should chime in. God knows the media is not doing any kind of job of educating people on how things ACTUALLY WORK which seems to keep the online rage machine going really well.
That said if you don't want my thoughts then you just tell me and I will cancel and go away and you can keep the $50. But blaming me for shutting down discussion on your stories is just nonsense and I expected better of you. It would seem that you perhaps don't like my politics. If I am wrong my apologies.
I don’t have a lot to add to what I said earlier. I’m not going to allow a return to the petty arguing and free for alls we’ve had here. Your were veering in that direction. You can stay and contribute in a positive way. No problem. But dial it back a bit. (Edited for dictated typos.)
So don't allow it to go there. It has no gone there yet and you blaming me for taking it there is lame. You either want discussion or you don't. Given it is your web site it is entirely up to you. Right now to me, it seems you don't want discussion, but that want you want to enable comments to drive the popularity of The Line Seems a little disingenuous to me.
But frankly between these 2 posts you have made here I have really lost a lot of respect for your opinion and believe me, I found you to be an interesting character on Canada Talks.
When I read this last comment the only think I could think was "Snow flake", and that is a term I generally simply don't use. That is really sad man.
You said at The Line you are trying something new and trying to make a difference. Funny how it does not seem that way right now.
Frankly if I were in your shoes I would not have chimed in at all but that is me or if you had something to say you would simply send me an email for a discussion on a side channel. Now I suspect you will eventually simply delete this thread.
Housing is a provincial responsibility. The provinces have done a terrible job on housing in all areas. They have not build anything in decades. The Harper Cons did nothing either, just brought in people and the problems with housing in Toronto and Vancouver were well known.
If PP becomes PM he will do nothing either.
Don't think I am a Liberal fan boy. I am not. The Liberals are only marginally better than the Cons but frankly they are all we have because Canada is not going to elect an NDP government.
All the Con provinces have done is slash taxes and then ask the feds for more money.
So does something need to be done? Yes. Government needs to get in the housing game. Start building Ontario housing units and subsidized housing. Do the Liberals need to do something, yes bring in less people.
Anyway the people at The Line seem to like beating up on the Liberals but lets not forget to hold the other guys to account at the same time.
Housing is actually a municipal issue. And if we want to continuously bypass local municipalities then let’s just get rid of them. (And good luck with that)
And municipalities are a legal constructs of the provincial government. Why not let them sort this out and then at least when it goes sideways, we have a singular responsible party to hold accountable
Because every municipality is unique; that is why they were created. I live in a rural district right next to a town. Our farmland and rural district doesn’t have sidewalks or street lights and is not the same as the waterfront condos the next town over. This is not for the Province to wade into, or fix, although out here in B.C. they’re sure making a mess with their meddling. And I certainly don’t have any faith that any bureaucrat in Ottawa will ever understand that, let alone be in charge to fix that. And accountability isn’t a thing anymore unfortunately. We need fewer bureaucrats in Canada, not more.
Municipalities are the coalface, the challenge is with inertia to solve the issue, as many rural towns simply do not have the bureaucratic staff to develop and implement local housing policy. Here in Ontario, we have associations such as the Rural Ontario Municipal Association that advocates on their behalf with the provincial ministries, as the towns are simply too small. But in realty, I wholeheartedly agree, the solution most certainly cannot be found in any Ministry of the Crown in Ottawa.
Please tell me how the City of Toronto is not allowing enough housing? Condos are going up everywhere but they are the wrong kind of condos, all one bedroom or bachelor units. Most are bought by investors because no one who wants a family can live there. Not enough room.
Actually you are wrong. The municipality can set an agenda but the province can and does and has over ruled them. The cities have no money, the province has the money. He who had the coin is the king.
In Ontario in 1995 all social assistance was down loaded to the municipalities as was all highway maintenance on the DVP and Gardiner were downloaded as well. That means Toronto never had enough money.
This also goes for every little small town or rural township. They don't have money because the province has downloaded on to them costs that no city can afford.
This argument is ignoring how immigration inherently pushes more housing demand on the market and lowers labour demand (aka lowers wages). That's a federal jursidiction.
They carry responsibility for cost of living getting worse because of their reckless policies.
Municipalities are too small to actually impact federal problems.
They have all dropped the ball to some degree but this problem goes back 20 yrs. Libs and Cons have both been in charge at both upper levels of government during this period. It is on them all.
Clearly written by someone who hasn't thought much about this issue beyond how it looks from a Liberal election perspective.
Housing policy is clearly a provincial responsibility, constitutionally speaking. Provinces have devolved some of the responsibilities to municipalities. Also factor in land use policy, building and development policy, and pure nimbism just to name a few and you realize housiis a loser policy initiative for the Liberals.
There was a tweet by a bulder from Vancouver recently where he documented some of the dozen permits he required just to renovate a bathroom!
Immigration and housing are linked but this calls for federal means tested financial assistance for immigrants not empire building by the federal government.
Why the heck would we ever demand that the government fix housing when they can’t even figure out their own payroll system? Who got us into this mess in the first place, and why the hell would we ever ask the same people to fix it? We need to get LESS government in our lives. Not more. Fix the roads, keep the lights on, and pay the bills. I’m so sick of all this moaning about how government needs to do more. They need to do less, but get better at it fixing the problems they created first, before taking more on.
I am always amazed at the people that forget that Stephen Harper decided to save money and not test the payroll system. IBM must have just loved that. Then Harper told Trudeau it was ready to go.
All of the pay problems land on Harper.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_pay_system#:~:text=The%20report%20added%20that%20the,creating%20the%20%22Phoenix%20mess%22.
Not after 8 years they don't.
The better question is why didn't the government outsource payroll in its entirety to someone like Ceridian? Payroll is not a core competency and does not require a unique, government specific competency.
Actually you don't know that. Just because a company does payroll does not mean that it can do everyone's payroll.
The government does SAP. SAP does payroll. Clearly it was too complex for SAP.
It is obviously terrible software and that is on Harper and IBM. I am a software developer. I have seen the kind of software you get out of IBM and everyone else. If you don't have code reviews you get crap software.
I worked on porting over a program for Nabisco Canada 25 yrs ago. It had been developed for Nabisco US. The software was so badly written that it took me a year at 60 hrs a weeks to port it. Once I was done I re-wrote the entire thing in 10% of the code in 3 weeks.
Fixing software is not easy.
Preach Sister Tara!
Government holds no unique advantage in building housing. If anything, government programs that throw money at housing will only inflate costs.
I would disagree, the national government is not well positioned to understand the local nuances of housing requirements, shifting demographics and a myriad of other variables that contribute to the appropriate allocation of housing density permits within a municipality. What the federal system provides, due to the significant imbalance in taxation revenue, is funding. Allocating funding to the provinces on a per-capita basis (population or immigration stats) and then allow the provinces through their relationship with municipalities, to address local needs.
Creating additional bureaucracy in Ottawa has never successfully address a public issue. To add federal funding with caveats (targets, requirements, etc) will place housing squarely in the same arena as healthcare - too many peas in the pot and no one to blame, a finger pointing extravaganza when it all goes sideways.
This is one file where the Feds need to support through funding and get out of the provinces way, then us citizens will have a singular government to hold to account for housing. Asking the feds to jump in with two feet will lead to nothing but chaos and mayhem, clearly indicated through a litany of policy failures over the past two administrations. Pay up and step aside is the best advice possible.
I came to make roughly the same point. The reason for intervention is that there is something the market is not getting right (e.g. not enough 3 bedroom condos downtown). It's not obvious why the federal government is better equipped to understand these points relative to provincial or (empowered) municipal bodies. Fully agree on the funding issue.
Also fully agree on the second point. I might feel different if there were a qualified MP with some background in housing but it is not obvious that shoehorning someone into this portfolio will do more than create more bureaucracy.
Can you imagine the howls of outrage from the incompetent premiers if the feds stepped in? No way. I think this article is a bit of trolling for the cons because the author must know the feds have no place here. Rage farming anyone?
The responsibility for the housing shortage falls squarely on the shoulders of local leaders. The incredibly slow and byzantine approvals process, insane zoning policies and a constant barrage of NYMBY opposition are 3 of the main reasons why we can't build housing fast enough.
Almost none of it is within the purview of the feds.
I like PP's proposed approach, a little carrot and a lot of stick, aka diplomacy.
The Feds and their immigration policy is the biggest reason why municipalities are stuck unable to build enough.
Add in corporate buyers and real estate becoming an "investment" and you get the disaster now.
The Federal Liberals are at fault for being reckless with their policy and lack of foresight.
Perhaps, but the housing shortage was in full swing well before the liberals's liberal immigration policy.
I think the local policies set the stage for the fire to burn. The liberals just threw a little more fuel on.
The feds increased immigration by 100-200k people. The shortage of housing is likely north of a million homes. Again it is on the provinces and the problem has been 5 decades in the making.
The province stopped building Ontario housing decades ago and never raised the minimum wage. Right now they say you need to make $40 an hour to afford an apartment.
Here is a link https://housingrightscanada.com/fifty-years-in-the-making-of-ontarios-housing-crisis-a-timeline/
Lets also look at who has been in power over all these years. Well look. It is the Cons AND the Liberals at both the provincial and federal level at least in Ontario.
The answers is not to be partisan. Demand better of yourself. Demand better of the politicians.
Interesting article. Interesting comments as well.
Housing is a Municipal responsibility because of Zoning and permitting. Municipalities are a Provincial construct - as everyone agrees. What is missing is some serious COLLABORATION between all levels of government on this issue. Bureaucracy has always had difficulty collaborating. However, life is too complex. Another issue is construction labour shortages - which ties in to Education. Material shortages - which ties into Supply Chain - and this connected list is long. How about some leadership at ALL levels to help solve this problem. Oh, and did i mention NIMBIEs? This is a citizen problem.
Do you hear that flushing sound? That’s Canada going down the toilet unless we stop electing short sighted politicians who only care about photo ops and getting re-elected! Did no one plan for aging demographics. Infrastructure failures, immigration problems, defence stagnation? Does no one look at policy planning in our changing world? Are there any worker bees or are we going to continue relying on drones?
The Liberals can't bring more housing to large city urban areas or work to reduce the cost of housing, their voting base won't allow it.
The fact of the matter is that the Liberals base is educated, middle aged and boomer urban Central Canadians home owners (Lower Mainland as well). That and big city suburban immigrants, for whom owning a detached home is literally a major reason they even moved here, they love real estate so much. These folks do not want more density, they certainly don't want to see home prices go down in their area. Renters and newcomers can move to Alberta for all they care.
The Liberals are hooped, and the NDP is as well since yes they have class warriors in their coalition, but they also have many of those well-to-do over educated public sector workers in their base. More so than newcomers or the young, who don't vote anyways.
So yeah, Pierre has a road to victory a kilometre wide if he doesn't screw it up. The jury is still out if he does or not though.
Solutions? I think at this stage only the feds can break though the provincial and municipal created roadblocks with their big stick... We need post-WW2 Europe style homebuilding. Pre-formed council housing. Yes, Canada needs Brezhnevka's and in a big way. Slum creation? Slum life is better than homelessness. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brezhnevka
I love these comments on density which seem to ignore the fact that density levels are already set. Most of the city of Toronto and Mississauga are set. We are not going to raze the current real estate to build new towers.
Fact is I don't want to live in a condo and you should not be able to force me too.
I agree with you, mentally people aren't going to want change. They've bought into a level of exclusion on purpose.
But playing devils advocate, you didn't buy into the ability to stop other landowners from razing and rebuilding their own property. But that doesn't matter, we don't have explicit property rights in Canada and majority rules.
The Liberals deserve to lose because they're actively making things worse with their reckless immigration policy and refusal to provide ample supply of housing.
The problem is the Conservatives won't provide the solutions to build more housing, question corporate ownership of housing and lower immigration to lower housing demand.
The NDP are contempt to just side with the Liberals in legislation and refuse to touch on immigration while the working class they're supposed to represent get crushed.
No party is willing to have an actual discussion on immigration and corporate ownership's effect on housing demand. If no party provides an option on the ballot, then trust in democracy will erode. (A bunch of elites enriching themselves with reckless abandon and no care of the country's overall well being)
It's why the PPC has a chance to steal votes of any party next election, they're the only party willing to discuss immigration at least.
The PPC are nothing but a bunch of racists and white supremists. Not a great look.
Colin, you don’t actually have to reply to everyone just to argue. We are currently experimenting with a lighter hand on comment moderating but half of the comments on one post being a single person replying to everyone makes me want to shut them all down again.
Matt, I listen to you on Canada Talks. Your pretty forceful with your opinion and nothing wrong with that. I doubt you would accept someone else saying what you said here.
I can tell you that if Trudeau made a comment like "𝙝𝙖𝙡𝙛 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙨 𝙤𝙣 𝙤𝙣𝙚 𝙥𝙤𝙨𝙩 𝙗𝙚𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙖 𝙨𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙡𝙚 𝙥𝙚𝙧𝙨𝙤𝙣 𝙧𝙚𝙥𝙡𝙮𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙩𝙤 𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙮𝙤𝙣𝙚 𝙢𝙖𝙠𝙚𝙨 𝙢𝙚 𝙬𝙖𝙣𝙩 𝙩𝙤 𝙨𝙝𝙪𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙢 𝙖𝙡𝙡 𝙙𝙤𝙬𝙣 𝙖𝙜𝙖𝙞𝙣." You would be on him like a dog on a t-bone for a week on your show. Similarly I call BS. Calling me out publicly like you have done here is even more out of line. I don't know maybe you're a PPC supporter and I upset you. Regardless it is not correct.
I consider the whole thing a discussion. There is the exchange of ideas and facts. We have a lot of nonsense on line. Lots of misrepresented facts, and misconceptions of how Canada actually works. When people say things that are incorrect others should chime in. God knows the media is not doing any kind of job of educating people on how things ACTUALLY WORK which seems to keep the online rage machine going really well.
That said if you don't want my thoughts then you just tell me and I will cancel and go away and you can keep the $50. But blaming me for shutting down discussion on your stories is just nonsense and I expected better of you. It would seem that you perhaps don't like my politics. If I am wrong my apologies.
Let me know.
I don’t have a lot to add to what I said earlier. I’m not going to allow a return to the petty arguing and free for alls we’ve had here. Your were veering in that direction. You can stay and contribute in a positive way. No problem. But dial it back a bit. (Edited for dictated typos.)
So don't allow it to go there. It has no gone there yet and you blaming me for taking it there is lame. You either want discussion or you don't. Given it is your web site it is entirely up to you. Right now to me, it seems you don't want discussion, but that want you want to enable comments to drive the popularity of The Line Seems a little disingenuous to me.
But frankly between these 2 posts you have made here I have really lost a lot of respect for your opinion and believe me, I found you to be an interesting character on Canada Talks.
When I read this last comment the only think I could think was "Snow flake", and that is a term I generally simply don't use. That is really sad man.
You said at The Line you are trying something new and trying to make a difference. Funny how it does not seem that way right now.
Frankly if I were in your shoes I would not have chimed in at all but that is me or if you had something to say you would simply send me an email for a discussion on a side channel. Now I suspect you will eventually simply delete this thread.
I won’t. I’ll just reiterate my point above: I said it all the first time.
Housing is a provincial responsibility. The provinces have done a terrible job on housing in all areas. They have not build anything in decades. The Harper Cons did nothing either, just brought in people and the problems with housing in Toronto and Vancouver were well known.
If PP becomes PM he will do nothing either.
Don't think I am a Liberal fan boy. I am not. The Liberals are only marginally better than the Cons but frankly they are all we have because Canada is not going to elect an NDP government.
All the Con provinces have done is slash taxes and then ask the feds for more money.
So does something need to be done? Yes. Government needs to get in the housing game. Start building Ontario housing units and subsidized housing. Do the Liberals need to do something, yes bring in less people.
Anyway the people at The Line seem to like beating up on the Liberals but lets not forget to hold the other guys to account at the same time.
Housing is actually a municipal issue. And if we want to continuously bypass local municipalities then let’s just get rid of them. (And good luck with that)
And municipalities are a legal constructs of the provincial government. Why not let them sort this out and then at least when it goes sideways, we have a singular responsible party to hold accountable
Because every municipality is unique; that is why they were created. I live in a rural district right next to a town. Our farmland and rural district doesn’t have sidewalks or street lights and is not the same as the waterfront condos the next town over. This is not for the Province to wade into, or fix, although out here in B.C. they’re sure making a mess with their meddling. And I certainly don’t have any faith that any bureaucrat in Ottawa will ever understand that, let alone be in charge to fix that. And accountability isn’t a thing anymore unfortunately. We need fewer bureaucrats in Canada, not more.
Thanks for your input.
Municipalities are the coalface, the challenge is with inertia to solve the issue, as many rural towns simply do not have the bureaucratic staff to develop and implement local housing policy. Here in Ontario, we have associations such as the Rural Ontario Municipal Association that advocates on their behalf with the provincial ministries, as the towns are simply too small. But in realty, I wholeheartedly agree, the solution most certainly cannot be found in any Ministry of the Crown in Ottawa.
Please tell me how the City of Toronto is not allowing enough housing? Condos are going up everywhere but they are the wrong kind of condos, all one bedroom or bachelor units. Most are bought by investors because no one who wants a family can live there. Not enough room.
Actually you are wrong. The municipality can set an agenda but the province can and does and has over ruled them. The cities have no money, the province has the money. He who had the coin is the king.
In Ontario in 1995 all social assistance was down loaded to the municipalities as was all highway maintenance on the DVP and Gardiner were downloaded as well. That means Toronto never had enough money.
This also goes for every little small town or rural township. They don't have money because the province has downloaded on to them costs that no city can afford.
This argument is ignoring how immigration inherently pushes more housing demand on the market and lowers labour demand (aka lowers wages). That's a federal jursidiction.
They carry responsibility for cost of living getting worse because of their reckless policies.
Municipalities are too small to actually impact federal problems.
They have all dropped the ball to some degree but this problem goes back 20 yrs. Libs and Cons have both been in charge at both upper levels of government during this period. It is on them all.
Clearly written by someone who hasn't thought much about this issue beyond how it looks from a Liberal election perspective.
Housing policy is clearly a provincial responsibility, constitutionally speaking. Provinces have devolved some of the responsibilities to municipalities. Also factor in land use policy, building and development policy, and pure nimbism just to name a few and you realize housiis a loser policy initiative for the Liberals.
There was a tweet by a bulder from Vancouver recently where he documented some of the dozen permits he required just to renovate a bathroom!
Immigration and housing are linked but this calls for federal means tested financial assistance for immigrants not empire building by the federal government.