Eby says governments must step up on housing, can't rely on private sector
Eby says governments must step up on housing, can't rely on private sector
British Columbia Premier David Eby says it's "hard to understand" why other politicians still believe in relying on the private sector to deliver affordable housing and instead it's time for governments to step up.
Eby's starting to grow on me. Like, its not like I thought he was a monster or anything, but he's saying the quiet part that all the current "stakeholder"s desperately want to keep outeide the Overton Window.
Well said Eby! If I ever live in the same jurisdiction I shall vote for him
I've been pretty happy with him as a premier who far. Seems like he's the only politician right now who's actually doing anything substantial to fix the issues we have. The cities are crying right now and that's a good thing.
It's not "hard to understand" when you realize we've have thirty-plus years of neoliberal orthodoxy to overcome.
Basically, three generations of politicians and civil servants have passed since the idea of the government doing anything at scale was a thing. The very idea of direct public action at scale is barely in living memory, and certainly not within anyone with decision-making power...
...and that's before we get past Boomers that are still scared of long lines at the DMV and "socialism", or Xers and Millenial "thought leaders" that know nothing but the hustle.
Pivoting away from public-private partnerships (such a nice phrase, isn't it? it's so much nicer than calling it what is is: bribery and the mass-transfer of public wealth to private hands) is going to be very hard because the entirety of government and the media not only have a vested interest in the status quo, they can't really conceive of an alternative. Try proposing this in government today and people will think you're nuts, but talk about spending two to ten times as much on "tax cuts" or "grants" or "accelerator funds" and they'll line up and cheer.
Government investment in things like this would be cheaper, but it would also mean the wealthy would pay more taxes and get less kickbacks, so you can bet that the right-wing machine will be screaming about this sort of thing in short order.
This idea seems so bad is sounds like it came from the Conservatives.
Eby says there are proposals at the federal level to sell public land and buildings to help solve the crisis, but B.C. is doing the opposite by taking inventory of provincially and municipally owned land in order to build more homes.
The budget has been release since the article. Haven't seen much comments for it aside from people not liking the bulk of the funds(15 billion) not being available till 2025.
https://www.budget.canada.ca/fes-eea/2023/report-rapport/chap1-en.html
Can you elaborate on why its objectively a bad idea as a nexus to helping ease the housing crisis? What are you seeing we're not?
To start off Eby's quote made it seem like a wide spread federal idea, but there no sign of Liberals proposing selling off any federal land. So it is indeed just a Conservative idea.
In regards to why it's a bad idea it's because that's how we got here. The Conservative government "saved" money by not building housing only for people to pay substantially more for it down the road. If there is any belief that we can just kick this can down the road till it becomes someone else's problem aside from housing, that what was said for climate change, and healthcare as well,
I'd also doubt selling thousands of buildings and large swaths of land would be fast, unless they go full Conservative and do a fire sale again like Harper did. Where Canadian get pennies on the dollar.