I only get to GM for a couple of hours a week. I'd hate that to involve narrative grinding. Although it'd be fair for a character to do it during downtime.
Which policy exactly is consistent with keeping prices high?
The statements around increasing supply without discussing lowering prices.
In the election platform, increasing supply was discussed separately from affordable housing.
Well if what we have currently is "unaffordable" I think it is safe to assume that "Affordable housing" means less than market
From what I've seen, "affordable housing" typically refers to government owned and managed housing that is rented out below market cost. That's consistent with the language used in the LPC election platform. Usually there is a waiting list to get it, and some sort of means test or qualification (like being homeless, etc) to get onto the list.
I'd distinguish that from making open market housing more affordable, either through rent caps, subsidies, changes to tax law, flooding the market, etc. That would lower the cost of housing on the open market.
I think that distinction is real because neither Carney nor the housing minister have said "we will make housing cheaper and more affordable". Instead, they're using Affordable Housing like a proper noun and talking around a very straightforward question.
Who do you believe will get access to it?
I don't know. I haven't seen an explanation of what the Liberals plan.
If spaces are very limited, I hope for a means test, prioritizing people on disability, or the homeless.
If spaces are kind of limited, I hope they limit it by income. Poorer people would get access first.
If it's abundant (which hasn't been promised), I hope that it would be open to all. But that seems really optimistic.
It'll be defined at some point. We'll see then.
As someone who has never had a hope of owning a home in their lifetime, you can get in line behind the people without a place to live and wait with the rest of the middle class.
Eh. A lot of that gain has come since 2019. It's unrealized. Many homeowners bought before the run up and are gonna make bank when younger Canadians try to get into the market.
The longer prices stay inflated, the more of a problem we'll have.
Probably the answer is in the sense that the government's focus should not be where the prices should be but whether there are sufficient homes people can house themselves in.
Government policy moved prices up to where they are, so all three levels of government need to remedy the problem.
The thing these conversations rarely mention is that a lot of retirement savings are tied up in homes. As long as young Canadians are being gouged for rent, it's harder to put money aside for retirement.
Keeping prices high is consistent with the policy the LPC proposed during the election.
The consolation prize of "more affordable housing" is unclear. Affordable means different things to different people, and I haven't seen an explanation of who will get access to it.
As someone who is trying to figure out how to afford a home, this isn't the answer I wanted to hear.
It was the second fatal collision involving pedestrians in Ottawa in less than 24 hours. On Tuesday afternoon, one adult pedestrian was killed and another was critically injured when they were struck by a vehicle on Innes Road.
A woman in her 50s died last month after being struck by a truck on Smyth Road, less than two kilometres from the site of Wednesday's collision.
I know everyone loves to hate on the boomers, but most of them didn’t strike it rich, many live in homes that are old and not well maintained, have failing bodies, are being squeezed out of labour jobs, etc. Having a tiny, taxable income stream at a time where society is turning against you isn’t some crazy benefit.
Kershaw and (I suspect) u/wampus are talking about the intersection of rich and old. Someone who is making ~140k/year (or 250ish as a couple) doesn't need a top-up from the feds, regardless of their age. Kershaw's other op-eds have proposed lowering the OAS clawbacks for the wealthy and using that amount to increase payments to poor seniors.
Refining the OAS clawback for households with incomes of more than $100,000 would be transformative. It would free up $36-billion in federal spending over the next five years.
About $12-billion could be added to the Guaranteed Income Supplement to deliver an extra $5,000 a year to the 469,000 seniors who currently fall below Canada’s official poverty measure. This would virtually eliminate poverty among seniors ... . For those who remain near the poverty line, another $4-billion could be added to the GIS to enhance their incomes too.
The remaining $20-billion could be reinvested to double the increases for housing and postsecondary education in the 2024 federal budget, add 50 per cent to child care and cut the deficit by billions.
Count the folds to get to sleep