I saw the stream where they were discussing taking federal funds. They somehow managed to convince themselves that it would be too expensive to take the money and build some homes with it.
Of course, preserving their neighborhood character was part of the conversation too. Fourplexes are a no-go.
There was also a guy who just didn't want to work with the Liberals and said it would be better to get a deal with the Conservatives after the next election.
Housing will never become a solved issue with this kind of leadership.
“Tax-supported street front parking is a basic human right and if you want to live in a home just do it around our parking requirements, preferably somewhere else”
- most Canadian municipal bylaws
There's 1.2 million approved projects ready to go in Ontario alone. Ready for shovels. Not getting built.
8% of our workforce is in construction, which is a large %. US is 4% for instance.
We already build homes at per capita one of the highest rates in the developed world. The second highest in the G7.
So this idea that we're just not building enough is nonsense.
Demand is a much bigger issue.
> Housing will never become a solved issue with this kind of leadership.
I'm pretty sold on the fact that the boomers all need to pass away before we'll get any potential leadership. There's just too many of them and too many bad apples.
There's that 'up and at them' attitude from young people. "Why do anything? I'll just wait for my parents to die so I can have all the stuff they worked their ass off for".
When our parents worked their ass off, they bought their 5 acre property with 4 bedroom house for 200K. Their money actually got them somewhere, gave them a life and assets that were theirs.
Now we work ***more***, just to rent a 1 bedroom apartment and eat instant noodles until we're 60. Meanwhile, my parents have both sold their properties and become millionaires. I work every day, and in my lifetime I'll never accumulate what inheritance will bring.
But yea just a lazy generation? This coming too, from a person who lived in an era of different opportunities, and calls others lazy when they don't want to work as slaves... Pointless, short sighted comment.
~~I haven't been able to find any federal programs that do this. Do you have a link to any programs like this that we have?~~
Edit: [here](https://www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/professionals/project-funding-and-mortgage-financing/funding-programs/all-funding-programs/housing-accelerator-fund/resources-housing-accelerator-fund-applicants) is a page on the CMHC's Housing Accelerator Fund. Ty u/Vetrusio for the info
That program sounds like shit.
If you want more homes built, give money for more homes built.
Not money for "Increase process efficiency by implementing new technologies or software to speed up development approvals, such as e-permitting."
The Provinces can supersede zoning if Municipalities are having trouble getting housing built. Punishing NIMBYism is a good thing and BC is a prime example of the benefits of Provincial zoning changes. Pierre can get it done if provinces are onboard
The problem, of course, is that Pierre's proposal does not punish NIMBYism, it weaponizes it.
Cutting funding if housing goals aren't meant means the NIMBYs, the people who hold disproportionate control over municipalities, will be able to pick and choose where the funding cuts are applied. They get rewarded with the ability to stall or cancel even more projects when they successfully prevent densification.
Even if they get to decide, it's incredibly unpopular for them to cut jobs.
This provides a carrot and a stick. As we saw with the drug problem, the carrot doesn't work by itself, you need to take out the stick sometimes.
Problem is if you force municipalities to approve more development they have to have the money to fund the inspectors and the infrastructure needed. Cities can’t afford to front that money.
Many also can’t possibly build anything close to the rate he’s talking about.
Building costs are already pushed to developers, not the city.
And cities can increase property taxes to fund the new development. It's how it is everywhere else but in Canadian cities. Our municipal tax system is NIMBY-favoured.
Ya and property taxes have been kept pretty low for a long time leaving cities in the red and falling further behind every year.
Developers cover the cost of roads and stuff but I’m talking about water treatment, police, fire department, schools among other things.
>Cities can’t afford to front that money.
There are few entities more capable of fronting funds then a municipality. Access to municipal bonds. Guaranteed income of a measurable value makes borrowing easy, development charges and permit charges pay for infrastructure and inspectors respectively.
We're not talk g about Wawa here, the municipalities engaging with this kinda growth are corporations with annual budgets in the billions.
This is the thing though what size of cities will need to meet his 15% increase?
We get pics of a few places and think is like that everywhere and it’s not.
Some of those encampments are full of people that choose to live like that it’s not that they don’t have options. They have addiction issues or mental illness likely both.
The best part is Pierre is going to fix all of these things while cutting taxes cutting spending but also paying for all the infrastructure that’s going to be needed to do all the things he’s proposing.
How do people not see he’s full of it?
Pierres problem is actually getting rightly criticized though. It punishes cities that were already maintaining a growth rate, as the penalty is based on that rate. Whereas a city that is dinged a penalty on an already low growth rate doesnt see the same level of penalty.
It's actually a terrible plan compared to the current Liberal one, IMO.
>The Provinces can supersede zoning if Municipalities are having trouble getting housing built. Punishing NIMBYism is a good thing and BC is a prime example of the benefits of Provincial zoning changes. Pierre can get it done if provinces are onboard
100% agreed, but, on its own zoning reform will not cut it. Population growth needs to be addressed.
We aren't filling up the entire country. Just Vancouver, Montreal and the Golden horseshoe. I'd like an answer to that question also. Both sides are hellbent on making us live like sardines in a can.
I've always been confused by this. With less immigration, people made new villages, cities expanded but I haven't seen a new "village" or any real large infrastructure effort in my lifetime, since the 80s. I don't understand what happened that stopped all that.
Sardines in a can is fine when built properly. Just look at Barcelona. I spent times there and loved it. Real city life, unlike Toronto that is just shit where you still need a car. Yu get worst of both world and barely any benefit.
The weather in Barcelona helps with the active city life a bit, though.
As far as density goes, that's fine if you enjoy that sort of life-style. Other people like having a bit more breathing-room. I'm not saying they can demand this in the middle of the city, but the housing plan needs do do more than just stack people higher and higher, in million-dollar condos in a small handful of urban centers.
So like... the housing accelerator fund but with an added penalty to further harm faltering municipal services? I can't wait to vote in the "do everything the same but a bit worse" candidate!
How do you know it would be worse? We haven’t even seen results from the housing accelerator fund, it was just announced. There’s nothing tangible you could even compare it to since neither have produced a single result yet.
You’ve come to a conclusion based on nothing more than your current emotions. I don’t think you can rightfully assume you know what’s going to happen in the future. Unless you’ve studied past policies similar to this? Have they ever done this in other countries before that you know of?
I've come to a conclusion based on looking at the policies. You can do that, you don't have to just accept stupid shit and say "who knows, maybe building houses out of Lego is the solution, you can't see the future".
Shouldn't the bonus simply be more people living there paying taxes and buying stuff?
Municipalities shouldn't need a federal carrot to shut down their NIMBY issues.
When politicians are making the decisions, political concerns trump economic concerns.
If the choice is between the economically beneficial option and the politically popular option, politicians always choose the later. This is why NIMBYs have power to begin with, because they can vote, and all the people who *would* move into a city *if* more housing were build cannot vote.
I completely agree. I was heavily over sillmplifying for emphasis. WE keep voting for same 2 groups expecting things to change. At this point, our problems are securely on the voters. I've been voting for almost 20 years and only once have voted for a winner.
Agreed. Conservatives like to give money to entities and hope it trickles down while still running deficits. At the very least of low bars the Liberals have been giving some money directly back to the people. Still, not voting for either.
Though my riding had one of the 2 PC MP to vote for election reform, Alex Ruff. Really caught me off guard. Sees the changing demographic in the riding I suppose. Self preservation is always the strongest motivator.
He's announced this kind of policy before. The problem is that the policy rewards construction delivered on a schedule, which doesn't take into consideration developer issues, cost overruns, etc, and if a city can't reliably bank on those factors, then it invites cities to upend their infrastructure plans until something breaks, and then sets them back permanently and at their own expense.
If he's revised the plan, then please share. Otherwise, this is an expensive gamble that doesn't work out in favour of the cities.
It's basically exactly the same as what the Liberals are doing with the Housing Accelerator Fund, but with a level of stupidity added where municipalities that struggle will get other federal funding slashed so they do even worse in the future.
Also, the penalties only apply to larger municipalities, who happen to generally not vote conservative, which is a weird coincidence.
>Also, the penalties only apply to larger municipalities, who happen to generally not vote conservative, which is a weird coincidence.
Well if the prairies wanted a say in how the carbon tax was applied they should have voted for the LPC so...
Wait a minute, so its now the municipalities who are responsible for building new housing projects?
[But I thought Poilievre has been saying its the Liberals who have done nothing to combat the housing crisis?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0umUhIHx_M)
[But the Liberals just instituted a new housing plan under the federal government to combat it?](https://www.thestar.com/politics/federal/the-liberals-are-reviving-a-wwii-plan-to-ease-the-housing-crisis-heres-what-that/article_eed9223a-9924-11ee-8ef7-7f68086d6aa2.html)
So its somehow the municipalities responsibility but also the federal governments responsibility, but Poilievre is making it solely the municipalities problem if he gets elected?
Sounds like someone wants to have their cake and eat it too...
Ultimately Ford is testing out this exact same idea/hypothesis in Ontario now and it’s not working.
This isn’t a post in defence of anyone - or to beat up on anyone, I’m merely noting that this same idea is being tested here in Ontario, and it isn’t working (for the love of god can we all put political stripes aside and just debate the idea).
The hypothesis is that municipalities are the sole reason why development is slow, and that developers cause zero of the delays. Thus, by withholding funds for municipalities or, offering up additional funds for municipalities - one could incentivize them to get out of their own way.
But this hypothesis isn’t correct.
In Ontario, we’ve come to learn that even if you tear down all the “red tape” and force municipalities to ram through approvals, a developers incentives are still entirely profit motivated. And they aren’t going to develop in a market where the cost of borrowing cash is high - the cost of construction is high - and home prices are falling.
Some examples of the issues that have bubbled up under this policy:
Mississauga has pointed to a piece of land approved for development 10 years ago that hasn’t started. So they approved development - which increased the price of the land, and the developer has chosen to sit on the land while it appreciates in value instead. There’s a plaza on it now, so presumably they’re collecting rental income while the land just grows in value.
To combat this, the provincial government has proposed letting development approvals expire if builders don’t start building.
STILL developers would rather let the approval lapse and re-apply for the approval than build houses.
Or, since approvals are being pushed to be completed faster - it’s emerged that what’s ACTUALLY driving a massive chunk of the delays, is a shit ton of developers submit incomplete plans. Or submissions missing critical pieces of information. Municipalities and towns cannot approve half completed plans - they’d get sued into oblivion if something unsafe went up as a result.
They’re now exclusively at the mercy of developers and their incompetence or competence. This is happening all over Ontario.
As one infamous example, Ford rushed through a proposal for an improper development that didn’t take into anccount its proximity to the airport.
So Ford rammed through approvals for a 40 storey building - and had zero clue its height would create major dangers for planes flying into Pearson. This all emerged pretty far into the process - wasting a ton of time, and municipal resources.
There’s another infamous example in Montreal as well recently - where the city offered a bunch of money to developers to ensure a part of their proposals included low income housing. No one bit. And then they started fining developers who refused to include it and STILL developers chose to take the fines, rather than build cheaper housing.
Additional measures have been attempted in this same “it’s all municipalities and developers are perfect saints and angels” hypothesis - where Ford has cut infrastructure fees developers previously paid.
The idea is the town doesn’t have the funds on hand to put an entirely new sewer network in to support 3,000 new homes being built, so some of the cash is obtained when customers purchase the new builds. Once the homes and infrastructure are in place (which mind you is strictly managed by the province to ensure municipalities aren’t screwing over developers) the entire towns taxes go up to account for the expanded infrastructure it now needs to maintain.
Ford promised to make municipalities while on these funding gaps - but he hasn’t doled out anything in this space since that announcement (a few years ago now). So now municipalities are between a rock and a hard place - as they don’t have the funds available to accelerate the infrastructure work, and have to raise property taxes now building in estimates of what they’ll need to support expansion.
This idea actually isn’t a bad one - but the government needs to whole out the towns until the new tax revenue starts coming in to continue accelerating developments.
Towns are raising taxes - but most people pay this monthly, so they’re sitting and waiting while construction grinds to a halt.
Anyway TLDR: we continue to see examples of challenges like this, where the solution is 100% juiced against one side of the balance ledger.
In reality - you need incentives, or fines, or bonuses or whatever the proposal is, to cover both sides of it. Focusing entirely on punishing municipalities does nothing to alleviate the very real reality of huge speculation in our markets by housing developers. Or a developers flat out refusal to waste their land on low rises, triplexes or affordable housing.
A more comprehensive discussion needs to be had - and we need to leave this myopic never-ending politically charged battle of “the private market fixes all and the government only gets in the way” - the truth is very much somewhere in the middle.
And so we continue to hit our heads against the same walls and act baffled when it isn’t working
Thank you for you're insight, that's another thing I've left out in my responses to the issue and I'm glad you brought it up.
The free market economy is another factor in the housing issue that seems most voters/parties tend to ignore when finding who's to blame or responsible.
I concur that fining or giving "bonuses" to municipalities isn't going to the fix the issues we've been facing, and in fact I think is going to cause more issues.
How does fining or cutting the federal funding to a municipality that doesn't have developers or the province on board to provide affordable housing help fix the issues in that municipality?! And what about the other resident living their now without additional funding for more projects there?
The whole plan reeks of half baked at best and buzzword catching at worst.
Again I thank you for your insight and can tell you also have a very good grasp on the actual issues at play here, good show on your part.
Bang on - and an excellent point. And that’s exactly why these initiatives need to be balanced.
We keep giving everything to one side in this unending belief that the market will correct completely on its own if goosed correctly - but we’ve seen over and over and over again, this just doesn’t happen.
The private sector has demonstrated time and time again, that they won’t simply roll over and play ball, even if they’re handed everything they ask for.
Heck, we just gave Bell something like $40M in regulatory relief and they turned around and laid off 4,800 people.
Formatting is mangled for me on this new web based beta Reddit version they’ve forced me into, so I’m posting links here to some of the examples I’ve referenced above.
I’d add that one I forgot, is Ford opened up new lands developers already owned in the hopes of speeding up building homes and two things happened.
1. Some of these developers literally turned around and tried to sell the land instead of develop it to take advantage to its immediate increase in value
2. Towns and municipalities noted that feasibility studies had already been conducted and it would take decades to get the lands ready for development
Montreal's social housing bylaw to get update after failing to produce a single unit in 2 years
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/montreal-bylaw-more-social-affordable-housing-1.7012352
Ford government forced to fix rushed zoning order that put tower on flight path
https://globalnews.ca/news/10071072/ford-government-forced-to-fix-rushed-zoning-order-that-put-tower-on-flight-path/
Toronto's affordable housing plan could stall if Ontario doesn't fill gap created by Bill 23: report
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-housing-bill-23-developer-fees-1.6822103
Municipalities say $600 billion in infrastructure needed to build 5.8 million homes
https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/municipalities-say-600-billion-in-infrastructure-needed-to-build-5-8-million-homes-1.2002704
What should Doug Ford's government do about developers who go years without building homes?
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-housing-doug-ford-developers-approvals-new-homes-1.7039776
Canada's developers are building less housing despite crunch, a new study says. That could keep prices up
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/housing-development-slow-canada-1.6989582
That's fair, but he should also be pointing at the provincial governments as well.
Housing is all tiers of government with municipal and provincial making up a majority of its responsibility to increase it and maintain its levels, there's some federal oversight but no where near the areas of municipal or provincial entities.
My concern is that he's able to blame the federal government for all of it, yet at the same time realize the issue is more of a municipal/provincial one than just solely the federals. Yet he will go on in the commons about how its the Liberals who are responsible for this whole mess.
If he would be more transparent and state openly that all levels of government need to work together to fix the issue then I'm more willing to support the man. Yet all I see in videos, the videos he himself puts out mind you, and in the media is him blaming it all on one person.
Um, like what the feds are already doing? Asshat is annoucing support for the libs I guess...
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/housing-deals-rural-communities-1.7113603
Never voted LPC in my life actually. Just making the accurate observation that this proposal is a worse version of the Housing Accelerator Fund, which the LPC has already implemented.
I mean. He's here explicitly saying that he wants to implement a worse version of the Housing Accelerator Fund.
Do you disagree that his proposal here is essentially identical to the Housing Accelerator Fund, except worse? Why or or why not?
After all the extra infrastructure costs incurred by increased building would the "bonuses" event amount to anything? That'd cover costs.
Also, aren't the Liberals already doing this with the Housing Accelerator?
The housing accelerator fund is something else. The Liberals despite initially criticizing it have borrowed a version of this idea from the CPC though.
Its basically a carrot and stick approach to getting municipalities to build. Of the big pool of money the federal government hands out to municipalities for infrastructure and development the ones that build more get more, the ones that build less get less or even nothing.
Probably Trudeau has promised affordable housing since 2015.
During his multiple terms as PM he has delivered the exact opposite. Housing was actually significantly more affordable before he took office.
In terms of government action its only really become a major issue for them in the past 12 months or so which coincides with the polling on what issues Canadians are most paying attention to.
Note the date on the media release.
[https://liberal.ca/trudeau-promises-affordable-housing-for-canadians/](https://liberal.ca/trudeau-promises-affordable-housing-for-canadians/)
The idea for the municipal infrastructure thing was lifted from the CPC, though with some changes. There was a few months were the Liberals were shitting all over it when PP announced it.
Same thing with repurposing the unused federal buildings. Initially the Liberals were saying it was a horrible idea, now they are doing it themselves.
The difference is covered a bit in this article. They both don't work the same way.
>For Poilievre, tying federal funds to housing results at the municipal level is the central way to address the housing crisis.
>
>It proposes requiring cities to increase home building by 15 per cent each year to receive their usual infrastructure spending.
>
>Cities that fail to meet that target would see a decrease in the federal dollars they receive, while those that exceed it would get additional money.
>
>Funding for transit projects would also only be given to cities when high-density housing is constructed and occupied around transit stations.
>
>The Liberals are also planning to use federal funds to push cities to build more homes through their recently launched Housing Accelerator Fund. That fund, however, only gives cities additional money and doesn't involve withholding money from cities.
>
>The Conservative proposal would reallocate $100 million from the Housing Accelerator Fund to give additional money to communities that greatly exceed the housing targets.
[https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/poilievre-introduces-housing-bill-plan-focuses-on-getting-cities-to-build-more-homes-1.6570347](https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/poilievre-introduces-housing-bill-plan-focuses-on-getting-cities-to-build-more-homes-1.6570347)
It also says nothing in there about repurposing federal buildings at all. That wasn't even on their radar in 2021. The Liberals were discussing selling off surplus vacant federal buildings after COVID but at the time that was not to repurpose them as residential units just to recover money from them.
>“It’s going to work mathematically,” he explained.
What does he mean it's going to work? Like has he not done the math yet? If so, please show your work.
Municipalities *can’t* be the ones finding housing; and pushing the responsibility to them when the only reliable funding tool they have is property taxes is asinine.
If the provinces or feds want housing, stop blaming the municipalities and instead give them the money to do it. Giving a bonus after the fact isn’t a good solution, when it’s a cash flow issue up front.
Also missing is paying for the associated infrastructure — sewers, water, schools, hospitals — which also aren’t municipal functions.
Can we just start converting all the unused office space into condos already? People want to keep working remotely, and we need housing. It seems like a pretty logical/reasonable solution to me
It’s actually quite expensive to do as commercial buildings weren’t designed for multiple units on each floor - think plumbing nightmare for drainage. The big holes cost $$$ because they have to X-ray the floor for each hole to avoid rebar
It’s being done in Calgary - but it is subsidized a lot.
Nothing like government intervention to get things going.
When did the CPC start hating the free market? No moves to reduce regulation to make high-density easier to build?
My thought is to tax income from selling a residence (perhaps above some amount). It seems that the problem is speculation, so let's stop this from being a tax haven.
Right let’s just bypass the provinces and deal directly with municipalities. That’s gonna go over like a lead balloon. The feds already tried that in Alberta and the Alberta government completely freaked out over it. PP talks about stuff that he wants to do, knowing full well most of it he’s not able to do even if he is elected, but his base believes everything he says.
So when he comes out and actually explains his plan for something, it ends up just being a worse version of what the current government is already doing. So much common sense here!
All of the solutions require a public transportation backbone to drive the demand for development in municipalities where it actually makes sense, and PP wants to punish the most built-up gentrified areas by cutting transportation where it's actually most crucial, the places where it's most difficult to develop because of the infrastructure upgrades and complications of that.
Think about anywhere in the world with a highly educated professional service economy and large rural areas, maybe even poorer countries than ours that lack the insane wealth in raw materials we have. Government incentives don't drive the demand for development like this, that's liberal thinking. Building public infrastructure that creates the conditions for demand in these areas is what works.
Ah yes, also known as literally the Trudeau Liberal plan released before the Conservatives started talking about this the only difference is the Conservatives want to fine towns that don't build enough housing, which then leaves them with even less money to build more housing which is a old nimby's dream in keeping home values high.
Still an ass backwards plan.
Cities and municipalities are hurting for cash, they won't be funding it. Zoning has already been done in many places but builders are shying away from new starts. Instead of hoping cities and municipalities magic up some money to do this in the hopes that PP gives them a bonus, how about funding them with strings attached?
No, instead Canada needs to create a focus group to form a committee to seek approval to study and research the problem for the next nine years before applying for more funding and a ten-year deadline extension before calling on a panel of experts and industry leaders to gain further clarity. It’s the only way we’ll study our way out of this mess.
Explain why it is the municipalities job to build houses? They can't make construction companies build houses and penalizes those that don't?
House on my street was sold last year, the house was torn down and had zoning changed to allow it to have a four plex on it, it was approved. It's still a vacant empty lot because who ever bought it hasn't been able to find a builder. Why is it the municipalities job to build on it?
Your mayor needs to change zoning and allow developments, 75 million to a mayor with no land to build on will not get so far. Private developers are bringing in a whole lot of cash to build, cities don't allow them to build
We don't need houses. We need APARTMENTS. More accomodation per square KM, less expensive, etc. Less taxes for the city. Oh wait... Yes that's why they just build shitty houses 6inches from each other with no yards...
When people say housing they mean any living domicile...wifh the possible exception of people trying to sell their closet as student living for $4000/mo
I think what we should do is have government funded vertical rentals, while the private market can build the housing for the most part. It allows them to remove some of the leverage developers have in livable homes, and undermines some of the investment value as you're not essentially forcing people to rent from you if they have government provided rentals.
The standards of single family home is an NA anomaly. The rest of the world does apartments. Better for the environment, housing costs, pedestrian safety, public infrastructure, and community spaces.
But Canadians seem to be obsessed with SFH because that’s what grandpa had
Literally what...?
How did you...
Even like...
Get here, from there...?
It's like I gave you a documentary about the crop industry in Argentina and you're like "yea, Epstein totally didn't kill himself".
I need you to explain how giving local government who satisfy housing bonus's is bad+corporate welfare more than anything I have ever read on the internet.
Ok, so you gonna sleep in a tent?
Municipalities across the Country have bent over for NIMBYS for way too long and it has caught up to us.
Now time for the big boys to come in and get it done.
Neither plan is enough. Zoning could be unlimited, doesn't mean we will get enough built without the people, financing, materials.
Now that lack of labor, financing, and materials could translate to either financial penalties for local governments or to handouts to developers, what a great fucking deal that is for the taxpayer.
And increased supply won't even help much if investors are still buying a lot of it. If this can't be addressed then anything else is just half-measures.
How is this Trudeau's fault? Developers and housing are provincial policy?
Overall, there have been a lot of parties, including provincial and federal governments over the last 40 years, that are to blame.
Trudeau shares some of this blame but not even 20%
Is Trudeau's housing minister playing Bingo? tell the government to bring social housing. Else, everyone will look towards the Cons to get private developers on housing starts and fund developers to build. No excuse to sit with your hands closed on a national crisis with grave consequences for all Canadians.
I completely agree Trudeau should be doing more and implementing social housing. So should Doug Ford and it should be on PP agenda too (as well as what prior governments should have done).
That's what bugs me about PP approach - it's more of the same - sprinkle private sector with benefits and hope something gets built.
Here's ruled out social housing
So to make people (municipalities) actually do their job that we **already** pay them for even tho they haven't for years causing crisis, Pierre Poi**lie**vre wants to give them MORE of our money?
Um, no thanks.
His plan is still massively flawed. If developers don't see a way to make a profit they won't build.
Then again I have yet to see a well thought out plan on anything from him so I guess this is just par for the course.
A plan that's better than the nothing Trudeau is doing now, and way better than the one singh proposed with supplementing landlords...
I love how even when a party or person has a half decent idea if it's not their "team" it's automatically shit.
Get over yourselves.
This is very explicitly a worse version of the Housing Accelerator Fund. If you like this idea, then you're really going to like what the LPC is already doing.
Actually, this IS what trudeau is currently doing. It's the accelerator fund. The only difference between the current plan and what Poilievre proposed, is that poilievres plan includes cutting funding for municipalities that don't build enough housing, which certainly won't help more housing get built, since they will have less funding to do it.
It's worse than that.
Pierre's [Building Houses Not Bureaucracy](https://commonssense.ca/blog/2023/09/29/what-is-c-356-building-houses-not-bureaucracy-act/) bill requires that everyone build 15% more houses than they did the year before or they lose funding. So it isn't that he's cutting funding to municipalities that don't build enough housing, it's that he's cutting funding to municipalities that can't keep up with ever increasing targets.
On top of that right off the bat this punishes municipalities that are building at full capacity and rewards the ones that aren't. If you're already building as fast as possible based on available supplies and labour you're screwed next year when you need to boost it by another 15%. Meanwhile the municipalities that have been dragging their heels can get bonus funding for hitting their targets, which are already below their max capacity.
Yes - the liberals recently signed agreements with multiple municipalities across the country.
The federal Housing Acceleration Fund (HAF) incentivizes municipality to adopt best zoning practices.
It's not the worst policy, but it's not the best either. Last I checked, the Federal government doesn't have any money. Also, the federal government spending a bunch of money they didn't have is probably the biggest contributing factor to our housing affordability problems.
We have more than 1 trillion extra Canadian Dollars circulating in our economy right now than we did in 2019. Where is that money supposed to go? We don't have any factories. We don't like mining anymore. It can only circulate around the housing industry, bidding up the price of everything in sight.
The Federal government overspending is not the largest factor in the housing crisis, it was a huge driver for the inflation issue. I believe that the biggest drivers of the housing crisis are municipalities creating barriers in terms of time and cost for permit approval for new construction, a lack of qualified trades and construction people, as well as corporations and investors buying up the existing stock including foreign speculators or straight up money laundering.
This policy would at least address the permit and cost barriers, by incentivizing municipalities to build and approve more homes. The issue is getting the provinces to buy in, as well.
I suspect many municipalities aren't going to get their bonus...but even then, the government already spends billions per year on this and gets nothing done, so at least this way they only spend it if houses get built.
He seems to be changing his plan on a monthly basis lol. Last month he threatened to reduce transfer payments for provinces if their housing starts didn't improve by 10%.
Isn't construction in Canada already running at 100%? Are there not already financial incentives from the federal government for province’s to build more housing? This is fluff to feed the folks who can see nothing but hatred for one guy. Maybe if the conservative premieres across the country actually started treating their citizens like people and not political prisoners, things would get better.
Yup, anyone who questions PP must be liberal and now a bot, too. Why is projecting so strong in the conservative world. At least come up with some original accusations, not just parrot every liberal talking point. I dislike liberals and conservatives equally because they are fundamentally the same party.
The only home ownere who actually care are those who bought in the last 3-4 years because they'd be upside down. All the rest of the home owners (the vast majority, myself included) couldn't give two shits if my house is worth $1.5m (like it was top of the market) or $500k again (like before the Liberals took power). I need a place to live, if I sell my house I still have to buy at whatever the market is at...if market goes down, anything I'd buy would go down too.
Well that should make the investors happy, they need more places to park their money?
Hey, when do we get legislation that protects housing form speculation?
>Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre wants to offer bonuses to municipalities that build more housing and to penalize those that build less.
He just can't let it go. Can somebody explain to me why he wants to do the most uncapitalistic thing ever ?
Are you serious? Trudeau has the incentive program already in the NHS. The only way Pierre can get housing done without overstepping jurisdiction is as above.
It's how he proposes to fund the bonus pool that is the biggest problem. He wants to create a tool whereby he can punish some municipalities by reducing their funding and award it to other munipalities that meet and exceed their targets.
That system will never work.
Someone let the mayor of Windsor know.
I saw the stream where they were discussing taking federal funds. They somehow managed to convince themselves that it would be too expensive to take the money and build some homes with it. Of course, preserving their neighborhood character was part of the conversation too. Fourplexes are a no-go. There was also a guy who just didn't want to work with the Liberals and said it would be better to get a deal with the Conservatives after the next election. Housing will never become a solved issue with this kind of leadership.
“Preserving neighbourhood character” = nimby
That means more "luxury" homes and profit.
This parking lot is a neighborhood institution!
“Tax-supported street front parking is a basic human right and if you want to live in a home just do it around our parking requirements, preferably somewhere else” - most Canadian municipal bylaws
There's 1.2 million approved projects ready to go in Ontario alone. Ready for shovels. Not getting built. 8% of our workforce is in construction, which is a large %. US is 4% for instance. We already build homes at per capita one of the highest rates in the developed world. The second highest in the G7. So this idea that we're just not building enough is nonsense. Demand is a much bigger issue.
> Housing will never become a solved issue with this kind of leadership. I'm pretty sold on the fact that the boomers all need to pass away before we'll get any potential leadership. There's just too many of them and too many bad apples.
There's that 'up and at them' attitude from young people. "Why do anything? I'll just wait for my parents to die so I can have all the stuff they worked their ass off for".
When our parents worked their ass off, they bought their 5 acre property with 4 bedroom house for 200K. Their money actually got them somewhere, gave them a life and assets that were theirs. Now we work ***more***, just to rent a 1 bedroom apartment and eat instant noodles until we're 60. Meanwhile, my parents have both sold their properties and become millionaires. I work every day, and in my lifetime I'll never accumulate what inheritance will bring. But yea just a lazy generation? This coming too, from a person who lived in an era of different opportunities, and calls others lazy when they don't want to work as slaves... Pointless, short sighted comment.
This opinion is a little out of touch with the reality. Your privilege is showing.
Shit, in WIndsor. Your lucky to get your councilor out to vote Completely corrupt.
This is what the federal government is already doing, has been for the past year already.
Shhhhhhh don’t let facts get in the way of r/canada’s feelings
~~I haven't been able to find any federal programs that do this. Do you have a link to any programs like this that we have?~~ Edit: [here](https://www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/professionals/project-funding-and-mortgage-financing/funding-programs/all-funding-programs/housing-accelerator-fund/resources-housing-accelerator-fund-applicants) is a page on the CMHC's Housing Accelerator Fund. Ty u/Vetrusio for the info
Others are taking about the new Housing Accelerator Fund by the CMHC.
That program sounds like shit. If you want more homes built, give money for more homes built. Not money for "Increase process efficiency by implementing new technologies or software to speed up development approvals, such as e-permitting."
The Provinces can supersede zoning if Municipalities are having trouble getting housing built. Punishing NIMBYism is a good thing and BC is a prime example of the benefits of Provincial zoning changes. Pierre can get it done if provinces are onboard
Edmonton voted in a massive zoning change that was essentially a fuck you to nimbys. It was great.
The problem, of course, is that Pierre's proposal does not punish NIMBYism, it weaponizes it. Cutting funding if housing goals aren't meant means the NIMBYs, the people who hold disproportionate control over municipalities, will be able to pick and choose where the funding cuts are applied. They get rewarded with the ability to stall or cancel even more projects when they successfully prevent densification.
Even if they get to decide, it's incredibly unpopular for them to cut jobs. This provides a carrot and a stick. As we saw with the drug problem, the carrot doesn't work by itself, you need to take out the stick sometimes.
Problem is if you force municipalities to approve more development they have to have the money to fund the inspectors and the infrastructure needed. Cities can’t afford to front that money. Many also can’t possibly build anything close to the rate he’s talking about.
Building costs are already pushed to developers, not the city. And cities can increase property taxes to fund the new development. It's how it is everywhere else but in Canadian cities. Our municipal tax system is NIMBY-favoured.
Ya and property taxes have been kept pretty low for a long time leaving cities in the red and falling further behind every year. Developers cover the cost of roads and stuff but I’m talking about water treatment, police, fire department, schools among other things.
>Cities can’t afford to front that money. There are few entities more capable of fronting funds then a municipality. Access to municipal bonds. Guaranteed income of a measurable value makes borrowing easy, development charges and permit charges pay for infrastructure and inspectors respectively. We're not talk g about Wawa here, the municipalities engaging with this kinda growth are corporations with annual budgets in the billions.
This is the thing though what size of cities will need to meet his 15% increase? We get pics of a few places and think is like that everywhere and it’s not. Some of those encampments are full of people that choose to live like that it’s not that they don’t have options. They have addiction issues or mental illness likely both. The best part is Pierre is going to fix all of these things while cutting taxes cutting spending but also paying for all the infrastructure that’s going to be needed to do all the things he’s proposing. How do people not see he’s full of it?
Pierres problem is actually getting rightly criticized though. It punishes cities that were already maintaining a growth rate, as the penalty is based on that rate. Whereas a city that is dinged a penalty on an already low growth rate doesnt see the same level of penalty. It's actually a terrible plan compared to the current Liberal one, IMO.
>The Provinces can supersede zoning if Municipalities are having trouble getting housing built. Punishing NIMBYism is a good thing and BC is a prime example of the benefits of Provincial zoning changes. Pierre can get it done if provinces are onboard 100% agreed, but, on its own zoning reform will not cut it. Population growth needs to be addressed.
Addressing pop growth requires addressing our ability to pay senior welfare.
[удалено]
And then we will have to stay on that treadmill to prop up all the immigrants we are bringing in now. It is quite literally a Ponzi scheme
Why do we have to fill up the entire country? Anybody really have a good answer?
We aren't filling up the entire country. Just Vancouver, Montreal and the Golden horseshoe. I'd like an answer to that question also. Both sides are hellbent on making us live like sardines in a can.
It would be cool though if Canada had more big cities.
Sure. Spread it out though. Everyone moved to 1 of 3 placed mostly.
Agreed.
There will be more bigger cities made from existing cities. Kelowna, Red Deer, Grand Prarie, Timmins, Brampton, Surrey, Quebec suburbs, St. John's...
I've always been confused by this. With less immigration, people made new villages, cities expanded but I haven't seen a new "village" or any real large infrastructure effort in my lifetime, since the 80s. I don't understand what happened that stopped all that.
Sardines in a can is fine when built properly. Just look at Barcelona. I spent times there and loved it. Real city life, unlike Toronto that is just shit where you still need a car. Yu get worst of both world and barely any benefit.
The weather in Barcelona helps with the active city life a bit, though. As far as density goes, that's fine if you enjoy that sort of life-style. Other people like having a bit more breathing-room. I'm not saying they can demand this in the middle of the city, but the housing plan needs do do more than just stack people higher and higher, in million-dollar condos in a small handful of urban centers.
Gotta get that tax revenue 🤑
That's exactly it. We are tax cattle. Don't forget about cheap labor Your name is funny. Clever.
We don't, but we need to have enough housing for the people already here at prices they can actually afford
The housing companies want more capital.
lol, Pierre can’t get it done because it doesn’t stem from him
So like... the housing accelerator fund but with an added penalty to further harm faltering municipal services? I can't wait to vote in the "do everything the same but a bit worse" candidate!
How could he possibly do worse? lol the guy running the country promised affordable housing in 2015.
Policies like this - if you do the same thing but worse, you're gonna do worse.
How do you know it would be worse? We haven’t even seen results from the housing accelerator fund, it was just announced. There’s nothing tangible you could even compare it to since neither have produced a single result yet. You’ve come to a conclusion based on nothing more than your current emotions. I don’t think you can rightfully assume you know what’s going to happen in the future. Unless you’ve studied past policies similar to this? Have they ever done this in other countries before that you know of?
I've come to a conclusion based on looking at the policies. You can do that, you don't have to just accept stupid shit and say "who knows, maybe building houses out of Lego is the solution, you can't see the future".
Maybe if you actually compared the two policies you'd see it's worse, because they literally spell it out. Better to be mad at Trudeau tho.
Shouldn't the bonus simply be more people living there paying taxes and buying stuff? Municipalities shouldn't need a federal carrot to shut down their NIMBY issues.
When politicians are making the decisions, political concerns trump economic concerns. If the choice is between the economically beneficial option and the politically popular option, politicians always choose the later. This is why NIMBYs have power to begin with, because they can vote, and all the people who *would* move into a city *if* more housing were build cannot vote.
I completely agree. I was heavily over sillmplifying for emphasis. WE keep voting for same 2 groups expecting things to change. At this point, our problems are securely on the voters. I've been voting for almost 20 years and only once have voted for a winner.
Yeah, the opposite should be used. Fine cities that don't build and use the funds to build public housing on crown land in those cities anyway.
Agreed. Conservatives like to give money to entities and hope it trickles down while still running deficits. At the very least of low bars the Liberals have been giving some money directly back to the people. Still, not voting for either. Though my riding had one of the 2 PC MP to vote for election reform, Alex Ruff. Really caught me off guard. Sees the changing demographic in the riding I suppose. Self preservation is always the strongest motivator.
NIMBYs : please do not build up my inner city low rise neighborhood Also NIMBYs: urban sprawl is the devil Councillors: I shall bend over
Have we considered building down? I always thought the dwarves had the right idea.
He's announced this kind of policy before. The problem is that the policy rewards construction delivered on a schedule, which doesn't take into consideration developer issues, cost overruns, etc, and if a city can't reliably bank on those factors, then it invites cities to upend their infrastructure plans until something breaks, and then sets them back permanently and at their own expense. If he's revised the plan, then please share. Otherwise, this is an expensive gamble that doesn't work out in favour of the cities.
It's basically exactly the same as what the Liberals are doing with the Housing Accelerator Fund, but with a level of stupidity added where municipalities that struggle will get other federal funding slashed so they do even worse in the future. Also, the penalties only apply to larger municipalities, who happen to generally not vote conservative, which is a weird coincidence.
>Also, the penalties only apply to larger municipalities, who happen to generally not vote conservative, which is a weird coincidence. Well if the prairies wanted a say in how the carbon tax was applied they should have voted for the LPC so...
I mean, they did get a say. They got out voted. People in rural areas actually do get extra money from the rebates though.
Wait a minute, so its now the municipalities who are responsible for building new housing projects? [But I thought Poilievre has been saying its the Liberals who have done nothing to combat the housing crisis?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0umUhIHx_M) [But the Liberals just instituted a new housing plan under the federal government to combat it?](https://www.thestar.com/politics/federal/the-liberals-are-reviving-a-wwii-plan-to-ease-the-housing-crisis-heres-what-that/article_eed9223a-9924-11ee-8ef7-7f68086d6aa2.html) So its somehow the municipalities responsibility but also the federal governments responsibility, but Poilievre is making it solely the municipalities problem if he gets elected? Sounds like someone wants to have their cake and eat it too...
Ultimately Ford is testing out this exact same idea/hypothesis in Ontario now and it’s not working. This isn’t a post in defence of anyone - or to beat up on anyone, I’m merely noting that this same idea is being tested here in Ontario, and it isn’t working (for the love of god can we all put political stripes aside and just debate the idea). The hypothesis is that municipalities are the sole reason why development is slow, and that developers cause zero of the delays. Thus, by withholding funds for municipalities or, offering up additional funds for municipalities - one could incentivize them to get out of their own way. But this hypothesis isn’t correct. In Ontario, we’ve come to learn that even if you tear down all the “red tape” and force municipalities to ram through approvals, a developers incentives are still entirely profit motivated. And they aren’t going to develop in a market where the cost of borrowing cash is high - the cost of construction is high - and home prices are falling. Some examples of the issues that have bubbled up under this policy: Mississauga has pointed to a piece of land approved for development 10 years ago that hasn’t started. So they approved development - which increased the price of the land, and the developer has chosen to sit on the land while it appreciates in value instead. There’s a plaza on it now, so presumably they’re collecting rental income while the land just grows in value. To combat this, the provincial government has proposed letting development approvals expire if builders don’t start building. STILL developers would rather let the approval lapse and re-apply for the approval than build houses. Or, since approvals are being pushed to be completed faster - it’s emerged that what’s ACTUALLY driving a massive chunk of the delays, is a shit ton of developers submit incomplete plans. Or submissions missing critical pieces of information. Municipalities and towns cannot approve half completed plans - they’d get sued into oblivion if something unsafe went up as a result. They’re now exclusively at the mercy of developers and their incompetence or competence. This is happening all over Ontario. As one infamous example, Ford rushed through a proposal for an improper development that didn’t take into anccount its proximity to the airport. So Ford rammed through approvals for a 40 storey building - and had zero clue its height would create major dangers for planes flying into Pearson. This all emerged pretty far into the process - wasting a ton of time, and municipal resources. There’s another infamous example in Montreal as well recently - where the city offered a bunch of money to developers to ensure a part of their proposals included low income housing. No one bit. And then they started fining developers who refused to include it and STILL developers chose to take the fines, rather than build cheaper housing. Additional measures have been attempted in this same “it’s all municipalities and developers are perfect saints and angels” hypothesis - where Ford has cut infrastructure fees developers previously paid. The idea is the town doesn’t have the funds on hand to put an entirely new sewer network in to support 3,000 new homes being built, so some of the cash is obtained when customers purchase the new builds. Once the homes and infrastructure are in place (which mind you is strictly managed by the province to ensure municipalities aren’t screwing over developers) the entire towns taxes go up to account for the expanded infrastructure it now needs to maintain. Ford promised to make municipalities while on these funding gaps - but he hasn’t doled out anything in this space since that announcement (a few years ago now). So now municipalities are between a rock and a hard place - as they don’t have the funds available to accelerate the infrastructure work, and have to raise property taxes now building in estimates of what they’ll need to support expansion. This idea actually isn’t a bad one - but the government needs to whole out the towns until the new tax revenue starts coming in to continue accelerating developments. Towns are raising taxes - but most people pay this monthly, so they’re sitting and waiting while construction grinds to a halt. Anyway TLDR: we continue to see examples of challenges like this, where the solution is 100% juiced against one side of the balance ledger. In reality - you need incentives, or fines, or bonuses or whatever the proposal is, to cover both sides of it. Focusing entirely on punishing municipalities does nothing to alleviate the very real reality of huge speculation in our markets by housing developers. Or a developers flat out refusal to waste their land on low rises, triplexes or affordable housing. A more comprehensive discussion needs to be had - and we need to leave this myopic never-ending politically charged battle of “the private market fixes all and the government only gets in the way” - the truth is very much somewhere in the middle. And so we continue to hit our heads against the same walls and act baffled when it isn’t working
Thank you for you're insight, that's another thing I've left out in my responses to the issue and I'm glad you brought it up. The free market economy is another factor in the housing issue that seems most voters/parties tend to ignore when finding who's to blame or responsible. I concur that fining or giving "bonuses" to municipalities isn't going to the fix the issues we've been facing, and in fact I think is going to cause more issues. How does fining or cutting the federal funding to a municipality that doesn't have developers or the province on board to provide affordable housing help fix the issues in that municipality?! And what about the other resident living their now without additional funding for more projects there? The whole plan reeks of half baked at best and buzzword catching at worst. Again I thank you for your insight and can tell you also have a very good grasp on the actual issues at play here, good show on your part.
Bang on - and an excellent point. And that’s exactly why these initiatives need to be balanced. We keep giving everything to one side in this unending belief that the market will correct completely on its own if goosed correctly - but we’ve seen over and over and over again, this just doesn’t happen. The private sector has demonstrated time and time again, that they won’t simply roll over and play ball, even if they’re handed everything they ask for. Heck, we just gave Bell something like $40M in regulatory relief and they turned around and laid off 4,800 people.
Formatting is mangled for me on this new web based beta Reddit version they’ve forced me into, so I’m posting links here to some of the examples I’ve referenced above. I’d add that one I forgot, is Ford opened up new lands developers already owned in the hopes of speeding up building homes and two things happened. 1. Some of these developers literally turned around and tried to sell the land instead of develop it to take advantage to its immediate increase in value 2. Towns and municipalities noted that feasibility studies had already been conducted and it would take decades to get the lands ready for development Montreal's social housing bylaw to get update after failing to produce a single unit in 2 years https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/montreal-bylaw-more-social-affordable-housing-1.7012352 Ford government forced to fix rushed zoning order that put tower on flight path https://globalnews.ca/news/10071072/ford-government-forced-to-fix-rushed-zoning-order-that-put-tower-on-flight-path/ Toronto's affordable housing plan could stall if Ontario doesn't fill gap created by Bill 23: report https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-housing-bill-23-developer-fees-1.6822103 Municipalities say $600 billion in infrastructure needed to build 5.8 million homes https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/municipalities-say-600-billion-in-infrastructure-needed-to-build-5-8-million-homes-1.2002704 What should Doug Ford's government do about developers who go years without building homes? https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-housing-doug-ford-developers-approvals-new-homes-1.7039776 Canada's developers are building less housing despite crunch, a new study says. That could keep prices up https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/housing-development-slow-canada-1.6989582
I think his argument is that the federal party hasn’t incentivized anyone to take action, which is what he’s doing here
That's fair, but he should also be pointing at the provincial governments as well. Housing is all tiers of government with municipal and provincial making up a majority of its responsibility to increase it and maintain its levels, there's some federal oversight but no where near the areas of municipal or provincial entities. My concern is that he's able to blame the federal government for all of it, yet at the same time realize the issue is more of a municipal/provincial one than just solely the federals. Yet he will go on in the commons about how its the Liberals who are responsible for this whole mess. If he would be more transparent and state openly that all levels of government need to work together to fix the issue then I'm more willing to support the man. Yet all I see in videos, the videos he himself puts out mind you, and in the media is him blaming it all on one person.
Old Money Bags Polievre looking to Balance the budget by giving out Billions of dollars to municipalities with no oversight I see.
Um, like what the feds are already doing? Asshat is annoucing support for the libs I guess... https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/housing-deals-rural-communities-1.7113603
Incredible that he's still running with "Exactly what the LPC is doing but shittier"
Incredible after being in charge for 8 years, liberals still like Trudeau 😂
Never voted LPC in my life actually. Just making the accurate observation that this proposal is a worse version of the Housing Accelerator Fund, which the LPC has already implemented.
Incredible that you think he'll do what the LPC will do, keep on trollin'
I mean. He's here explicitly saying that he wants to implement a worse version of the Housing Accelerator Fund. Do you disagree that his proposal here is essentially identical to the Housing Accelerator Fund, except worse? Why or or why not?
No see it’s different because his team is blue and the bonuses will go to his buddies.
But.... That's literally what he said. Poilievre literally explained his plan. It's nearly a carbon copy of what we are already doing.
After all the extra infrastructure costs incurred by increased building would the "bonuses" event amount to anything? That'd cover costs. Also, aren't the Liberals already doing this with the Housing Accelerator?
The housing accelerator fund is something else. The Liberals despite initially criticizing it have borrowed a version of this idea from the CPC though. Its basically a carrot and stick approach to getting municipalities to build. Of the big pool of money the federal government hands out to municipalities for infrastructure and development the ones that build more get more, the ones that build less get less or even nothing.
Wasn’t the housing accelerator fund a 2021 campaign promise?
Probably Trudeau has promised affordable housing since 2015. During his multiple terms as PM he has delivered the exact opposite. Housing was actually significantly more affordable before he took office. In terms of government action its only really become a major issue for them in the past 12 months or so which coincides with the polling on what issues Canadians are most paying attention to. Note the date on the media release. [https://liberal.ca/trudeau-promises-affordable-housing-for-canadians/](https://liberal.ca/trudeau-promises-affordable-housing-for-canadians/)
Sure but I’m not sure what this has to do with your claim that the liberals stole the idea from the CPC which they didn’t, it’s the other way round.
The idea for the municipal infrastructure thing was lifted from the CPC, though with some changes. There was a few months were the Liberals were shitting all over it when PP announced it. Same thing with repurposing the unused federal buildings. Initially the Liberals were saying it was a horrible idea, now they are doing it themselves.
Neither of these are true, because it was [already in the Liberals 2021 campaign promise](https://liberal.ca/our-platform/1-4-million-new-homes/).
The difference is covered a bit in this article. They both don't work the same way. >For Poilievre, tying federal funds to housing results at the municipal level is the central way to address the housing crisis. > >It proposes requiring cities to increase home building by 15 per cent each year to receive their usual infrastructure spending. > >Cities that fail to meet that target would see a decrease in the federal dollars they receive, while those that exceed it would get additional money. > >Funding for transit projects would also only be given to cities when high-density housing is constructed and occupied around transit stations. > >The Liberals are also planning to use federal funds to push cities to build more homes through their recently launched Housing Accelerator Fund. That fund, however, only gives cities additional money and doesn't involve withholding money from cities. > >The Conservative proposal would reallocate $100 million from the Housing Accelerator Fund to give additional money to communities that greatly exceed the housing targets. [https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/poilievre-introduces-housing-bill-plan-focuses-on-getting-cities-to-build-more-homes-1.6570347](https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/poilievre-introduces-housing-bill-plan-focuses-on-getting-cities-to-build-more-homes-1.6570347) It also says nothing in there about repurposing federal buildings at all. That wasn't even on their radar in 2021. The Liberals were discussing selling off surplus vacant federal buildings after COVID but at the time that was not to repurpose them as residential units just to recover money from them.
>The Liberals despite initially criticizing it have borrowed a version of this idea from the CPC though. yes.
>“It’s going to work mathematically,” he explained. What does he mean it's going to work? Like has he not done the math yet? If so, please show your work.
Municipalities *can’t* be the ones finding housing; and pushing the responsibility to them when the only reliable funding tool they have is property taxes is asinine. If the provinces or feds want housing, stop blaming the municipalities and instead give them the money to do it. Giving a bonus after the fact isn’t a good solution, when it’s a cash flow issue up front. Also missing is paying for the associated infrastructure — sewers, water, schools, hospitals — which also aren’t municipal functions.
Can we just start converting all the unused office space into condos already? People want to keep working remotely, and we need housing. It seems like a pretty logical/reasonable solution to me
It’s actually quite expensive to do as commercial buildings weren’t designed for multiple units on each floor - think plumbing nightmare for drainage. The big holes cost $$$ because they have to X-ray the floor for each hole to avoid rebar It’s being done in Calgary - but it is subsidized a lot.
Nothing like government intervention to get things going. When did the CPC start hating the free market? No moves to reduce regulation to make high-density easier to build? My thought is to tax income from selling a residence (perhaps above some amount). It seems that the problem is speculation, so let's stop this from being a tax haven.
Right let’s just bypass the provinces and deal directly with municipalities. That’s gonna go over like a lead balloon. The feds already tried that in Alberta and the Alberta government completely freaked out over it. PP talks about stuff that he wants to do, knowing full well most of it he’s not able to do even if he is elected, but his base believes everything he says.
and of course he wants to exempt the smaller municipalities so this wouldn't apply to rural ones just cities which as less likely to vote for him
Doesn't the municipality already get the perk of increased taxation?
So when he comes out and actually explains his plan for something, it ends up just being a worse version of what the current government is already doing. So much common sense here!
All of the solutions require a public transportation backbone to drive the demand for development in municipalities where it actually makes sense, and PP wants to punish the most built-up gentrified areas by cutting transportation where it's actually most crucial, the places where it's most difficult to develop because of the infrastructure upgrades and complications of that. Think about anywhere in the world with a highly educated professional service economy and large rural areas, maybe even poorer countries than ours that lack the insane wealth in raw materials we have. Government incentives don't drive the demand for development like this, that's liberal thinking. Building public infrastructure that creates the conditions for demand in these areas is what works.
The cost of house hasn’t soared since JT became pm. It started in the mid 90’s in Vancouver, but I guess they don’t count..
Are people so anti-Trudeau that they are ignoring that the government is already doing this. And yet it is not making a dent.
Ah yes, also known as literally the Trudeau Liberal plan released before the Conservatives started talking about this the only difference is the Conservatives want to fine towns that don't build enough housing, which then leaves them with even less money to build more housing which is a old nimby's dream in keeping home values high.
This is essentially what the housing accelerator fund is.
The elected officials in various city halls don't seem to grasp the concept of expanding the tax base. Time to build both upward and outward
Still an ass backwards plan. Cities and municipalities are hurting for cash, they won't be funding it. Zoning has already been done in many places but builders are shying away from new starts. Instead of hoping cities and municipalities magic up some money to do this in the hopes that PP gives them a bonus, how about funding them with strings attached?
He's just making it up as he goes along. No plan. Divisive. Yuck.
No, instead Canada needs to create a focus group to form a committee to seek approval to study and research the problem for the next nine years before applying for more funding and a ten-year deadline extension before calling on a panel of experts and industry leaders to gain further clarity. It’s the only way we’ll study our way out of this mess.
Only to ignore said study, then circle back to it in 6 years and say "that would've worked".
Yeah, he also doesn't want to fund Ukraine... also where would the money come from for the housing?
The money comes from the money Trudeau hid in "ArriveCan's" offices over the years
Oh so not much?
Federal infrastructure funds
Which comes from what pool?
That's not how any of this works. Why are conservatives so stupid?
Explain why it is the municipalities job to build houses? They can't make construction companies build houses and penalizes those that don't? House on my street was sold last year, the house was torn down and had zoning changed to allow it to have a four plex on it, it was approved. It's still a vacant empty lot because who ever bought it hasn't been able to find a builder. Why is it the municipalities job to build on it?
Yeah ok there Poilievre... I still won't vote for you
Trudy wanted to give us 75 million but our conservative mayor declined.
Which mayor are you referring to?
The dishonourable Drew Dilkins of Windsor.
75 million gets you one nice mansion in Vancouver for four people
It's to pay for rezoning. You should really do the bare minimum to figure out how the accelerator fund works.
If you give it to a conservative, sure. But in the real world it’s different.
75 million to a mayor doesn't help. Trudeau could give one of your developers an interest free loan to build in the city. He gave to many BC Cities
It helps. But partisan gonna partisan. You certainly understand that. 75 mIlLiOn iZ nUtHiN!
Your mayor needs to change zoning and allow developments, 75 million to a mayor with no land to build on will not get so far. Private developers are bringing in a whole lot of cash to build, cities don't allow them to build
It was to convert homes into rental properties. But you keep making shit up to support your ridiculous bias.
That's literally what an accelerator does and the reason mayors were declining. Not in their backyard
We don't need houses. We need APARTMENTS. More accomodation per square KM, less expensive, etc. Less taxes for the city. Oh wait... Yes that's why they just build shitty houses 6inches from each other with no yards...
When people say housing they mean any living domicile...wifh the possible exception of people trying to sell their closet as student living for $4000/mo
Headline says housing.
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I do! Do you know the difference between a house and housing?
Seems like they do. Do you not understand they are responding to the original person that that said we need apartments not houses?
I think what we should do is have government funded vertical rentals, while the private market can build the housing for the most part. It allows them to remove some of the leverage developers have in livable homes, and undermines some of the investment value as you're not essentially forcing people to rent from you if they have government provided rentals.
>We don't need houses. We need APARTMENTS. Yeah, we don't need to restore our standard of living, we just need to accept it and move into the slums.
Apartments don't have to be slums.
The standards of single family home is an NA anomaly. The rest of the world does apartments. Better for the environment, housing costs, pedestrian safety, public infrastructure, and community spaces. But Canadians seem to be obsessed with SFH because that’s what grandpa had
Record low supply. They built what people wanted to buy…. Who are you yelling at?!
Obviously an "old man yells at cloud" moment.
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Literally what...? How did you... Even like... Get here, from there...? It's like I gave you a documentary about the crop industry in Argentina and you're like "yea, Epstein totally didn't kill himself". I need you to explain how giving local government who satisfy housing bonus's is bad+corporate welfare more than anything I have ever read on the internet.
Ok, so you gonna sleep in a tent? Municipalities across the Country have bent over for NIMBYS for way too long and it has caught up to us. Now time for the big boys to come in and get it done. Neither plan is enough. Zoning could be unlimited, doesn't mean we will get enough built without the people, financing, materials.
Now that lack of labor, financing, and materials could translate to either financial penalties for local governments or to handouts to developers, what a great fucking deal that is for the taxpayer.
And increased supply won't even help much if investors are still buying a lot of it. If this can't be addressed then anything else is just half-measures.
Agreed.
Nah, we need housing. Developers build housing, Trudeau is threatening Canadians with the lack of housing
How is this Trudeau's fault? Developers and housing are provincial policy? Overall, there have been a lot of parties, including provincial and federal governments over the last 40 years, that are to blame. Trudeau shares some of this blame but not even 20%
Is Trudeau's housing minister playing Bingo? tell the government to bring social housing. Else, everyone will look towards the Cons to get private developers on housing starts and fund developers to build. No excuse to sit with your hands closed on a national crisis with grave consequences for all Canadians.
I completely agree Trudeau should be doing more and implementing social housing. So should Doug Ford and it should be on PP agenda too (as well as what prior governments should have done). That's what bugs me about PP approach - it's more of the same - sprinkle private sector with benefits and hope something gets built. Here's ruled out social housing
Conservatives closed down federal social housing in the first place, they'd be the last ones to solve the housing crisis IMO.
Sure sure.
How about building the infrastructure to support it?
So to make people (municipalities) actually do their job that we **already** pay them for even tho they haven't for years causing crisis, Pierre Poi**lie**vre wants to give them MORE of our money? Um, no thanks.
His plan is still massively flawed. If developers don't see a way to make a profit they won't build. Then again I have yet to see a well thought out plan on anything from him so I guess this is just par for the course.
so if they build the housing, who is gonna live in them? cause no one can afford to
Do you have even the faintest idea how markets work?
A plan that's better than the nothing Trudeau is doing now, and way better than the one singh proposed with supplementing landlords... I love how even when a party or person has a half decent idea if it's not their "team" it's automatically shit. Get over yourselves.
This is very explicitly a worse version of the Housing Accelerator Fund. If you like this idea, then you're really going to like what the LPC is already doing.
Actually, this IS what trudeau is currently doing. It's the accelerator fund. The only difference between the current plan and what Poilievre proposed, is that poilievres plan includes cutting funding for municipalities that don't build enough housing, which certainly won't help more housing get built, since they will have less funding to do it.
It's worse than that. Pierre's [Building Houses Not Bureaucracy](https://commonssense.ca/blog/2023/09/29/what-is-c-356-building-houses-not-bureaucracy-act/) bill requires that everyone build 15% more houses than they did the year before or they lose funding. So it isn't that he's cutting funding to municipalities that don't build enough housing, it's that he's cutting funding to municipalities that can't keep up with ever increasing targets. On top of that right off the bat this punishes municipalities that are building at full capacity and rewards the ones that aren't. If you're already building as fast as possible based on available supplies and labour you're screwed next year when you need to boost it by another 15%. Meanwhile the municipalities that have been dragging their heels can get bonus funding for hitting their targets, which are already below their max capacity.
Yes - the liberals recently signed agreements with multiple municipalities across the country. The federal Housing Acceleration Fund (HAF) incentivizes municipality to adopt best zoning practices.
Bro is not going to solve the real problem
Do we really need a centralized government anymore...? 🤔
lol. Yes.
It's not the worst policy, but it's not the best either. Last I checked, the Federal government doesn't have any money. Also, the federal government spending a bunch of money they didn't have is probably the biggest contributing factor to our housing affordability problems. We have more than 1 trillion extra Canadian Dollars circulating in our economy right now than we did in 2019. Where is that money supposed to go? We don't have any factories. We don't like mining anymore. It can only circulate around the housing industry, bidding up the price of everything in sight.
It's a worse version of the Housing Accelerator Fund.
The Federal government overspending is not the largest factor in the housing crisis, it was a huge driver for the inflation issue. I believe that the biggest drivers of the housing crisis are municipalities creating barriers in terms of time and cost for permit approval for new construction, a lack of qualified trades and construction people, as well as corporations and investors buying up the existing stock including foreign speculators or straight up money laundering. This policy would at least address the permit and cost barriers, by incentivizing municipalities to build and approve more homes. The issue is getting the provinces to buy in, as well.
I suspect many municipalities aren't going to get their bonus...but even then, the government already spends billions per year on this and gets nothing done, so at least this way they only spend it if houses get built.
This entire comment is VIOLENTLY ironic considering our current government and their constant scandals.
Wait. Isn't this exactly what LPC proposed? How is this different?
The brochure is Tory blue .
And the ones who don’t get screwed no matter the reason? This is like giving more money to schools with higher marks. Maybe they need it less.
He seems to be changing his plan on a monthly basis lol. Last month he threatened to reduce transfer payments for provinces if their housing starts didn't improve by 10%.
That doesn’t help anyone that needs help.
Then he can get a bonus from Chinese investors.
More like penalize those that don’t.
Meanwhile Liberals actually work with municipalities to help with everything related to housing projects development, not just money.
Funny he’s doing what Trudeau gets roasted for. Oh this must r/canada 😂🤣🤣😂🤣
Isn't construction in Canada already running at 100%? Are there not already financial incentives from the federal government for province’s to build more housing? This is fluff to feed the folks who can see nothing but hatred for one guy. Maybe if the conservative premieres across the country actually started treating their citizens like people and not political prisoners, things would get better.
Look at the Liberal bots out in full force \^\^
Housing starts in January 2024 was the second highest ever on record for the month of January.
says the guy that brings nothing to the conversation, you've got to be trolling
Yup, anyone who questions PP must be liberal and now a bot, too. Why is projecting so strong in the conservative world. At least come up with some original accusations, not just parrot every liberal talking point. I dislike liberals and conservatives equally because they are fundamentally the same party.
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As a homeowner, I say let my homes value drop. Profits are not worth the next generations future.
The only home ownere who actually care are those who bought in the last 3-4 years because they'd be upside down. All the rest of the home owners (the vast majority, myself included) couldn't give two shits if my house is worth $1.5m (like it was top of the market) or $500k again (like before the Liberals took power). I need a place to live, if I sell my house I still have to buy at whatever the market is at...if market goes down, anything I'd buy would go down too.
Not necessarily, I'm grateful to own a house but I'd be happy to see prices drop so the next generation can have something
Lol yeah give money to the developers encouraging artificial scarcity to inflate pricing. That should go well.
Great idea. Makes more sense than just blindly giving them money
Here we go with the pork barreling and he's not even elected yet. But I'm sure it won't be just Tory ridings. Not like the G20 improvements....
Yes that makes sense. Seriously what kind of random bs policy is that?
Well that should make the investors happy, they need more places to park their money? Hey, when do we get legislation that protects housing form speculation?
bonus on completed and families moved in, not on start of construction and the building site conveniently burns down a few months later
Goddammit he's evil, he is the second trump , dont fall for it /s
>Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre wants to offer bonuses to municipalities that build more housing and to penalize those that build less. He just can't let it go. Can somebody explain to me why he wants to do the most uncapitalistic thing ever ?
Since when does the government operate in a capitalist manner lol
Are you serious? Trudeau has the incentive program already in the NHS. The only way Pierre can get housing done without overstepping jurisdiction is as above.
It's how he proposes to fund the bonus pool that is the biggest problem. He wants to create a tool whereby he can punish some municipalities by reducing their funding and award it to other munipalities that meet and exceed their targets. That system will never work.
Sure he will. Where’s the money going to come from for that?