In a country with some of the world’s most expensive real estate, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government wants housing to become more affordable.
In a country with some of the world’s most expensive real estate, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government wants housing to become more affordable.
Governments have done the work of providing housing in the past, and still do in limited numbers. There is no reason why they can’t just push the number of projects up until there is no housing crisis anymore.
I’ve heard some numbers here and there, and it seems like there’s plenty of organizations providing non-market housing that rent at below half the usual prices. Apparently the YMCA is one of them.
If the governments aren’t willing to do it themselves, they can just make it easier for corporations that are willing to provide non-market housing to get the property rights and loans needed to actually get this done.
Government can make large, multi-year capital investments, too. They just don’t want to, because we’re two generations of civil servants and politicians that consider publicly-provided services to be heretical.
You’ll note that anything that doesn’t involve giving money to the private sector is not done, and what little fully public institutions we still have left are a) from an earlier era, and b) so intrinsic to the cash flow of a functioning government that not even the most boot-licking Thatcherite can make a case for selling them off.
As above, there is no appetite in government to do this as it would erode the ability of the wealthy to make money, and even if they did, developers would just build something expensive to maximize value.
The entire philosophy of how government delivers services would need to change, reversing course on a quarter-century of neoliberal policy.
The issue is that the top parties feel secure in their oligarchy. It doesn’t really matter which one is in power as they’re always relevant and can squabble as they like.
They don’t feel threatened during elections anymore because it’s not about leading the country in a better direction according to their party principals, but it’s about what each person can personally gain by doing favours.
I’m worried that the only way to actually make positive change is to put one of the minor parties in charge. Maybe seeing the Green party or the Communist Party of Canada in charge for a few years’ll be what it takes to make the mainstream parties actually fix their crap. Of course, the level of a miracle for something like that to happen is so remote that it’s hard to see any hope in the government without some sort of major upheaval to happen.
We tried that. The, once minor, Reform Party was given chance for the first time in 2006 and we gave them a second try in 2011. I’m not sure anything changed.
Trouble is, once a party takes charge, they are fundamentally no longer minor and naturally become just like all the rest. You haven’t accomplished anything.
What you really want to do is elect a representative who works for you, not for his labour union (i.e. the party). As the employer, choosing your employee based on their union affiliation is, quite frankly, strange.