[Canada] Canadian Politics Redux

[viper37]

The Liberal's tin ear and lack of any policy on the housing affordability issue is going to cost them the election.  At least in this area.  And of course it is the urban centres the Libs need to win.

Well, if only someone had warned them that their immigration policies would lead to a disaster on housing affordability.

Oh wait.

I said exactly that.

And it's not like I was a prophet.  

Leaked memo shows Trudeau was warned immigration policy would cause housing crisis

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was warned in June 2022 by Secretary of the Cabinet Janice Charette that his immigration policy since taking office in 2015 triggered Canada's housing affordability crisis.

Charette, appointed by Trudeau less than a month earlier, directly blamed him for Canada's escalating housing prices and severe housing shortage.
Trudeau's response was to ignore the warning and announce that he would bring in more immigrants. 

He also blamed the provinces for not "stepping up" to fix the housing problem.

"The purpose of this note is to provide you with an analytic summary of the report's findings," wrote Charette in a classified memorandum Report by Canada Housing and Mortgage Corporation: Canada's Housing Supply Shortage, obtained by The Counter Signal.

The memo was sent directly to Trudeau.
"There is broad agreement among experts that homebuilding has been insufficient in comparison with housing demand in recent years, particularly with the increase in immigration since 2015." 

The memo states that Canada's housing supply shortage is the "key factor" causing the affordability crisis and the pace of building homes cannot meet needs by 2030 to restore affordability.

"CHMC projects that the housing stock will grow by approximately 2.3 million between 2021 and 2030, and, when it incorporates economic factors alongside demographic factors, it projects that an additional 3.5 million additional housing units are needed beyond current projections to restore affordability." 

The memo said that the 223,000 units built in 2021 fell short of the estimated yearly 665,000 required "which would be significantly more ambitious" than the 3.5 million units the federal government budgeted for in 2022.

The total build requirements stand at 5.8 million units.
Two-thirds of the housing supply gap are in BC and Ontario.

But in November, Trudeau announced his 2023-2025 steadily increasing immigration targets — 465,000 in 2023, 485,000 in 2024, and 500,000 in 2025.

That's on top of a historic 431,645 level of permanent residents in 2022 and higher than the previous 401,000 record set in 2021.

Last month in Hamilton, on the site of an apartment complex under construction, Trudeau deflected responsibility for Canada's housing woes to the provinces and territories.

"I'll be blunt as well — housing isn't a federal responsibility. It's not something that we have direct carriage of," he said. 

"But it is something that we can and must help with," he said.
He said the Hamilton mayor and the Ontario government were not doing enough.

"They need to be stepping up as well, particularly on affordable housing. That is something that the federal government is taking very seriously, but we need all of us to be working together on, and that's what we're here to continue to do."
Canada's Housing and Infrastructure minister is on board with Trudeau.

Sean Fraser, who served as Immigration minister, recently said that bringing in fewer immigrants is not the solution. 

"But I would urge caution to anyone who believes the answer to our housing challenges is to close the door on newcomers," he said.

Building more homes is the answer, he said. And newcomers will alleviate the 6.5% labour shortage reported in early 2022 that developers claim is "one of the chief obstacles to completing" projects, including building houses.

According to the Canadian Real Estate Association, the average housing price stands at more than $700,000.

Currently, the average home costs 8.8 times the average Canadian income. In Toronto it's at 13.2 times, and in Vancouver 14.4. 

Trudeau has been under fire from opposition Conservatives, provincial and municipal politicians, builders, housing advocates and worried Canadians about an explosive housing crisis rippling across Canada.

Last month, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre took issue with Trudeau's denial that housing is a primary federal responsibility.

He argued that local governments do not have the revenue capacity to adequately address the affordable or social housing problem.

"To some extent, people do look toward the federal government mainly because it's the level of government with the greatest fiscal powers," he said.

Poilievre reminded Trudeau of his promise eight years ago that he would lower housing prices, but instead has more than doubled them.

"No wonder he wants to wash his hands of his horrendous and unprecedented record."

"I have been saying that housing costs had doubled under Justin Trudeau. It's now far worse than that," he said.

"The average mortgage payment has gone from $1,400, the day that Trudeau promised he would make housing affordable, to $3,500. That's two and a half times higher. This is the fastest increase in mortgage payment costs in the history of Canada and by far."

Poilievre noted that it would worsen as mortgages renew at higher interest rates predicted over the next two years.

And some more:
Seven top economists who are warning the Liberals about immigration


It's just like the debt.  We can't manage such a high level of debt and that's not something that fixes itself just by looking at it.

[crazy canuck]

I think this paragraph from Coyne's opinion piece in the Globe sums up the Liberals and why they are in trouble

"Perhaps the most remarkable responses in the Abacus poll were in answer to the question of whether the government had a "good plan, a bad plan, or no plan" to deal with a number of issues. On issue after issue – cost of living, housing, economic growth, immigration – few (25 per cent or less) were confident the government had a good plan. Larger numbers said they had a bad plan. But the largest single group in most cases believed they had no plan."

[viper37]

I think this paragraph from Coyne's opinion piece in the Globe sums up the Liberals and why they are in trouble

"Perhaps the most remarkable responses in the Abacus poll were in answer to the question of whether the government had a "good plan, a bad plan, or no plan" to deal with a number of issues. On issue after issue – cost of living, housing, economic growth, immigration – few (25 per cent or less) were confident the government had a good plan. Larger numbers said they had a bad plan. But the largest single group in most cases believed they had no plan."

I don't understand why people are surprised.

- What's your plan sir?
- Just watch me.

[Barrister]

I think this paragraph from Coyne's opinion piece in the Globe sums up the Liberals and why they are in trouble

"Perhaps the most remarkable responses in the Abacus poll were in answer to the question of whether the government had a "good plan, a bad plan, or no plan" to deal with a number of issues. On issue after issue – cost of living, housing, economic growth, immigration – few (25 per cent or less) were confident the government had a good plan. Larger numbers said they had a bad plan. But the largest single group in most cases believed they had no plan."

I don't understand why people are surprised.

- What's your plan sir?
- Just watch me.

[Barrister]

The 338 "poll of polls" has Conservatives at 38%, Liberals at 29%, NDP at 18%, BQ at 7%, Greens at 5% (does this 5% even pay attention to national politics? - the Green Party is a tire fire), PPC at 3%.

38% nationally has the conservatives flirting with majority government territory.

Obviously there's no election coming right away, and with those numbers the NDP is not at all likely to pull their support for the Liberals.  But as a right-leaning Canadian it's encouraging.

[crazy canuck]

I think this paragraph from Coyne's opinion piece in the Globe sums up the Liberals and why they are in trouble

"Perhaps the most remarkable responses in the Abacus poll were in answer to the question of whether the government had a "good plan, a bad plan, or no plan" to deal with a number of issues. On issue after issue – cost of living, housing, economic growth, immigration – few (25 per cent or less) were confident the government had a good plan. Larger numbers said they had a bad plan. But the largest single group in most cases believed they had no plan."

I don't understand why people are surprised.

- What's your plan sir?
- Just watch me.

Yeah, the surprising thing about that poll is 25% of Canadians think the liberals have a good plan. But of course one has to have a plan in order for it to be good.

[Josephus]

The 338 "poll of polls" has Conservatives at 38%, Liberals at 29%, NDP at 18%, BQ at 7%, Greens at 5% (does this 5% even pay attention to national politics? - the Green Party is a tire fire), PPC at 3%.

38% nationally has the conservatives flirting with majority government territory.

Obviously there's no election coming right away, and with those numbers the NDP is not at all likely to pull their support for the Liberals.  But as a right-leaning Canadian it's encouraging.

yeah polls mean dick until 5 minutes before an election (as we've seen). But that said, the Liberals should be worried. There is a huge anti-Trudeau resentment across the country, and now they're losing the kids over housing. (Do kids vote, though?). I can't see what people like about Polliviere, except that they hate Trudeau.

The Liberals need to replace Trudeau ASAP, but they won't. A Tory majority will teach them a lesson.

[viper37]

The 338 "poll of polls" has Conservatives at 38%, Liberals at 29%, NDP at 18%, BQ at 7%, Greens at 5% (does this 5% even pay attention to national politics? - the Green Party is a tire fire), PPC at 3%.

38% nationally has the conservatives flirting with majority government territory.

Obviously there's no election coming right away, and with those numbers the NDP is not at all likely to pull their support for the Liberals.  But as a right-leaning Canadian it's encouraging.

yeah polls mean dick until 5 minutes before an election (as we've seen). But that said, the Liberals should be worried. There is a huge anti-Trudeau resentment across the country, and now they're losing the kids over housing. (Do kids vote, though?). I can't see what people like about Polliviere, except that they hate Trudeau.

The Liberals need to replace Trudeau ASAP, but they won't. A Tory majority will teach them a lesson.

Kids vote, but not in huge numbers compared to boomers and X.

[Josephus]

Funny thing is I'm not really averse to the Conservatives winning this time except for the fact I really don't like Pollievre. I don't like Trudeau (anymore) either. And Singh? Ugh...we really need new leaders.

[Grey Fox]

We do. I like the BQ leader but I won't vote for them.

[crazy canuck]

The 338 "poll of polls" has Conservatives at 38%, Liberals at 29%, NDP at 18%, BQ at 7%, Greens at 5% (does this 5% even pay attention to national politics? - the Green Party is a tire fire), PPC at 3%.

38% nationally has the conservatives flirting with majority government territory.

Obviously there's no election coming right away, and with those numbers the NDP is not at all likely to pull their support for the Liberals.  But as a right-leaning Canadian it's encouraging.

yeah polls mean dick until 5 minutes before an election (as we've seen). But that said, the Liberals should be worried. There is a huge anti-Trudeau resentment across the country, and now they're losing the kids over housing. (Do kids vote, though?). I can't see what people like about Polliviere, except that they hate Trudeau.

The Liberals need to replace Trudeau ASAP, but they won't. A Tory majority will teach them a lesson.

The Conservative policy?  Common sense.   They say it's not a slogan but their policy.

 

The only thing going for the Conservatives is they are not the Liberals.

But I am not convinced they would not be worse.

[Barrister]

The Conservative policy?  Common sense.   They say it's not a slogan but their policy.

 

The only thing going for the Conservatives is they are not the Liberals.

But I am not convinced they would not be worse.

CC, you are a left-wing voter.  There's nothing wrong with that of course - it's a free country, and it takes all types.

But if the Conservative Party started really deeply appealing to you I would worry about my party.

Not to say I don't want you to vote for them!  I hope sometime you can feel that you need to hold your nose and vote Conservative, because the Liberals are just so odious.

But psychologically and philosophically, the Conservatives are never going to be your party.  It's just not who you, and they, are.


Edit:

It's like me voting NDP this year in Alberta.  I did it, I don't regret it.  But I didn't like doing it, and I am never going to be a NDP partisan.  It's not who I am, or who that party is.  So the NDP should try to be minimally acceptable to me (which they were), but I don't expect them to cater to my preferences.

[Jacob]

That may or may not be true BB, but it doesn't change the fact that "common sense" is not a policy but a slogan.

IIRC when I first met CC he was a staunch Conservative voter.

[Sheilbh]

That may or may not be true BB, but it doesn't change the fact that "common sense" is not a policy but a slogan.

For sure. But I'm not sure that's an issue for an opposition party two years out from a general election.

I think the key question is more do you think they've got ideas about what they want to do or not? If not, then that's a bad sign (and they'll probably lose). If you think they've got ideas then I think it's more of an electoral cycle thing.

[Jacob]

That was CC's point I thought. They may have ideas, but they're not articulating them much beyond "common sense" sloganeering. Used to be a focus on "wokeism gone mad" slogans, now it's "things are too expensive" slogans. What they'll actually do is more of a mystery (other than cutting some stuff they've always meant to cut).

They have a good opportunity because the Libs are looking pretty feckless on cost of living - and the housing element in particular - but the Conservatives don't seem to have any ideas on the topic other than "it's Trudeau's fault!"

To be fair, if the Conservatives come out with some genuinely good ideas there may enough time for the Liberals to nick them so maybe that's why they're sticking to their usual empty personality based attacks.