The federal government is not going to be able to do anything meaningful about affordable housing. Period. Supply and demand governs.
WHY does that one-bedroom apartment in Toronto rent for $2k per month?
- Because the portion of the cost of the building that it's in which is allocated to that apartment, is probably half a million and it probably has a mortgage on it for most of that. Whatever portion of it doesn't have a mortgage on it, is still tied-up money that could be doing something else as opposed to being tied up in bricks and mortar, so even if there isn't "mortgage interest" on a paid-off building, there's still a lost-opportunity-cost for having money tied up ... call it even.
- Because the interest on that mortgage (or the lost-opportunity-cost investment rate) probably eats up most or all of the rent payments the way interest rates have been lately. Plus maintenance plus property tax plus a risk premium (bad tenants can destroy the investment - and there are sure bad tenants out there, and the landlord and tenant act tips things strongly towards the tenant and against the landlord).
- So, "reduce interest rates". Except, the recent spike in interest rates (which everyone who was paying attention knew was going to happen) was to dampen inflation by intentionally slowing the economy down a little. Which it did. And now the upcoming direction of interest rates is probably down (slowly).
- Or, "reduce housing costs". HOW? Supply and demand governs this!
What of all this, is under the responsibility of the federal government?
Corporate greed/profits is behind some of the unaffordability situation. There's some big companies out there setting record profits ... so, maybe, we (and the americans) need to make sure billionaires are paying their share. But this has to be done internationally, because otherwise they'll bury their profits in some other lower-tax country. Good luck with that!
We know PP wants to "axe the tax" (the carbon tax). Except ... Most people (~80%) are getting a bigger rebate than what they're contributing. (Those who are complaining that they're not getting a rebate, either haven't been paying attention to their bank accounts, or didn't file their income tax last year, or didn't sign up for electronic deposit, or are owing money and the rebate was applied to their balance owing, or something of that sort. I've been getting quarterly rebate deposits.) So, "axe the tax" also means axe the rebate. So then 80% of the population gets (a little) worse off, and the rich get (a little) richer, and it basically doesn't make a difference to government coffers. The nonsense spread about the carbon tax being responsible for businesses going bankrupt is just that - nonsense. If a company was going to go bankrupt because they were heavy energy consumers then it wasn't the carbon tax that put them over the edge, they were going bankrupt anyhow. Now look at this, and tell me where the real money is going:
https://www.suncor.com/-/media/Proj...rnings-q2-2023-en.pdf?modified=20230907164333
(Mandatory disclaimer, I own some SU in an investment account.)