submission statement: Relevant to sub’s housing agenda qua demand side of the equation. The federal govt has taken some steps to boost supply in the next few years (7+ billion CAD for Build Canada Homes, now a crown corporation), but as it stands the increase in housing starts is very modest. In Ontario, housing starts have significantly declined in ’25, yet rents have fallen 11.9% YoY. Municipalities across Canada have
taken steps to improve supply, with as-of-yet disappointing results.
The truism I periodically see here in response to these bottlenecks is that higher immigration couldn’t increase these rents, as there would be an increase in construction workers. That may be true, but that effect seem to be overstated, depending on other inputs informing housing elasticity.
Ultimately we want higher immigration, but I think both politically and practically there needs to be a more meaningful change to housing supply elasticity before cranking that dial. One elephant in the room is the sizable demographic still expecting housing to be a retirement nest-egg.
LOL at restricted mode. I don’t think there’s anything insensitive about it if people stay on topic.
Maximilianne on
Mind you people are still complaining so it doesn’t actually solve the populist crisis
MarketsAreCool on
Yeah I mean you gotta let people build housing. Without housing supply everything else is bottlenecked. It doesn’t matter if you get efficiencies in software or construction or medicine or whatever. Everything just gets eaten by rents because there’s nowhere to live.
WinonasChainsaw on
And they have a shortage of nurses, construction workers, and agricultural laborers as a result
Also Trudeau’s parting demand sided policies are going to have big impacts on the research universities in coming years
Ddogwood on
Housing starts have also gone up by over 10% in Canada. I think it may be more complex than simply “fewer immigrants = lower housing costs”
WifeGuy-Menelaus on
The Trudeau Ministry’s one attempt at policy alignment – the Housing Accelerator Fund – failed about as spectacularly as the Ontario provincial equivalent, the Building Faster Fund. In both cases, an “only carrots no stick” approach failed. Municipalities were happy to take money and then short change the government, and governments responded with a meek slap on the wrist. Both HAF and BFF are basically dead letters, now, and the Feds are moving on to arguably even less efficient means of delivering housing.
At the end of the day, the LPC is utterly dominated by the comfortably and richly housed, and their ‘natural governing party’ status is contingent on not treading on those toes, no matter who is PM.
6 Comments
submission statement: Relevant to sub’s housing agenda qua demand side of the equation. The federal govt has taken some steps to boost supply in the next few years (7+ billion CAD for Build Canada Homes, now a crown corporation), but as it stands the increase in housing starts is very modest. In Ontario, housing starts have significantly declined in ’25, yet rents have fallen 11.9% YoY. Municipalities across Canada have
taken steps to improve supply, with as-of-yet disappointing results.
The truism I periodically see here in response to these bottlenecks is that higher immigration couldn’t increase these rents, as there would be an increase in construction workers. That may be true, but that effect seem to be overstated, depending on other inputs informing housing elasticity.
Ultimately we want higher immigration, but I think both politically and practically there needs to be a more meaningful change to housing supply elasticity before cranking that dial. One elephant in the room is the sizable demographic still expecting housing to be a retirement nest-egg.
LOL at restricted mode. I don’t think there’s anything insensitive about it if people stay on topic.
Mind you people are still complaining so it doesn’t actually solve the populist crisis
Yeah I mean you gotta let people build housing. Without housing supply everything else is bottlenecked. It doesn’t matter if you get efficiencies in software or construction or medicine or whatever. Everything just gets eaten by rents because there’s nowhere to live.
And they have a shortage of nurses, construction workers, and agricultural laborers as a result
Also Trudeau’s parting demand sided policies are going to have big impacts on the research universities in coming years
Housing starts have also gone up by over 10% in Canada. I think it may be more complex than simply “fewer immigrants = lower housing costs”
The Trudeau Ministry’s one attempt at policy alignment – the Housing Accelerator Fund – failed about as spectacularly as the Ontario provincial equivalent, the Building Faster Fund. In both cases, an “only carrots no stick” approach failed. Municipalities were happy to take money and then short change the government, and governments responded with a meek slap on the wrist. Both HAF and BFF are basically dead letters, now, and the Feds are moving on to arguably even less efficient means of delivering housing.
At the end of the day, the LPC is utterly dominated by the comfortably and richly housed, and their ‘natural governing party’ status is contingent on not treading on those toes, no matter who is PM.