All to ensure that we never actually talk to the person we do vote for. "Oh, yeah, the problems are totally a result of you chosing the wrong party and not because the person you elected isn't a mind reader and was left to guess about what you wanted."
That's just pruning the worse ideas until we have a clear last-loser.
We should not have people voting on a single issue (for the cons, it's whether corporations and rich people should continue to skate on their tax obligation) but "people vs monoliths" is kinda it.
"The Conservative Party has no real solutions for the affordability crisis"
... sure maybe, but do the Liberals? They've had a long time to fix things. Maybe it's time we start electing someone other than the two parties that brought us here.
The Liberal solution is to maximize the return on investment for real estate speculators, thus transferring as much wealth as possible from the poor to the ruling class. That's literally the whole reason the Canadian government was created by corporations and foreign rulers in the first place.
I mean, they've tried nothing else, they may as well try that (again).
Though I suppose, if they're really pressed, they could try to sell of whatever assets prior governments haven't already fire-saled. Maybe we can sell the St. Lawrence Seaway? Or sell off the NCC buildings to Cadillac Fairview? Or, better, call Doug Ford and ask if Di Gasperis has any interest in federal lands?
I fucking love that bootstrap saying. Like if you take even 3 seconds to think about it, it's obvious that pulling yourself up by the bootstraps is physically impossible.
People keep saying this but it rings hollow to me. There are plenty of ways to attack the CPC, but this meme is not one of them.
Poilievre has specific plans on how to force cities to get more housing built. Now, obviously, if you don't believe in market solutions this sounds dumb, but most people with even the most basic, minimal centrist respect for economics will believe that more housing will help with prices.
So if you keep saying "he has no plan", what those voters hear is "leftist media is lying about Poilievre".
The LPC could very easily disarm him on this one issue: steal his plan and implement it. Bring out the stick. Start threatening cities that do not greenlight enough housing with cuts to their gas-tax funds. Because while Poilievre's policy is generally horrifying on a lot of fronts (LGBTQ issues, environment, poverty) his plan on this issue is better than anything anybody else has offered (to be fair, the bar is very low).
Progressive YIMBY activists and affordable-housing builders have been saying for decades: slow-walking approvals and restrictive zoning are driving up the costs of urban housing. Thid is a spot where PP is on the same side of the issue as Alexandria freaking Ocasio Cortez!
Yes, there are many publicly-funded ways we should also be fighting the housing crisis, things that PP is not going to do. But on this one specific issue: PP is talking sense, you look stupid to swing voters when you say he isn't, and you can disarm him by just stealing the idea wholesale. It works against the NDP every time, just do it here to the Conservatives.
edit: I just took another look and realized that TFA was written by Nora Loreto. Now it all adds up. The woman is a troll. People just get confused because this style of political trolling is almost exclusively conservative chuds, so seeing this kind of over-the-top hot-take nonsense is unfamiliar when it comes from this side of the aisle.
Yes, there are many publicly-funded ways we should also be fighting
Correct.
But we're going to disagree on whether the government should - and whether that government would - help regular people. Trending shows his party does not in any case.
So while there are emany ways the gov could and maybe should address housing as well as the environment, science and the social contract, I don't expect his bunch will suddenly start caring about any of it when that's not how they vote and it's not how theyre funded.
PP's biggest donor is a massive property developer, right?
Well, in the case of "reward cities for fixing their processes" actually that's literally the Housing Generator Fund, which Hussen touted so much as the thing that would fix housing that he completely destroyed its utility as something they could celebrate. The entire media circuit started rolling their eyes at "housing generator fund". Beyond policy problems, the man had buffoonish political instincts.
But one thing that Poilievre's vicious political style works with here is that he wants sticks, not just carrots.
I haven't heard of these plans to force municipalities to build housing, but am curious how that is supposed to work.
Municipalities don't have their own construction crews, housing is built by private contractors and land developers.
Are municipalities supposed to buy up land and hire contractors to build housing themselves? Then sell it once completed? Or rent it out for little to no profit?
Force cities to allow housing to be built, technjcally. Basically, the YIMBY argument is that the private sector and non-profit sector are lining up to build housing that will help the housing crisis by both attacking the supply/demand problem with more market supply at large and also there are specialized affordable housing builders that will directly target renters needing affordable rent.
These people are being directly blocked by municipal zoning rules like height limits and ambiguous planning guidelines, and indirectly blocked by long and slow approval processes that are costing them millions in carrying costs owning expensive property they can't build on while they fight city halls.
I downloaded this great video from Xitter of an affordable housing builder giving a deputation to the city of Toronto about this -- it's posted on my Mastodon.
"$20 billion dollar intersection in Forest Hill; somebody said that should be a 7-storey and 70-unit building in 2018. How...where did that number come from? Somebody picked that number. Because it "conformed to the current planning policy for Forest Hill" and somebody adjacent to the site had a backyard swimming pool. That can't be our priority in 2023."
Relevant to this, PP's housing plan includes forcing cities to upzone such transit hubs.
That's because real solutions would destroy the value of all current homes. Given that most people are still homeowners, that's not a winning political strategy.
I don't think a crash is inevitable. It could just plateau forever as long as our population doesn't decline.
I think we'll eventually see political reforms to reign in ownership profits, but not until we have a lot lower ownership percentage. Multiple decades at the very least, possibly half a century.
Rendering that home you bought back down to even double the inflation-adjusted price - so no loss at all - would be even more than we need, but thank you for suggesting we reduce it even more out of the goodness of your heart.
And we're still responsible for 400B in mortgage insurance. Wanna add that to our deficit when people stop paying their house that's worth less than they paid for it? Nah, didn't think so, me neither.
Except Poilievre is specifically saying he wants to lower housing prices and he's winning. So the game has changed and as always the LPC is too comfortable and slow to notice.
You know, I heard the same thing for decades in the US. Then one party removed a woman’s right to choose and gay marriage is signaled to be next. You’re headed down the same road we are if you aren’t careful.
OTOH it is the LPC that has lead us straight into this housing crisis. Social conservativism provides the boogie man that neo liberals use to financially exploit us into working in poverty at their shitty dead end jobs the rest of our lives. They're two sides of the same exploitive coin. They run back and forth over the same 50m of ground and both pretend like they are making progress, but neither of them really want to upset the status quo. Watch as the American Democrats fight tooth an nail to bring back abortion and protect gay marriage, and never speak a word about guaranteed income or free education. Only to let the GOP tear it back down again a few years after that. It's a scam.