This hurts regular people far worse than the upper class that has spent 3+ years hording and acquiring assets. They’re trying to fix inept government policy on the backs of the labour that allows the country to function rather than having the hording class pay a fair share to sustain society.
Property taxes should increase exponentially with each additional property you own. Double or triple for corporations. That will do a large part to fix our issues, but the government will only enact policies favourable to the landowners.
That’s quite a good solution. I’ve been looking at real estate lately and a lot of the lower priced homes have in their description something like “great starter home or investment property.” Investors shouldn’t be able to snatch up all the “starter homes”. Let’s let some of us get into the market!
“Starter home”, I’m not sure how much more disdain I could have for that title. I bought a home in 2003 that would probably be called that now. It was a typical size for when it was built in 1982 but of course homes must be bigger now. My wife has a friend who has a home that’s nearly double the size yet she’s jealous of all the storage space we have. There’s this trend of building homes with huge main spaces and I don’t understand why.
I understand if people end up having to move for work of course, and if the home they’re in is literally too small for their family, I just don’t understand moving just because a bigger house is available.
Yeah, and rental prices have skyrocketed too.
During the next federal election this will be my “single issue” that will determine who I vote for.
At this point I can ignore our insane grocery/telecom prices, even though that is still a huge issue. The housing crises has far worse ripple effects down the chain: potential buyers can’t buy so they rent nicer places, potential renters can’t rent the nice places so they are overpaying for the rentals they can afford, and people who can’t afford any of the rental prices are scraping by with roommates or on the streets.
And these development companies have the nerve to go to court over government investigations over their shady practices.
Shameless.
During the next federal election this will be my “single issue” that will determine who I vote for.
This should read PROVINCIAL election. Housing policies are the jurisdiction of the provinces. If you think the Premiers are going to tolerate the Feds mucking around in something they perceive as THEIR jurisdiction, there will be a big fight over it. Take this to your Premier, it’s their wheel-house.
Fair point, Dougie needs to fucking go.
And for the record OF COURSE I care about other issues. Maybe my original comment was too extreme. There is no way I am going to vote for any rage-baiting, fear mongering, regressive asshole. If someone presented an amazing, ground-breaking housing plan but was also a neo-nazi I wouldn’t vote for them LMAO.
I am just so tired of all the political theatre around housing. It just seems like a no-brainer that should cross party lines. The only people who don’t care are the people who are rich, or who are in the pockets of rich development/property management companies. Even the older generations who own a single home care, they probably have children who they know won’t ever be able to afford a home or pay a fair price to rent something.
During the next federal election this will be my “single issue” that will determine who I vote for.
Why not just vote properly – for someone who will work for you with honour and respect? Then you can actually sit down with the employee you hired and guide them in the right direction. Hiring some hothead employee who thinks they’ve got it all figured out, and lets you believe they’ve got it all figured out, is a recipe for disaster.
Why not just vote properly – for someone who will work for you with honour and respect?
A government that seeks to keep a roof over your head over a few extra dollars in their personal bank accounts IS a government that is treating us with honour and respect. The big two don’t have any respect for the common Canadian, aside from milquetoast progressive talking points occasionally, or populist bullshit.
If making housing affordable for everyone is a single issue vote then so be it. I can respect that more than a multitude of other idiotic reasons to be a single issue voter.
A government that seeks to keep a roof over your head over a few extra dollars in their personal bank accounts IS a government that is treating us with honour and respect.
That may be true, but importantly the hired employee needs to be working for you, not themselves or some other interest. If they already have it figured out how they want to address these problem before they’ve even talked to you, it is unlikely that they are actually there to do the job they are meant to do.
Of course, it could also be that you are just as lazy and will refuse to speak with your employee after you’ve hired him. In which case your poor leadership is the true recipe for disaster.
During the next federal election this will be my “single issue” that will determine who I vote for.
What do you expect is going to happen? Every party is going to make promises to fix the crisis and none of them will deliver. You really think election promises mean anything?
I’d believe the NDP to be sincere in their promise to fix it, at least until they prove otherwise, but they won’t be elected so they won’t get the chance
Yeah it’s easy to believe in someone who will never get a chance to show if they deserved your belief or not.
I mean the alternative is voting for someone who time and again has proven they’re not acting with your interests in mind, and I’m talking both red and blue here
Certainly. Hiring among union members will never be in your best interest as their employer. Unions work for the employees – forever and always.
The employers (i.e. you and me) in some ridings have little choice, though. The talent pool is only so large.
Agreed. Pretty much any property a person owns past the first single-family home or equivalent should be treated as income and business expense and should be taxed as such. There should be a bigger incentive when you move homes to buy a new home and sell your previous. Rather than buying a home when you move and putting the previous up for rent, slowly accumulating properties to be used as passive income and denying homeownership to younger people.
I’m not 100% sure we should even allow corporations to own housing property at all, but that’s a bigger question.
Unfortunately, in the case of housing a lot of the abuses of tenants’ rights tends to be caused by amateur landlords (who don’t know how to properly plan ahead). There are a lot of laws to know and unexpected costs involved, so having a larger building management entity makes sense here. It would be cool if non-profit renters’ co-ops (like the people in Hamilton trying to buy their apartment building) could be successfully formed.
High inflation is worse for workers than high interest rates since wage hikes always lag price rises. This round of inflation was brought to us by poor economic decisions … pumping billions of dollars into the economy without raising taxes, as well as the Ukraine war. It wasn’t caused by corporate greed, as some claim. The BoC is doing absolutely the right thing. If they don’t raise rates now they only kick the can down the road when the pain would be far worse.
The inflation is fueled by short supply rather than excess demand.
I’m no economist but if our current supplies cannot even meet the baseline demand, rising rate does little to nothing but hurt the average Canadian.
The average Canadian already have nothing left to “cut” on their spending, people gotta eat and shelter. This is the baseline demand. Unless the goal is to make people homeless and starve, without increasing supply and invest in productive investments, the inflation will not end.
“inflation is actually good for the non-rich” – some embarrassed millionaire’s opinion.
Oh, that’s rich indeed.
Bank of Canada is only following the current leading economic theories such as Countercyclical Monetary Policy . The issue is that economic theories change with technology and advancements. There’s an argument to be made that the prevailing theories from the early 2000s no longer apply, but what is the alternative?
The government has other levers on inflation that the BOC does not. If they were using them, there would be less pressure on the BOC to use their one lever. The government has a choice of levers that impact different people differently, and could help spread out the pain, like corporate tax rates, and passing laws that effect property tax calculations for investment properties.
The government
Governments. Both federal and provincial governments can manage corporate tax rates, and both provincial and municipal governments can manage property tax rates.
But each of these governments serve the will of the people, and all three governments ultimately serve the very same people. Good luck convincing the people that they should willing choose to pay higher taxes.
Higher interest rates are the tough medicine we do need today to combat inflation. But government policies need to be there to ensure the social costs are minimized but somehow that safety net isn’t sufficient today is it? Additionally more action needs to be done on oligopolies and consolidation that’s happening across every industry that reduces competition.
