108
Almost half of Canadians living paycheque to paycheque as Tory support grows: poll
(www.winnipegfreepress.com)
this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2023
108 points (94.3% liked)
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The problem is we're facing a crisis where once in the entire stupid goddamned history of economic crises, this the one time where small-government libertarianism actually really would help. Municipal government overrestriction of housing-construction (also a few federal housing regs like single-stair construction) is a massive chunk of the problem. And both the Liberal and NDP parties have a very tight relationship with municipal governments and so they want to keep their friends there. Meanwhile, Pierre Poilievre isn't a "friends" type of person, so he's able to call out the "let them eat cake" politics of municipal governments.
Of course, (a) there's a substantial chance that PP is lying about his plans to strongarm municipal governments, and (b) while he may help solve the crisis with that action, he will also likely help exacerbate it on the other hand by slashing supports for the poorest Canadians, and he'll also create a few new crises related to climate change and LGBTQ rights, and possibly vaccines.
So yeah, no love for him.
But I'm not looking forward to the day when a Conservative federal government is kicking municipal asses and I have to go to bat for an absolute shitheel like Poilievre on the principle that he is right exclusively on this one very specific issue.
The problem is that every single thing a Conservative does is designed to look like is helping the common man when its actually helping the wealthy and corporations. Dig for us going to make land available for 50,000 units of urban sprawl? Million dollar houses that only the upper middle class can afford and 8 billion dollars of benefit to his wealthy friends. They weave a good story that the least of us believe while the entire time funneling billions and billions of dollars of the tax money paid by the least of us to the wealthiest of us and corporations. What we need is good management and good social programs. We're not going to get that combination from either party so I would rather have social programs while they try to figure it out.
The problem is, as I said, this is one of the few times where "letting dead-eyed mobbed up property developers make a goddamned mountain of money" will actually help everyone. I mean, even the abominable and corrupt crap Ford is doing to the greenbelt will help - every house, even million-dollar mcmansions, helps fight the crisis.
It's a game of musical chairs where the chairs are allocated by money instead of by speed. Adding more chairs to the game helps more people win regardless. Even if you're adding more thrones, that means there's more milking-stools left-over for the poor instead of those milking-stools getting flipped and upgraded into artisanal urban kneeling seats to sell to the people who have the money for thrones.
And not only that, but PP's stated plan: kick municipal asses until they start hitting housing targets? That would force municipalities to allow more housing. And assuming greenbelts remain in place (fingers-crossed), that would mean that cities would by necessity have to upzone and implement better, more urbanist, more intesification-friendly planning policies. That's way better than Ford's greenbelt crap, but then Ford didn't campaign on the greenbelt crap.
But yes, assuming PP is being honest about his plan: It's sneaky and yet still far better than not doing it and I'm mostly angry at his opponents for getting us to this point.
This is incorrect. Unsustainable housing developments make municipalities poorer which worsens their ability to provide housing. We need to densify our populated places, not build new low-density developments in the middle of nowhere which will inevitably require costly highway expansions for the people there to get anywhere for work or amenities.
The fact that American sprawl cities have affordable housing shows that sprawl does help. Yes, sprawl is bad economics and worse environmentalism, but it does control housing prices.
For example, Zillow pegs the median home price in Houston, TX at $260k USD. It's a suburban hellscape, but a reasonably-priced one.
Housing cost doesn't matter on its own. Cost of living is what matters. If you get a cheap house but you need to spend a lot on transportation to get anywhere and do anything you're still fucked. Houston suburbs are gonna be more expensive to live in than a small apartment in urban Montreal.
We have a limited number of builders and resources. It's not helping by having them build a ton of mcmansions when they could be building high density condos instead.
We don't really know what they'd build given the choice since one of those options is generally illegal (you can get special executive permission that makes it legal, but you could say the same about murdering people in countries that have a pardoning system).
If they can change the rules to allow building in the greenbelt, they can change the rules to allow higher density residence.
Right but I'm talking about federal and that's provincial. In fact, Ford put together a Housing Affordability Task Force a few years back and that's exactly what they recommended! He just... y'know.... didn't do any of it. Not sure why he even asked them in the first place.
It boggles my mind that you think PP and his conservatives would support urbanism. Their core demographic is suburban NIMBYs. He's just lying to swing voters.
The trick is the "half million population limit" he promised, which will make densification something he does to the Liberal cities on behalf of his exurban voter-base. And this is a specific, quantifiable promise he has mentioned repeatedly with hard numbers.
I don't discount the possibility he could half-ass it and let it die in consultation the way the Liberals did with electoral reform... but on the other hand, when have Conservatives ever given a shit about consultation?
Edit: either way, I'm not saying "conservatives are good". I hate them for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is they represent an active threat to trans friends and family.
All I'm saying is "using the threat of municipal funding cuts to force cities to fix their planning departments and rapidly greenlight large infill developments is a good idea and the Liberals+NDP should steal it".
Even if he was hypothetically not lying about wanting to address housing in the way he suggests, I still wouldn't be able to support him because eroding our social protections and freedoms is not worth it.
But I also think the likely hood that he upsets his rich suburban supporters and friends by allowing condos to be built next to their nice houses is close to zero. So it's probably one of those bullshit planks like the liberals saying they were going to potentially get rid of first past the post. There are zero consequences for our politicians lying like this.
It would be nice if our elections laws defined a class of promises where if they are broken an election is forcibly triggered.
He might go through with it, but he specifically targets "cities of over a half-million people". Here in Hamilton, most suburbs have fantasies about de-amalgamation, and with Conservative provincial governments in charge I could see that happening to pander to them. I mean, while it's not directly applicable here, note how Ford is accommodating Mississauga's exit of the Peel region -- not directly comparable because it's above the limit and the members of Peel that are below the limit are already their own cities and towns since it's just a regional government and not a municipality. But still, it shows how the door is open for this conversation.
Basically, PP will pander to his base by making urban intensification something he does to the cities on behalf of his suburban supporters. I mean, his biggist threat against these cities is to cut transit funding... do most crappy stand-alone exurbs even have transit?
And as grotesque and craven as that is, it's somehow still a better plan than anything his opponents have offered.
He will never get my vote. I can hear the transphobic dog-whistles and have people I need to protect. But I won't blame others for choosing differently, and I do blame the entire political centre and left for carving out the bottom of Maslow's hierarchy of needs to decorate the top when it comes to housing, which created the policy vacuum that PP stepped into.