On the other hand, making it expensive to be a landlord also drives up what people need to pay for rent to cover those costs. There should be options for people to get housing without having to commit to owning it themselves. Income from rental properties is subject to income taxes, and there's lots of subsidies/incentives that reduce housing costs that only apply to a primary dwelling, not rental properties.

Personally, I'd like to see a crown corp that does housing. Set reasonable pricing and a base standard of what people should expect from a rental property and the private industry has to compete with that.