Tag: election

Can New Housing Strategies Solve Canada’s Affordable Housing Shortage?

April 26, 2025

With the Canadian federal election only days away, all federal parties have offered plans to tackle the housing shortage and its impact on affordability.

High housing prices, expensive rents, and a shortage of homes are key issues, especially for first-time homebuyers. Unfortunately, there are no simple solutions. The proposals presented by party leaders comprise well-worn ideas that have been around for decades.

While one party wants to double the annual housing construction to 500,000 units, another proposes 3 million units over 5 years—an annual rate of 600,000. According to one study, Canada must construct three million housing units by 2030 to satisfy demand and lower prices. The housing industry has averaged only 250,000 units built annually in recent years.

Canadians’ income levels are tied to affordability. The average salary in Canada is $67,000, while the average home price is $670,000. Salaries can vary based on age, occupation, and other factors, and home prices vary across the country depending on location factors. Historically, housing was affordable when an individual’s income was one-third of the home’s price. Home ownership becomes unattainable for many people today when the home price reaches ten times their annual income.

Despite these challenges, the housing market continues to bubble because of two-income households and help from family members.

We can attribute the current housing crisis to the imbalance between supply and demand. Demand has surged because of a rise in immigration; the government has acknowledged this situation and has implemented measures to reduce the number of immigrants. However, the government has not addressed supply.

The major political parties propose a plethora of ideas to increase supply:

A proposal to establish a new government agency, “Build Canada Homes,” immediately caught my attention. Whoa! I remembered the Ministry of State for Urban Affairs, a government agency established years ago that ran into provincial jurisdiction and was abolished. I worked there and learned the hard way not to interfere with provincial matters. And how long would it take to create a new agency?

One party proposes rent control due to steeply escalating rents, averaging over $2,000. Policymakers in Europe and North America have long discussed and implemented this system. However, it has always resulted in a lack of maintenance and deteriorating buildings. Rent control does not increase the housing supply; it does the opposite, although it benefits long-term rentals. It also leads to “renovictions,” or forcible eviction of people for renovations and the subsequent legal rent increase.

Another proposal is to build “affordable” housing units for homeless individuals, students, low-income families, and indigenous people. When I asked my local councillor to define affordable housing, he could not provide one. Subsidies are necessary to encourage developers to construct units that are not based on market rates.

There are also suggestions for building prefabricated housing, which is less expensive than traditional methods but of lower quality.

Yet another idea is to train more people in the building trades. The shortage of skilled labor is one reason Canada builds only about 250,000 housing units yearly.

People blame the cost and duration of the regulatory process, zoning, and associated standards, such as the building code, for increased costs. There’s a convincing argument for reducing standards to lower expenses, but would Canadians go back to smaller bedrooms and less insulation?

While the proposed solutions have merit, a significant issue remains: Most of these pertain to provincial matters, including planning, zoning, rent control, and building codes, all of which fall under local jurisdictions. Local governments are also responsible for education and training, should a program for skilled trades be established.

Housing inventory can only increase through new land development and the densification of existing urban areas. Since local jurisdictions control these functions, the federal government has limited opportunities to expand the housing stock beyond providing financial resources and taxation strategies, such as reducing the GST for first-time homebuyers (proposals also exist to use vacant federal lands and buildings for “affordable” housing).

Besides the limited availability of land and skilled labor for house construction, the rising cost of materials presents a significant barrier to building affordable housing. This begs the question: Can the federal government regulate the price of construction materials?

Considering the housing problem more broadly revealed added complexities. For example, homelessness is often associated with mental health issues and substance abuse, leading to more complex problems that need specific solutions.

Another complicating factor is that, with low unemployment rates in Canada today, many young people may not see the need to train for skilled trades when they already have jobs. Governments should promote training in skilled trades such as carpentry and plumbing, which offer good pay. Employed people, however, might be reluctant to switch careers.

I’m wary of recycled housing solutions presented as novel ideas. The proposed ideas are not fresh: similar proposals have been made before, and I wonder why these proposals have not been implemented. I believe the emphasis should be on cooperative action at all levels of government and execution rather than just rhetoric.

Democracy in Action

October 23, 2022

On August 24, municipal election signs sprouted in Ottawa faster than flowers in the spring. Like overnight. They set the election for October 24. The candidates heavily sprinkled all major street intersections with signs in assorted colors. And there were a few humongous signs, noticeable from a distance; the candidate probably thought a few large signs are as good as numerous small ones.

I have followed the candidate debates in the media and in person, and I attended a meeting with the local ward candidates organized by my community association. My local candidates avoided arguing with each other at the request of the moderator, making it less of an interesting meeting except for a few eruptions when one candidate threw mud on another one.

Then I attended a larger, ward-wide meeting with all the local candidates, which attracted up to a hundred interested, and polite residents. I could almost read the attendee’s priorities from their comments – they were homeowners wishing for no property tax increases. As well, they expressed concern over densification via high-rise development and attendant construction with all the mess that comes with it. So the key issue to these attendees was to conserve the single-family residential character of our ward by preserving the R1 zone.

Although lip service was paid to affordable housing, the attendees had only a passing interest in the subject. They were homeowners.

Judging by the age of the participants – many retired, with a car at home – better bus service, or the construction of the light-rail transit (LRT), serving downtown were of mild concern. Especially considering that direct access to the LRT will be very limited for most residents of Ward 9.

Most candidates seemed to echo the attendees’ sentiments, hoping to garner support.

But these local objectives within wardscreate hard choices for the mayoral candidates who must deal with housing and transportation issues. For example, ridership pays for only forty-five percent of the city’s transportation budget. Should fees be raised? One candidate proposes to provide free transport for all people under seventeen years of age; that would create additional costs for the city’s transportation budget.

The two leading candidates have published detailed plans for housing, transportation, the environment, the economy, and the growth of Ottawa. With few exceptions, I found a large overlap between the two candidates’ proposals. For example, there is talk about net-zero buildings, electric buses, and the LRT in the campaign literature of both candidates. The differences are in the way the proposals would be implemented.  

The leading mayoral candidate in this very close race is a two-time councilor who calls herself “they”, and proposes to increase the city’s budget by ten percent, which includes a plan for a 250-million dollar build-out of a bicycle system for Ottawa. Considering that Ottawa is not a bicycling town for six months of the year, this is a questionable proposal at best.

The other leading candidate has never been a publicly elected official, comes from a business and media background, and promises to keep the property tax to the two to two and a half percent annual increase. And he proposes a “balanced” transportation budget, improving streets and addressing the inadequate bus system.

I believe the choice between the two leading candidates comes down to additional spending versus fiscal discipline. And I think your voting preference most likely wouldfollow your stage in life. If you are young and live in an apartment with limited resources and starting a family, then you would be interested in affordable housing and bicycle paths, and good urban transportation. If you already have a house and a backyard for your children, or are an empty-nester and maybe retired, then you would be interested in keeping property taxes at current levels.   

And again, there are the candidates ’personalities and backgrounds that may be important to voters. One is a Centretown activist whose platform reflects the values of downtown residents (either single, childless, and most likely apartment dwellers), who have also declared that they (she) would accept no donations from developers. The other leading candidateis a family man and marathon runner with a long history in the volunteer sector who has yet to disclose his donation list.

There is a real choice for Ottawans between two candidates in this election. One is a “progressive” leaning towards additional expenditures for city services while the other one is more to the middle, leaning towards fiscal discipline. I believe demographics and voter turnout may be decisive factors in who will win.