MacKinnon also mentioned the
creation of a new federal housing agency, announced Sunday by Carney.
However, he declined to offer details on October’s much-anticipated budget.
When asked how the government could expect opposition support with controversial issues — such as the promised “austerity” budget sure to rankle the NDP and Bloc Quebecois — MacKinnon maintained that collaboration with Conservatives is key.
What is an affordable home? The issue isn’t the cost of housing, but its relation to wages. Across the country, real estate prices
rose seven times faster than wages since 1981. That gap is narrowing, with average home
prices down four per cent in Toronto and Vancouver year over year.

But it’s still not enough to entice many middle-class buyers. The first goal of Build Canada Homes is to construct transitional and supportive housing. These aren’t “forever homes” but housing that gets people off the street or out of precarious situations.
Prime Minister Mark Carney and the Liberal government are in the housing business. Last week, Carney unveiled
Build Canada Homes, a $13 billion development scheme that will
help fund the construction of 4,000 modular homes on six sites across the country starting next year, and “scale” up to 45,000. The agency
will “fight homelessness by building transitional and supportive housing… build deeply affordable and community housing for low-income households, and partner with private market developers to build affordable homes for the Canadian middle class.”
Newsflash: in major metropolitan areas, such homes already exist. Both Toronto and Vancouver are seeing
an unprecedented condo crash. In Toronto, at publication, there are 3,279 listings going for $600,000 or less, with units
starting to sell in the $300,000’s, prices not seen for decades. There are also 1,911
unsold new units in completed projects and 11,073 unsold units currently under construction.
The condo market is crashing
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Chrystia Freeland found the way out. It was an elegant solution to a political problem that had to be solved.
Canada’s new government, as the Liberal marketing team contrives to call Prime Minister
Mark Carney’s ministry, has a lot riding on being seen as new. Their political strategy relies on being seen as something other than
Justin Trudeau’s old government. Ms. Freeland’s departure won’t be the last. Mr. Carney will still be looking to remake the cabinet in his image.
Despite her role in ending Mr. Trudeau’s tenure as prime minister, Ms. Freeland was the minister most prominently associated with him. She spent a decade in his cabinet, the last five as an alter ego, the deputy prime minister, one step behind Mr. Trudeau at a news conference, bobble heading approval for his words.
Anyway, back to housing, if the government wanted to house thousands of homeless people today, it could scoop up condos at bargain prices, hire the same
“mission driven organizations” it mentions to help people settle, and mandate treatment programs for addiction and mental health issues as a quid pro quo. Instead, the government wants to start building modular housing in a year’s time, from scratch. Oh well…
Our leaders need to realize that more socialism is not a cure for past socialist excesses
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