Canada

Many homes are vacant due waiting to make money via AirBnB.

Many office towers are empty and could be converted to apartments

Some homes are empty because they are investment vehicles and must be kept pristine to keep their value.

Homes are made unaffordable by Corporations outbidding anyone trying to buy a home.

Please note that all these issues are provincial domain. (b/c of division of powers) The PROVINCES are the ones doing nothing but it's politically advantageous for them to make the Federal look bad.

Since JT is probably not going to win the next election, could he call the Provinces' bluff and declare martial law on provinces that shirk their responsibilities on the housing issue?

I love when the news tries to blame Trudeau for provincial issues instead of, y’know, the provincial leaders

Two things would work:
-Fix the fucking restrictive residential zoning regs. This is provincial turf.
-Build more public housing. This is also provincial turf, but the feds had been involved in the past.

The difficulty with point 2 is that there has to be an agreement between the feds and the provinces. If the provinces don't want to build public housing, that's the end of it. The federal government can't just barge into provincial jurisdiction because they feel like it.

In the article they're talking about the peak of federal involvement in housing being the 1970s. That's not coincidental, as it was prior to the patriation of the constitution. If zoning doesn't allow for the typical 1970s 3-floor walk-up apartment blocks, the feds don't get to overrule those restrictions.

Food, healthcare, housing. The basic pillars of living standards. Every level of government is twiddling their thumbs.

I've been feeling this way for a while, but it's like — and this seems largely endemic to the western world — governments are coasting on decades-old policies and mindsets that were great decades ago, but either fail or neglect to come up with anything inventive, effective, and successful anymore. It's just little baby step legislative things here with a sprinkling of token stimulus there, because they're afraid to cause even the slightest upset to anyone with a modicum of power or influence.

When was the last time a federal or provincial government implemented something that was truly solving a problem in a massive and permanent way? The only thing I can think of that vaguely qualifies is CERB, and even that was light-handed relative to revolutionary steps of the past. It was also popular and an easy political sell.

Many plausible solutions to the housing and personal income crises are easy to imagine:

• ban corporate and foreign investment properties, forcibly purchase existing ones and turn them into public housing or sell them to small time owners
• limit the
• limit maximum rent increases to a percentage of inflation
• raise minimum wage to a livable standard and legislate its increase tied to inflation
• tax the goddamn rich already
• implement basic income
• implement and enforce maximum highest-to-lowest earner ratios, accounting for all wages, salaries, bonuses, investments, etc., to prevent any corporate tomfuckery

But these things would piss off too many powerful capitalists, of which many legislators happen to be members by sheer "coincidence," so instead, we get piss-ant cheques every once in a while that ease the pressure for, like, three days.

I'm not saying any of these things would be easy to implement, but they're not even trying. "Not pissing off the capitalists" needs to stop being a concern for governments. The capitalists will be fine, and if they decide to pack up and leave for greedier pastures, good fucking riddance.

They have to want to fix the problem, not just make easy political layups that create a facade of "doing something" without fixing anything.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

The situation has brewed for decades, and the blame can be pinned on city councils whose restrictive zoning laws keep the supply of housing well below demand.

The fact that Ottawa thought such a minor announcement was worthy of a press conference with the Prime Minister shows a poor grasp of reality.

First of all, as this space has argued, Ottawa’s aggressive immigration policy ignores Canada’s long-standing deficit of homes, as does its open door for international students paired with no plan for where they’ll live.

The failure of cities across the country to allow enough housing to be built has recently – finally – led to interventions by provincial governments in Ontario and British Columbia, where the problem is the worst.

One option is the numerous tax levers Ottawa can pull, similar to the 1970s, to help build housing such as affordable four-storey rental apartments.

While housing isn’t technically among Ottawa’s primary responsibilities, the federal government needs to redouble its efforts to make change happen.

I'm a bot and I'm open source!

If housing is to be a human right in practice, it makes sense to bring its protection under the federal government. By whatever means necessary.

I can't believe how far he put his foot in his mouth.

This guy traits reminds me of Cameron Diaz , don’t know why