leftwingmememachine

Betting the farm on the public sector to solve the housing crisis is never going to work - and that’s the approach we’ve tried (and failed) to take.

Public housing projects have been systemically defunded since the 90s...

Betting the farm on the private-sector to solve the housing crisis is never going to work - and that's the approach we've tried (and failed) to take

Here's the bitter reality. The houses we're building are large, detached, single family homes. Our municipalities are subsidizing sprawl by banning dense housing and waiving development charges on new suburbs - even though suburban homes are more expensive to serve with utilities, public transit, policing, and healthcare. That's where the public money is going - not to more homes, but subsidizing suburban living. Provincial governments have been unanimously onboard with this scheme, and Ontario's provincial government has just engaged in a nakedly corrupt scheme to enrich developers with over 8 billion dollars worth of Greenbelt land swaps. The federal government has defunded public housing projects for the past 30 years.

Simply saying "we don't have enough builders" ignores the decades of policy failure, and is an easy way to throw in the towel. But the fact is, we can allocate our existing resources better.

The fact is, the NDP and conservatives lost the last election. The NDP won 25 seats. And polling right now shows that the conservatives are going to win the next election if it were called tomorrow.

In the last parliament, from 2019-2021, there was also a Liberal minority, with deal between any party. But the Liberals simply got what they wanted because they could count on the support of either the Bloc (when shooting down legislation over jurisdiction), the NDP (for childcare), or the Conservatives (when legislating workers back to work), and have a working majority.

So, the NDP has three options:

1. Have little influence and get played like they did from 2019-2021
2. Bring down the government, with a high chance of a conservative majority: which would mean tax cuts for the rich, cuts to healthcare, and giant cash handouts to the private-sector for housing that will enrich developers and effectively scam the taxpayer - I mean, just look at Ford's absolutely transparent greenbelt corruption
3. Use their power to broker a deal with the Liberals, guaranteeing them stability in exchange for serious concessions on healthcare (dental care and pharmacare), worker's rights (paid sick days, anti-scab legislation), climate (phasing out fossil fuel subsidies), childcare (ensuring that care is done by public and non-profit instead of private providers), and housing (a few extra billion dollars, which is wildly insufficient IMO)

Option 3 is probably the best deal. Would an NDP government do more to tackle the housing crisis? Yes, but in the current parliament, with only 25 seats, you get what you can get. I think the NDP should push for more, be more aggressive, and have a more credible threat of pulling the plug in order to extract more from the Liberals, and for that reason, I'm not super excited about the way things are going. I'll certainly push for more at the party convention.

However, let's look at the bigger picture. What policy goals have the other parties (including the conservatives) actually accomplished in Parliament over the past decade? They've made a bunch of noise, but gotten pretty much nothing done.

We need a massive, WW2-style investment in home construction, and we need housing prices to go down. That's something that the NDP believes in more than any other party. Take a look at this response in the last leader's debate, where Singh actually pushes back on the notion that housing should be an investment and prices should keep going up. You think Poilievre or Trudeau are going to say anything like that?

The fact is though, that REITs are buying up massive amounts of property, have perverse tax incentives, and have a lot of political influence through their accumulation of capital over the past decades.

True, although in practice not all EDAs will send their full delegate allotment, and any NDP member can apply to fill the unused delegate slots, even if they don't live in that riding. But its on a first-come first-serve basis, so there's no guarantee you'll make it.

Or, alternatively, I made a custom format!

Also, hundreds of thousands of dollars funneled into right-wing orgs like Ontario Proud comes from real estate developers. They love to get their people into office!

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-proud-election-advertising-spending-1.4941210

The tweet is from Larry Savage, a labour studies professor. Media hasn't reported about it as of the time I posted. But I chose the title - it is what Laura Walton is known for, defying the back to work legislation passed recently by Doug Ford and successfully getting it repealed. A gutsy move!

The only other thing I can link to is a press release from Laura's slate. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/team-ignite-announces-candidacy-ontario-204300505.html