Praise and Flak, and What the Other Parties Offer.
The many housing pieces in the federal government are garnering praise for good initiatives and criticism for significantly insufficient investments, as our analysis last week did. Some links to good analyses are below.
What sets the Liberals apart from the Conservatives are investments in non-profit housing. What sets the NDP apart from the Liberals is the size of investments proposed.
The Conservatives would withhold federal funding from “unaffordable cities like Vancouver” if they don’t increase homebuilding by 15% annually. The Liberals are providing incentives and conditional grants. The Conservatives would also have penalties for municipalities that give into NIMBYism—Not-In-My-Back Yard. There would be rewards for cities that are “removing gatekeepers” and getting housing built. The Conservative would sell off 15 per cent of federal buildings for affordable housing. The Conservative would require that every dollar of new spending be matched by a dollar of savings.
The Conservative platform has no specific reference to non-profit housing, which housing experts (and for-profit builders) see as the only way to provide the kind of deeply affordable housing that at least 1.45 million Canadian households (28,000 in Hamilton) in core housing need could afford.
The NDP’s website only shows the party’s 2021 platform, which said an NDP government would create 500,000 units of good, affordable housing in a decade, partly through streamlined approvals, working with provinces and municipalities, mobilizing federal resources and land. That’s about triple the Liberal target for new construction. The NDP said they would waive the GST/HST on new affordable rental units, similar to what the Liberals have recently done; and provide rent relief for tenants in OK housing that is not affordable. They’d double the Home Buyer’s Tax Credit and impose a 20 per cent Foreign Buyers’ tax on homes bought by non-Canadians.
There’s an excellent analysis of the budget’s housing and other provisions at the Maytree Foundation https://maytree.com/publications/2024-federal-budget-is-full-of-actions-short-on-results-for-the-most-marginalized/?mc_cid=f2076c020a Also good is the Co-operative Housing Federation of Canada https://chfcanada.coop/federal-budget2024/ which is still waiting for a robust co-op program.
The Canadian Urban Institute had a really useful one-hour discussion with some great housing experts which is well worth watching for its look at the budget and the housing policies we need at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIEqGCD5KKY