It's foolish to think freeing markets and economies from the purpose of achieving social goods will benefit society. It is the nature of markets etc to focus only on making money.
The austerity budgets were under Chrétien and Martin—it was real slash and burn stuff. And their justification for it was maybe good, but they also had a chance to restore funding after the books were balancing and they didn’t. They just kicked the can down the road.
I really wish that people would use the word "subsidize" housing instead of "affordable " in this type of situation. Affordable housing has taken on many meanings nowadays from below market pricing to subsidized/support housing. This graph is about the latter and not the former.
"Subsidized housing" would need to include areas like tax breaks on mortgage payments (even on second properties), or tax loopholes for corporations that treat housing as a speculative assets, etc, – which have no effect, or usually worsen, on housing affordability. The current market is manipulated
Terms need to be better defined. In the good old days, subsidized housing was housing built by government, maybe with private partners, and rents were subsidized by governments. That is what changed in the 1990s.
I'm not sure that lack of affordable housing (read: rising housing and rent costs) can be pinned solely on this change. The lack of regulation against practices like blind bidding and the erosion of rental increase limits under Ford with the Restoring Trust, Transparency and Accountability Act in ON
I think the point stands that moderate left wing governments have failed to counter neoliberal policies, and advanced those policies by having a lefty veneer while continuing policies that hurt the middle class
Agreed, however it's been successive governments at all levels that have eroded (or failed to institute) policy protections and/or have cut services and/or taxes that have inadvertently (or more frighteningly not) conspired to get us here.
I remember that 33 cents of every dollar was going to pay down the deficit. We were never going to beat that back without devastating cuts. We lost the train system too.
And Harper made sure the govt couldn't afford to reinstate any of that after the deficit was under control.
Our current fiscal situation is comparable to Germany and you see how they are ramping up spending in light of the current situation, we need to seriously consider doing the same.
The numbers aren't really anything to disagree with. The decline started under Mulroney, but rock bottom was achieved and deliberately maintained by Chrétien-Martin. Mulroney's worst year was double Chrétien-Martin's best. End of story.
Ontario still hasn't recovered from Harris. The Libs and NDP didn't effectively undo any of his horrible cuts, and drabs like Ford have just kept slowly advancing them.
Have you looked at PP's record as Housing Minister under Harper ?
Yes, he built more than 6 houses
In over half the country, he invested zero dollars to build more rentals
He let 800,000 affordable homes be sold off to corporate developers
He called a family home in Niagara Falls a tiny little shack
not too sure about that. the slide started in the early 80's along with the split of real wages and productivity. As far as I know the feds can incentivise but not build its up to the provinces to do that. btw I am all for social housing supports just not unfounded blame. IE look at Finland
I was very young when it was going on, but I think honestly Canada, the US, and the UK sorta did the same thing in the 80s and early 90s. Had a super neolib leader (Mulroney, Reagan, Thatcher) and followed it up with a neolib from the other party that was maybe a bit less (Clinton, Chretien, Blair)
Comments
Obviously regardless Chretien deserves at least some blame for leaving it in that state but I am curious as to the cause
This is also a recent and excellent commentary on how we got here (because our situation is similar to the UK's): https://youtu.be/0quhLtBXijM?si=HMlbas8hkxMMUy6G
I just worry when some people say “at least they weren’t as bad as ____” which just lowers the bar and also provides cover for neoliberalism.
Our current fiscal situation is comparable to Germany and you see how they are ramping up spending in light of the current situation, we need to seriously consider doing the same.
Yes, he built more than 6 houses
In over half the country, he invested zero dollars to build more rentals
He let 800,000 affordable homes be sold off to corporate developers
He called a family home in Niagara Falls a tiny little shack