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New Canadian Politics Thread

Inflation-adjust the avg/median home price currently and you'll be surprised at how little we've actually grown since 2015. 2021 and early 2022 was a bubble.. I was shopping during Feb. 2022 and I flat out stopped because I was noticing houses suddenly getting 1-2 offers compared to 15+ before and the prices were absolutely ridiculously insane. That was my tell that the bubble was about to pop. So I chilled out for a few months at that point.

But things have corrected a lot since and growth since 2015, inflation-adjusted, is kind of pathetic at this point.
 
I spoke to a (very successful) builder recently about this issue, and he was really frustrated about the amount of red tape and cost involved in getting projects approved. He said the cost of houses is increased by something like 25-30% by this. I asked what it would be in the U.S. and he wasn't sure, but thought it was probably around 10-15%.

I don't know if this is mostly federal, provincial or municipal but seems like an obvious place to start. I'm sure we can cut that down to 20% and still have all the safety regulations we need. Not to mention the absurdity of these bureaucracy delays. I can't imagine how dumb a person would have to be to not understand how crucial it is to fix this asap.

As for the video, it's pretty well-made, even though it's ridiculous. Trudeau's government has got to do something about housing, including calling out provincial and municipal governments, before it's too late. It already is too late.
 
axlsalinger said:
I spoke to a (very successful) builder recently about this issue, and he was really frustrated about the amount of red tape and cost involved in getting projects approved. He said the cost of houses is increased by something like 25-30% by this. I asked what it would be in the U.S. and he wasn't sure, but thought it was probably around 10-15%.

I don't know if this is mostly federal, provincial or municipal but seems like an obvious place to start. I'm sure we can cut that down to 20% and still have all the safety regulations we need. I can't imagine how dumb a person would have to be to not understand how crucial it is to fix this asap.

As for the video, it's pretty well-made, even though it's ridiculous. Trudeau's government has got to do something about housing, including calling out provincial and municipal governments, before it's too late.
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Permitting is municipal, health and safety as well as building codes is mostly provincial with federal legislation setting certain minimum standards.

I don't feel particularly bad for the builders though either, they've shown for years now that they would much rather go through the "red tape" to bulldoze a wetland to build a higher profit mcmansion subdivision than they would take on a shovel ready townhouse or apartment complex for lower margins. They're a huge part of the problem, don't let them tell you different.
 
MindzEye said:
Permitting is municipal, health and safety as well as building codes is mostly provincial with federal legislation setting certain minimum standards.

I don't feel particularly bad for the builders though either, they've shown for years now that they would much rather go through the "red tape" to bulldoze a wetland to build a higher profit mcmansion subdivision than they would take on a shovel ready townhouse or apartment complex for lower margins. They're a huge part of the problem, don't let them tell you different.
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I don't disagree, just saying that these are the people building subdivisions of new houses, and barring any environmental issues it's a no-brainer to find a way to get them built faster and cheaper.
 
red tape is not the issue.

profit margins for developers are healthy and growing.

betterdwelling.com

Home Builder Profit Margins Increased In Canada and The US Despite The Narrative - Better Dwelling

No need to worry about your local home builder’s profit margin — they’re actually rising. CoConstruct, who provides construction project management software to over 100,000 clients, took a dive into builder margins. Analyzing client data, they found home builder profit margins climbed in Canada...
betterdwelling.com betterdwelling.com
 
axlsalinger said:
I don't disagree, just saying that these are the people building subdivisions of new houses, and barring any environmental issues it's a no-brainer to find a way to get them built faster and cheaper.
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Nah, sub divisions are part of the problem. A significant part of the "red tape" builders complain about in Ontario is that the desirable municipalities to build in have grown to their boundaries due to single family subdivisions being the only thing we've built over the last 30 years and new sub divisions now need to encroach on protected habitats, or beyond the boundaries of the municipality and into neighbouring municipalities that don't have the budgets to run sewer/power servicing that far from their current infrastructure. So we instead end up with this game where the municipality the builder has spent 20 years influencing the local politics of, spends an inordinate amount of time trying to annex boundary zones from their neighbours rather than focusing on densification and infill.

Densification is the solution to our problems, point blank period. Not more sprawl that is expensive as fuck for the city to support.
 
MindzEye said:
Densification is the solution to our problems, point blank period. Not more sprawl that is expensive as fuck for the city to support.
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Absolutely, this should be a big part of the solution, especially in cities. Gov't needs to figure out how to make it easier and cheaper to encourage it. I was thinking more about subdivisons in smaller towns, because they are starting to have more and more homeless people which was never a problem before. Certainly there are elements of mental illness and addiction in the equation, but when people can't afford even the cheapest rent in their area the problem is officially out of control.

Although this problem is likely signicantly worse in the US because of Trudeau, right?
 
axlsalinger said:
Absolutely, this should be a big part of the solution, especially in cities. Gov't needs to figure out how to make it easier and cheaper to encourage it. I was thinking more about subdivisons in smaller towns, because they are starting to have more and more homeless people which was never a problem before. Certainly there are elements of mental illness and addiction in the equation, but when people can't afford even the cheapest rent in their area the problem is officially out of control.
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Even there though, the focus should be on medium density stuff as close to the centre of town as possible. Isolated suburbs are generally unsustainable, they require huge capital expenditure to run main trunk sewer and power utility to, significant increases in cost for basic servicing, and take in a relatively small amount of annual taxes per sq/km compared to other types of (non supercentre...fml) land uses.


Although this problem is likely signicantly worse in the US because of Trudeau, right?
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It's an international problem and mostly can be laid at Justinder's feet, absolutely.
 
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