The federal Liberals are seeing a dive in popularity among younger voters, once the core of their base, falling 23 points behind the Conservatives by the end of August, according to new polling from Nanos Research.
The federal Liberals are seeing a dive in popularity among younger voters, once the core of their base, falling 23 points behind the Conservatives by the end of August, according to new polling from Nanos Research.
Almost everything you’ve listed is provincial jurisdiction. We don’t have a national securities regulator because the last attempt at one was struck down by the SCC. Most business regulation is provincial, zoning is provincial, property taxes are provincial etc.
The BoC controls interest rates, but they act independently, the PM has no control over what they do beyond who they appoint to run it.
The only way they can get involved is with federal-provincial agreements. The provinces have deep connections with developers, so they’re not going to do anything about the real issues of restrictive zoning and so on. Just look at Doug Ford and the Green Belt fiasco.
If you want to fix housing, go after the province. Agree or not with what they did, interprovincial pipelines are a federal responsibility.
I’m quick to pounce on both-sides-ism, but OP seems to make a clear criticism of the Liberals policy history without venturing there. On several portfolios, they have done pretty good work, but to imply that they can do nothing on housing affordability is disingenuous. The feds used to fund public housing, and they could do it again. They could work directly with municipalities if the provinces object (which they probably wouldn’t).
They also regulate mortgage rules. Term lengths, stress tests, capital gains rules, etc. There are plenty of levers they could pull to make it easier for new home owners, and harder for real-estate speculators. They could also provide low interest mortgages, or interest relief, to designated groups.
The Feds have all sorts of their own levers they could pull to reign in the housing market. To date, the only levers they’ve pulled are to increase demand (RRPS withdrawls, shared equity (LOL), FHSA).