Opinion | Pierre Poilievre’s urban planning obsession has him running to be mayor of Canada
thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2022/04/25/p...
thestar.comPosted Apr 26, 2022, 6:21 PM UTC
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thestar.comPlease keep running as many of these hit pieces as possible all the way up to the next election.
I think it's great to constantly remind Canadians that Pierre is over-reacting about housing prices, inflation, and wage stagnation. Not like that cool cucumber Trudeau, who couldn't be bothered!
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I think it’s absolutely hilarious. After Trump got elected it was repeatedly pointed out that if the media hadn’t been reporting on his campaign non-stop compared to the other candidates he wouldn’t have gotten so much national attention. Apparently nobody learned anything and the liberal media is happy to just keep putting polivere in the spotlight. Ok sure.
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If volumes of Oped's actually determine electoral success Trudeau is pretty much going to be PM forever..
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If only he was offering an actual solution to those serious issues
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At the very least his presence on the national scene is forcing the liberals to at least acknowledge these issues which until now they have been all too happy to ignore. Remember that housing was the top election issue last time around as well and the libs did… nothing because O’toole and Singh were applying very little pressure on them.
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That's a very good point. Its fine not to fully trust Pierre to truly fix the housing crisis, but at the very least he is forcing the libs to do more about it. That is a good thing imo.
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Trickle Down Rageonomics
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You are not correct when you claim the Liberals have done nothing about housing, mostly a provincial responsibility.
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Their plan is to throw more money at housing which is why it's fucked up to begin with. Brilliant.
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You're right, they have done a lot of blame shifting.
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At least he tables them and is shaping the election around them, that's more than can be said about the other three.
I don't want to vote for any of them, but PP is far from the bottom on my list of choices.
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I agree. But talking about them seriously is step 1. He's not running for PM yet.
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I see your lips flapping, but you aren't saying anything.
If you want to claim inflation, wage stagnation (at least forty years old) and housing prices (world-wide) you need to explain rationally what you mean. Hell, you haven't even established it is true.
This is a well-worn right-wing tactic and we are sick and tired of it. It would also help if you could explain the policies that PP is going to implement to solve the problem.
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It would also help if you could explain the policies that PP is going to implement to solve the problem.
Who knows if he will propose any.
But I do know that step 1 for solving the problem is acknowledging it.
When is Trudeau planning on doing that, exactly?
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I am not sure this is the best area to attack Pierre on. This is probably the most popular part of his plan. Of course, i agree its not clear that he really can or will do something meaningful about it, but i just don't think its the right angle of attack. Its true this is mostly a municipal power, but if you read his plan he does seem to have concrete ideas to push municipalities to do be doing more.
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The Toronto Star is scared.
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The mayor is more in touch with the people than federal politicians. Also a lot more approachable and amendable to good ideas.
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It’s not even an uncommon plan, it’s held by a significant number of people across party lines. Pierre has no shortage of stupid takes, and you pick one of his good ones to attack?
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Because the plan will not lower the cost of housing, because the issue isn't a lack of supply the issue is with Canadian unable to compete in the market.
let say Ontario builds 1,000,000 houses, who is going to buy them the person making 60K a year or the company with billion in capital.
the issue is the system is broken to benefit people like Trudeau and Polievres and not the middle class.
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Housing is mostly a provincial responsibility. Municipalities do not have the sort of funding required and explains why most (all?) provinces have Housing Ministries with Housing Ministers.
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Housing is mostly a provincial responsibility.
Remind me though, are immigration and foreign money laundering federal or provincial responsibilities?
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This hit piece is suggesting that I could elect a leader who would work with other levels of government to solve real problems. Increasing density, reducing crime and improving transit sounds like somebody I could vote for.
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Not the flex they were hoping for.
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Anything's better than the liberal stance on housing problems.
"Here's a savings account we created for you just for housing, isn't it grand? Wait, you've already been saving up money for a house in a TFSA or RRSP... Wait, we already have a first time homebuyer incentive that uses your RRSP? Uhh... Ban foreign owners, that'll fix it!"
What an absolute joke.
The government and their corporate masters have no desire to house you unless they get to suck you completely dry while doing it and smiling the whole time.
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I agree with you but I thought the Liberals hinted at something similar to what PP is proposing also?
I think the correct take is that both parties are offering weak policies.
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It's been seven years of governance. It's way past time for "hints". The fact that they have done nothing on the file this whole time is a damning failure.
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Hey 100% agreement there. Nobody hates Trudeau more than me!
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Yeah, true.
I'm sick of the division. People sticking up for political parties like they're their God and how THESE people will save our country.
People need to start being more accountable for themselves and the community. Politicians aren't really going to help us out - they're too far removed from the people they claim to represent.
I occasionally fall for it too - nobody said i was infallible :P
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Not true.
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Well, that's a wrap everyone. The Liberals made a webpage.
Looks like housing is solved.
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Isn't step 1 of solving the problem acknowledging it?
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Look at that webpage. Do you think it acknowledges the problem?
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Read through it all and it really seems like they're just throwing money at a problem and hoping it fixes it instead of dealing with the root causes and pretending it's working.
Will Canadians be paid more so they can afford a higher priced house and be recognized more for their labor value? No - they'll get another savings account, another billion dollars handed out to non-profits and private companies to try and convince them to build more houses, they'll "save closing costs on mortgages" - that's nice, but how does that help me buy a house now?
Are they going to limit corporate ownership on residential properties? Nope. Don't want to mess with the big financial companies.
Meaningful action from government is wishful thinking. They don't work for you, or me.
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Are they going to limit corporate ownership on residential properties? Nope. Don't want to mess with the big financial companies.
You really think THIS is the biggest driver, or at least has been for the last ten years, versus keeping prime at anemic rates and engaging in rounds of QE?
You are obviously right that the corporate vultures are contributing but let's address the biggest problems first.
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I'm not an economist so I can only comment on what I see around me personally, but the little I've read yeah you're right. It's a big problem that's been going on for a decade at this point. I was just using an example.
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Okay, so I watched it.
Half are concrete ideas of varying quality and we can all argue about their merits for weeks.
The other half are vague pabulum.
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So what you're saying is I could vote for the guy who is talking about the issues I care about or I could vote for the guy who is currently Prime Minister and doing nothing about the issues I care about.
Tough choice the Star is putting forward...
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I'm not even convinced PP would do anything if he got power. But it's somewhat refreshing to at least hear a politician talk consistently and passionately about issues I care about.
My greatest hope is that the mere threat of PP dealing with housing is enough to rouse other politicians into action.
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Incorrect.
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Originally I was downvoting these links to the Liberal website. But now I've realized that was a mistake and will upvote them.
I think it's important that all Canadians look at the Liberals' housing website to see exactly how little Trudeau cares.
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Why is there not a party suggesting we do the right thing on housing?
A land value tax would create a strong economic carrot and stick pushing us towards densification and building more dwellings per dollar spent on construction. There is no coherent argument against it.
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I already pay property tax how is a land value tax different?
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Property is based on the total value. Land is only the land (not the building).
For you, it could make tax higher or lower depending on where your house is.
If you are within a city on expensive land and your municipality is fighting against densification, it will increase your tax bill.
If you are in a small town or outside a city or anywhere where land is relatively cheap, it will reduce your tax bill.
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Property taxes are the idiotic cousin of land taxes. With property taxes you pay for what you own which means the bigger your development is the more you’ll pay in taxes, land value taxes tax you on the value of land exclusively and not what is built on it.
The end result is that property taxes punish you for being productive, and land taxes punish you for sitting on property you are not using.
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Why do we need to densify? Most Canadians want to live in Single Family Homes, as has been the Canadian norm since the founding of the country.
Just build more homes and reduce immigration until housing catches up.
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If you want a SFH, that's fine, you do you.
But please stop making it illegal for others to make different choices. Stop supporting NIMBY policies that make anything other than status quo an impossibility.
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But please stop making it illegal for others to make different choices. Stop supporting NIMBY policies that make anything other than status quo an impossibility.
It's not illegal for people to make different choices. Most of our current construction is multi-unit homes, even though most Canadians prefer SFHs.
So if anything, it's the other way around, Canadians are being bullied out of SFHs.
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Because our cities are large enough to where sprawl is an inefficient way to grow.
47% of Toronto is zoned residential, 30k total hectares. 30k hectares = 74k acres, assuming an average property being roughly 1/2 acre you could fit a whopping 148k houses by DOUBLING the size of Toronto. That’s an extremely generous number by the way, as it does not include roads, gas stations, parks, or any of the amenities necessary to support 150 thousand homes.
with that number in mind, you’d need to build roughly 10 Toronto’s of space worth of single family homes to meet Ontario’s housing requirements. and that’s just Ontario.
There’s no reason to continue to build exclusively single family homes. You say people prefer them? I say change the zoning and let people decide what they want to build themselves instead of having the government force a lifestyle upon them.
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Have you considered that most of the country does not live in the Toronto core, and that you are pushing densification policies in surburban and rural areas across the country?
There’s no reason to continue to build exclusively single family homes.
Exclusively my ass. Canada hardly builds any SFHs anymore. Only 1/4 of housing starts in the latest quarter. But you folks don't actually care about that. You just want to bully middle-class Canadians out of homes into tiny rentals.
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Have you considered that most of the country does not live in the Toronto core, and that you are pushing densification policies in surburban and rural areas across the country?
Im pushing for the rezoning of cities to meet demand. Yes, extremely low density suburbs in the middle of a downtown experiencing a housing crisis will need to densify, if you want to continue living in a detached home feel free but you must allow others to build up.
I find it hilarious you bring up rural areas too, what do you think is gonna get rolled over by your endless suburban sprawl? How many acres of land do we need to take before you realize sprawl isn’t a solution? We need millions of homes, you cannot meet that goal by expanding suburbs.
If everyone in Toronto were to live in a single family home with a half acre yard it would cover an area equivalent in size to PEI. Or, you could let people build up in existing cities so you don’t need to bulldoze millions of acres of forest and farmland.
not to mention suburbs are completely financially insolvent and cannot possibly generate the tax revenue to support their own infrastructure, suburbs are subsidized by the cities which host them and endless sprawl almost always ends in debt.
Exclusively my ass. Canada hardly builds any SFHs anymore. Only 1/4 of housing starts in the latest quarter.
I already pointed out to you in another thread that that “1/4 of housing starts” is actually 1/4 of units, meaning an apartment building may be counted as 40 units despite being a single construction.
Using the stats can data on housing starts it shows that around half of all unit construction are apartments, even using the most generous assumption that these are 4 unit multiplexes instead of condos it would still lead to there being more houses under construction then apartments. But we know these aren’t all four plexes, so that should be it extremely abundantly clear that single family homes remain the dominant type of home being built.
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Because it’s not sustainable as it is and is piss poor urban planning.
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Says you. Most Canadians would disagree.
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I want a house made with golden nails, doesn't mean I'm going to get it. Dwellings in major urban areas are going to get smaller or we're going to sit in traffic for hours paying carbon tax for wasted fuel.
I'll pick the former.
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Just because people want it doesn’t make it good urban planning and not a drain on municipal coffers.
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It's cheaper. Therefore more affordable.
Also more environmentally friendly.
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Mayor?... hell no! Skippy is running to be Emperor of Canada, and as soon as Conservatives elect him as their party leader, he will crown himself Emperor, and show Trudeau the door. No need for a general election, he will say, "I've won the only election that counts, and Trudeau is trying to steal it from me"!!
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We don't need another mayor. We need carpenters and brick layers for more home building.
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Yep. Even a post-industrial economy needs lots of skilled trades people.
However, it's still good to see a candidate putting housing affordability front and center.
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So no more student loans for social science majors? Couldn't agree more.
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Kids should be allowed the opportunity to pursue the careers they want not the careers you need.
Student loans are paid back anyways unlike the loans your favourite crooks default on regularly.
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That's incredibly silly.
Kids should be allowed to pursue careers they want, and if a bank or financial institute wants to finance it, absolutely. Better yet, they can finance it themselves.
However, government student loan programs should be providing loans to students who are looking to enter fields that are in demand. Fields like nursing, trades, STEM fields and other sectors that will actually benefit the country/province.
At the end of the day, we need a certain number of people to be trained in certain positions to address the problems we have. If we have more people going into fields which don't offer much value to solving our problems, why would we waste the human energy on it?
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Student loans are backed by the government. Maybe you should spend less time limiting the options of younger folk and worry about why you’ve amounted to nothing instead. Or better yet, why don’t you go back to school to pursue said “in demand” work since they must all be clear money makers
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Kids should be allowed the opportunity to pursue the careers they want not the careers you need.
I agree entirely, as long as they pay for it themselves.
If the Canadian people are going to be paying for it, they damn well better be training in something useful for the country.
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What do you think a student LOAN is exactly…? It’s not free money and the government always collects you can’t even escape it with bankruptcy.
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The liberal media seems to be pretty scared of Pierre Poilievre.
Of course they are.
Pierre probably won't be throwing hundreds of millions worth of free money their way.
This is relevant since that free money allows much of the media to be activists rather than journalists.
“Liberal media” lmao. The star has no shortage of hit pieces on Trudeau.