Chrystia Freeland pours gasoline on housing crisis

Ukraine’s top lobbyist in Canada, who moonlights as our country’s finance minister and deputy PM in her spare time, today unveiled a strategy to open the housing market to, in her words, “hundreds of thousands and possibly millions of Canadians.” The “strategy” consists of greater access to 30 year mortgages, and a 50% hike in the upper limit on mortgage insurance, to $1.5 million. I suppose this is great news for someone seeking a 30 year mortgage on a two million dollar home, but my hunch is that those folks are already adequately housed. When you go a few blocks down market, this “strategy” gooses the demand side. There’s now more potential buyers for that starter home. What happens when demand outstrips supply? Prices go up! This “strategy” will hurt the very people it is intended to help! Where the housing market needs government intervention is on the supply side. From the end of the WWII into the 1990s the government had a variety of programs that subsidized the supply side. They worked. Between them, all levels of government have access to more than enough land. They control the approval process. What’s holding them back from putting up affordable and decent public housing? Surely, it can’t be money. After all, we’ve found $20 billions for Ukraine in the past two years. We’ve committed hundreds of billions to increased military spending, from fighter jets to frigates. Meanwhile, we can’t afford to spend money on affordable housing for Canadians. Don’t you think our priorities are seriously askew?