The federal election is done and we now know what the government will look like for the foreseeable future.
Among the key promises made during the election campaign were pledges to fix the country’s housing problems. Housing was the number-three domestic issue in the campaign according to a survey conducted for Royal LePage. (The economy/cost of living, #1 at 86%; health care, #2 at 75%; housing, #3 at 62%.) In some of the country’s priciest markets, like Vancouver, housing actually climbed into the number-two spot ahead of health care.
All of the major parties outlined plans to get more homes built and make them more affordable. Both the Conservatives and Liberals have made bold commitments to double home construction to 500,000 units a year, but current economic conditions present an obvious hurdle to those plans.
“Housing starts, if anything, in large parts of the country, are actually declining because of economic conditions. So, this idea that we could double housing starts in a relatively short period of time is not realistic,” said the Smart Prosperity Institute’s Mike Moffatt, as quoted in the Globe and Mail.
On the other hand, well-known market watcher Murtaza Haider, of Toronto Metropolitan University, reportedly sees the focus on increasing supply as an improvement over previous policies such as the ban on foreign buyers.
Of course, all of the promises stand in the shadow of the uncertainty created by the on-again, off-again tariff turmoil coming out of the United States.