Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland says she must strike a balance between helping Canadians suffering from the effects of inflation and pursuing a policy of fiscal restraint — or risk making the cost of living problem worse.
In an interview airing Sunday on Rosemary Barton Live, Freeland, who also serves as deputy prime minister, said she was open to further action on affordability issues but that she believes measures already underway — worth $8.9 billion — would help alleviate the impact on Canadians.
“I have to strike a balance. One is supporting Canadians with affordability challenges and the other is fiscal restraint, because I don’t want to make the Bank of Canada’s job harder than it already is,” Freeland told CBC chief political correspondent Rosemary Barton.
Rent is out of control in urban centers. Why is rent out of control? Too many renters competing for too few available rentals. Why are there too many renters? One big factor is the insane mass immigration policy of Freeland’s Liberal party. They’re “fighting inflation” by depressing the wages of working class Canadians through record setting immigration rates. If interest rates move higher a lot of homeowners will no longer be able to afford their mortgage payments, they call that cooling the market they helped heat up by creating too much demand through … needless mass immigration.
And that sets the stage for this interesting coincidence …
Canada isn’t prepared to deal with large investors’ growing interest in single-family homes
Rising borrowing costs, dimming economic prospects and stricter lending rules are taking some of the air out of housing bubbles in Canada, the United States and other markets in which strong demand, tight supply and speculative fever have driven prices to record levels and deepened an already serious affordability crisis.
The evidence that overheated markets are cooling is mounting. Canadian home resales slid 8.6 per cent in May from the previous month, and much more than that in such hot markets as Vancouver. Prices fell for a second consecutive month, after shooting higher through most of the COVID-19 pandemic, and some economists forecast a decline of up to 20 per cent this year as higher mortgage rates hit home.
Restoring a modicum of sanity to residential markets won’t do much for people seeking accommodation they can afford. But at least it will prevent the crisis from getting even worse, right? Well, not really.
Heat, shelter or food? Let Freeland choose for you!
