“Homelessness & Affordability Crisis”

Rows of tiny cabins across a Kitchener, Ont., neighbourhood have been catching the eye of several communities across the province that’ve begun duplicating the model, hoping to bridge the gap between homelessness and permanent housing.

A Better Tent City (ABTC) co-founder and chair Jeff Wilmer says compassion from the community, support from city politicians and the local public school board made their small community possible, and it’s inspiring copies across the province.

Before Justin Trudeau became Prime Minister of Canada, he released a lengthy video on his “sunny ways” philosophy. While those two words quickly became Trudeau’s trademark, the video detailed how the phrase actually came from Wilfird Laurier, who had served as Liberal PM of Canada a century earlier.

It was a whimsical video full of cartoon images that told a narrative about the history of the country and Trudeau’s vision for it. The video—and the announcement of the “sunny ways” agenda—received a great deal of attention at the time.

More and bigger homeless encampments have been set up across Canada recently and, with the help of advocacy groups, they’re taking on a more permanent feel.

Hunkering down for the winter, some have generators, heating stoves, winterized tents, and more. Advocacy groups have helped them obtain these supplies, along with legal help to stop attempts at moving them.

Pierre Poilievre’s 15-minute advertisement masquerading as a mini-documentary on the housing crisis contains inaccuracies and distortions. That doesn’t matter. The thing is a work of genius.

The Conservative Leader has taken ownership of an issue critically important to many Canadians: the seeming impossibility of ever being able to afford a home, or even rent one.

Poilievre now owns the housing issue — the most important issue to most voters — and the Liberals are seen as culpable for presiding over a hot mess

Housing hell: How we got here and how we get out. pic.twitter.com/vVLsXMVM35

— Pierre Poilievre (@PierrePoilievre) December 2, 2023

Neither Ivison or Poilievre mentions the Liberal party’s destructive mass immigration policy and its role in the housing crisis. Silence is complicity.

OTTAWA – Every week now for more than a month, cabinet ministers have been appearing in front of cameras on Parliament Hill in an effort to convince Canadians that the Liberal government has the housing crisis in hand.

Ever since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s summer cabinet shuffle, they’ve been scrambling to be seen making the cost of living a top priority, hoping to catch up to the runaway Conservatives on the issue of affordability.

Like clockwork, Housing Minister Sean Fraser appeared Tuesday alongside Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, this time to announce millions in spending to build or upgrade thousands of co-operative homes.

A new 15-minute video produced by Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is the latest salvo in the political fight over housing policy, which has dominated the second half of this year in politics.

Poilievre made housing costs and affordability a key part of his message early in his leadership run, and housing has now become an issue that parties across the political spectrum agree is a crisis facing Canadians.

Thank you to the 2 million people who have watched “Housing Hell” on X in the last 36 hours.pic.twitter.com/vVLsXMVM35

— Pierre Poilievre (@PierrePoilievre) December 4, 2023

Jaqueline Belardi doesn’t know if she’ll ever be able to afford a home even though she earns a good salary. Belardi and her partner make a combined income of more than $180,000, but saving up enough money for a down payment feels out of reach.

“We can’t just borrow $50,000 from our parents,” she said. “That seems like the only way younger people are able to buy property these days.”

It is now widely understood that Canada’s housing market is critically undersupplied. A 2022 study by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. reported that the country will need to produce 3.5 million more housing units than are currently in the delivery pipeline by 2030, to restore housing affordability.

Yet it is obvious that we will not be able to correct this situation by 2030, and probably not even by 2040.

Every “New Housing” announcement made by the Liberals is Hot Air.

Nothing they have done to date will have significant impact on the housing and affordability crisis.

The decision to continue their massively harmful immigration policy shows they do not care about you and your family.

Stop voting for people that hate you.

What happens to equality when young adults who don’t have homeowner parents are far less likely to be able to buy a dwelling?

It’s not every day you are cited in the introduction to a Statistics Canada study.

Canadian Housing Resembles A Return To Victorian-Era Inheritance Culture: Stat Can

Canada is quickly reverting back to a Victorian-era style inheritance culture. That was the suggestion from the country’s national statistics agency, when exploring the role of parental wealth on the homeownership rate of young adults. A lack of upward social mobility can turn into a big problem for Canada, which depends on attracting immigrants. No immigrant has ever said they moved across the world and worked hard so their children could have less opportunity.

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland expects banks will follow a new series of rules and guidelines designed to protect Canadian homeowners, millions of whom are set to renegotiate loans at potentially higher rates.

“The thing that I hear the most right now is people are concerned about interest rates, especially people who have mortgages and are concerned about the renewal of their mortgages,” Freeland said in an interview airing Sunday on Rosemary Barton Live.

“And I think that is very understandable,” she told CBC’s chief political correspondent Rosemary Barton.

I don’t think Banks are going to be into the “feels” of “working with you.”

The federal Liberals’ housing announcements are nothing if not predictable. Their lead up tends to involve much pomp and circumstance, only for the payoff to be an inevitable letdown.

See: former housing minister Ahmed Hussen, who had a habit of scheduling press events to reveal plans for a couple dozen new units in a country where the housing deficit is well over five million units.