Pierre Poilievre, the famous Canadian politician and the Official Opposition party leader since 2022, took to his Twitter handle to raise the issue of increasing housing prices in Canada.
His tweet says,
“The US has 10 times the people on less land than Canada. So housing should be cheaper here, right? Well, check out Canada vs US housing costs after 8 years of Trudeau.”
He also posted a video of himself speaking in parliament, comparing the houses near Niagara Falls in the USA and Canada.
The one example he took was of the house at 3047 St. Patrick Avenue, which costs $549,900, then from the American side, that similar house was for $164,400.
Then he goes on to point out that the USA has 10 times more population than Canada and even less land area than Canada.
Then why do we have higher house prices than them? He also accused PM Justin Trudeau of talking about housing affordability.
But when it comes to housing supply, he has voted against measures to increase it and even voted against taking any measures.
Land mass and population can’t be the factor as we have more and less of them respectively.
Further making his allegations more political, he says that Justin has been in power for 8 years if they had to do something. They would have. Instead, everything is getting worse.
Do his Accusations Even have any Points?
Average property prices are higher in Canada than in the USA. However, there are many reasons for this.
- Even though Canada has a higher land mass, around 80% of the land is not habitable. The main reason is extremely cold temperatures, the average temperature ranges from -5.6°C (21.9°F), and it can drop below -40°C (-40°F).
- This makes it difficult to grow crops and build infrastructure here.
- Most of the population of Canada is concentrated near the southern border of the US, where the climate is milder and more temperate.
- Canada also has a lot of terrain.
- Less habitable areas lead to higher population density, resulting in fewer houses and more people interested in buying them.
- While in the USA, the population is not concentrated at par with Canada.
Current Government Efforts to Help Reduce Prices of Housing
To combat this issue, the Government took various decisions and steps to control the prices.
- Some provinces and municipalities have imposed an extra tax on foreign buyers.
- While some provinces have imposed a complete ban on foreign buyers from buying any residential property.
- Imposing an additional tax on empty houses so that the housing market would see new and needy buyers.
- In 2019, they launched a scheme for first-time home buyers. It offers an interest-free loan of up to 10% of the purchase price of a new or existing home in exchange for an equivalent share of the home’s equity.
- National Housing Strategy: In 2017, govt allocated $70 billion. It aims to create more affordable and accessible housing, especially for those in vulnerable situations.
- NHS also includes repairing existing ones, providing rental subsidies, expanding community housing supply, and supporting homeownership for low-wage earners.
Final Words
While Pierre Poilievre’s accusations may not be completely right, he did raise many important issues. They did make efforts to reduce the prices of residential properties, but the execution is what shows the result and not just the intent.
Last Updated on by Sathi Chakraborty
