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This government doesn’t care about statistics, they only care about their precious votes, not the people.
Isn't that so funny? They care about the votes... To get in power to... Get the votes again... How ridiculous.
I understand the need for votes but they shouldn’t be able to twist or downplay statistics for political gain.
Oh I definitely agree.
Votes are the people, and we keep letting this happen to us. It’s insane, really, knowing that even as fucked as our system is there’s still really no reason any significantly intelligent nation should be dealing with any of the crap we support.
Votes are the people
I find it hard to believe when Quebec and Ontario hold well over half of the electoral districts, and a Minister on the Liberal side having already admitted to certain policies being implemented solely for Quebec voters.
This voting system doesn’t seem fair for the rest of the provinces and territories, but I’m just an average joe so what do I know eh.
Any guesses as to why Ontario and Quebec hold more than half the electoral districts?
Could have something to do with the huge amounts of people living in those places. And a Liberal’s policies are not the pinnacle of democratic fairness, either.
The “supply-shortage argument” is encapsulated by the CMHC’s claim that “increasing housing supply is the key to restoring affordability.” If the argument is correct, then we should expect to see evidence that increases in dwellings per capita lower prices over time.
A great straw man argument 👍
It is difficult to find clear evidence that increased supply pushes price down, because in private markets, new supply only emerges when prices rise and developers feel reassured they can earn a profit on their investment. Price and supply both move up together over time, with increased supply not necessarily pushing prices down.
But when setting out to demonstrate supply’s downward impact on price, they instead use abstract models that presume what they are trying to explain.
Oh the irony. These economists with shady premises... btw you will never find evidence that supply pushes prices down, because in private markets that's impossible.
It's kind of funny that the same group that eats this kind of narrative like hot cake is also the group of people with a tendency to blame demand (as in immigration), like if by magic the supply vs demand relationship only works one way. Even though the last paragraph of the article tries to state this exact point (if supply is not the solution, demand is not the problem) - the only thing that this kind of article accomplishes is to undermine the efforts to build housing.
Your first quote conveniently leaves out the last sentence which says “historical data shows otherwise.”
Now, a strawman argument is where you create a fake thing to attack. I’m explaining this to you because there are so many people who genuinely believe that demand is growing higher than supply is.
You seem to be on the side which knows that supply is not the problem, rather it’s greed. The article agrees with you at every turn, but you fight it? Did you actually read it?
Your first quote conveniently leaves out the last sentence which says “historical data shows otherwise.”
What difference does it make? It's still a straw man. Historical data will showing otherwise is what makes it a great straw man.
Now, a strawman argument is where you create a fake thing to attack.
Yes, I know but thank you. It's exactly what the "If the argument is correct, then we should expect to see..." line is doing.
You seem to be on the side which knows that supply is not the problem, rather it’s greed.
No, I'm not. I don't think there's a single cause that can easily summarize the housing affordability problem. Specially not a vague one such as "greed". Saying that greed is the problem is the kind of thing that people who confuse BlackRock with Blackstone say.
“If the incredibly common argument that is used all the time and we did not make up(it’s not a strawman) were true then we would expect to see data which reflects that. We do not see data whoch reflects that.”
Strawman arguments need to be made up by the person attacking them. Here they are are simply talking about an existing argument and showing how it’s wrong.
The strawman is taking “supply is an issue” to mean that “dwellings per capita is going down”. Or to assume that stating the former means stating the latter. Or to assume that the former implies the latter. Whatever framing you prefer.
If you disagree this is strawman, that’s fine. Maybe there’s a bette name and we can call it something else, sorry for the confusion. The main point is that “dwellings per capita is going down“ is not representative of the view that supply is a factor in housing affordability.
House prices are soaring because supply is being suppressed while demand is being stimulated while all locations have unique locational supply of land that creates small location monopolies.