The Prime Minister Does Not Represent Me

Jun 2nd 2025

The biggest political issue on my mind is the issue of housing affordability. While I'm thankfully very lucky and in very good rental situation at the moment, I know that this isn't going to last. I'm one eviction away from spending an eye-watering percentage of my income on housing. Buying a house doesn't seem likely for me for the next 20+ years. I'm willing to wait, and to choose a place that is within my budget.

All the while, our Prime Minster Mark Carney, when asked about whether housing prices should go down, responded simply:

“I want house prices to be more affordable for Canadians"

He continues...

"And let me explain that. It means a number of things. One, in the very short term, it means getting specific costs out of the price. So, for new home buyers . . . it’s cutting GST on new homes and ensuring that particularly younger Canadians get the benefit from that. So that’s the first thing. The second thing we want is to strip out . . . half the development charges for construction on homes. So, again, another measure in the near term that will lower the cost of near-term homes, and those lower costs should be passed on to home buyers. The third thing we think needs to happen, and we’ll do at scale, is to help develop a much more efficient home-building industry in Canada, on a path to a broader doubling of the rate of home building in Canada. All of those factors are going to help to improve affordability."

Honestly, not a bad answer for a politician. It's got the catchy "sound-bite" at the beginning, followed by an elaborate explanation of the position that stands up well to scrutiny.

But frankly, this isn't what I wanted to hear. I wanted to hear that prices are going to plummet. I don't care if investors, REITs, and people who own more than one home will suffer. I want them to burn.

I think a couple of things:

Some members of the older generations simply do not understand how infeasible home ownership is for the younger generations. I think partly it's because home ownership has always been a difficult thing to achieve. You can provide numbers, quotes, statistics, ratios of income/mortgages. Sometimes, nothing fucking works to get the point across. Because home ownership was always difficult, it's hard to imagine how much harder it can get.

Secondly, people are just selfish. I remember once I was at a dinner where the person beside me was describing how difficult it was to be a landlord. This guy wanted to kick his tenant out so that he could sell his house at a higher price (according to him, houses sell for more if they are unoccupied. People like the clean appearance). He made the mistake of telling his tenant of his plans. This is basically illegal in BC. You can only kick a person out if you want to live in their unit, or if a close family member wants to live there.

So obviously, the tenant refuses to leave. He calls the uneducated guy's bluff, and stays in the unit. The scummy landlord then lies to the tenant and says that he wants to move his mom into the unit (for the exact legal time frame she needs to occupy the unit until it's legal). Then he is complaining to us about how this is unfair.

Alexa, please play the world's smallest violin.

Frankly, examples like this reinforce for me the idea that people are selfish. They view housing as an appreciating asset (technically, only land should appretiate, not housing). Something akin to a stock or a bond, it's an object that brings in money after you acquire it. Giving no regard to the people who actually live in these units, some landlords are bound to try to skirt by the law, fuck over their tenants, and extract every bit of juice from their mortgage.

I don't think this is right. I want to live in a place where I am friendly with the neighbors. A community of sorts. Where housing isn't viewed as an investment, but rather a place to live and to make yours.

As long as people are free to buy up more than one house, where corporations can buy entire buildings and systematically treat their tenants like lab mice, and first-time home-buyers are given more than candies to placate them (no-tax on new homes, FHSAs, and tax-free deductions from tax-free accounts), I don't think that my dreams will come true.

Unfortunately, if you make these changes, home-prices will plummet. Canada will no longer be viewed as a safe haven for housing investment. Our GDP growth will slow down by ~20%. And that's not what Mark Carney wants.

Thus, he doesn't represent me.