How is this NOT the Onion?

I hope so. Subscribe to !georgism@kbin.social if you haven’t already.

Land value tax would fix this.

Why are comments even open on this article? They’re just terrible tabloid trash.

I’m very glad Hussein is out but I don’t know if Sean Fraser will do a good job. His previous role as immigration minister let the country consistently exceed its immigration targets, which only made the housing crisis worse. He’ll be looking into the consequences of his own actions on housing.

He already refrained from building more houses directly and “subsidizing”, not investing, “below-market” housing instead, so that’s not a good sign already.

From a structural standpoint, merging housing and infrastructure into a single ministry makes sense. These two issues go hand in hand.

Where’s that attitude with Big Grocery stores or Big Oil?

Wtf is that caption image lol

You are right, land should not be a good investment. A land value tax supports this as it decreases the value of the land, it won’t be seen as an investment. Wealthy people and investors hoarding land will only increase their tax burden and thus will not be profitable for them.

6. Maintain a central registry of who owns what housing and who lives there (necessary for the policies below). This can be used to audit abuses

7. Raise property taxes on vacant housing

8. Introduce a new yearly anti-speculation tax that depends on the owner of the unit:

• Canadian citizens: 0%.
• Permanent residents and people with work permits: 0%.
• Companies established in Canada:
• Single-family dwelling: 5%.
• Dwelling between two and 6 units: 2%
• Housing with more units: 0%
• All other assumptions: 10% <-- this includes foreign investors

Why all this bureaucracy? We can simply just shift property taxes to land value taxes. Much more equitable and it would disincentivize speculation and incentivize density. You only need to know who owns which parcel of land so its much less bureaucratic.