Faced with increasing pressure to respond to widespread concerns about the cost of living and questions about his leadership, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a series of new measures Thursday meant to deal with rising housing and grocery prices.
Is this a situation similar to the US where the “progressive” party is not doing enough to help and the regressive party wont help at all?
I take the “something is better than nothing” view on this.
Liberals are socially progressive, but fiscally still quite conservative (but not as conservative as Conservatives).
Edit: Actually, I would say that Liberals are status quo conservative and Conservatives are regressive conservatives.
I general, I’d agree with that. On housing specifically, I wouldn’t.
Until recently, I would say Liberals were actively hurting housing affordability. Their signature housing proposal up to now is a tax cut for rich people who have maxed out their TFSA, which is the first time home buyers tax free savings account. That raises demand without addressing supply or disincentivizing investors. It sounds like a proposal written by the real estate investment community, and frankly, it probably was.
This recent proposal is full of good but minor stuff that should have been done a decade ago and will probably take another decade to have an effect. They’ve wasted a lot of time and I still doubt they’re taking it seriously.