Steve Lafleur
@Steve_Lafleur
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Research Director, Building New Foundations for Economic Growth program @IRPP .
Toronto, Ontario
Joined February 2010
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Pinned Tweet
I'm thrilled to announce that I'm joining the Institute for Research on Public Policy. It's an honour to join one of Canada's most important research institutions, and I look forward to doing my part to help address some of Canada's most pressing challenges.
The IRPP would like to extend a warm welcome to our new colleague, Steve Lafleur!
Steve (
@Steve_Lafleur
) joins us as a research director, and he will be leading the IRPP's Building New Foundations for Economic Growth Research program.
Welcome, Steve!
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@RpsAgainstTrump
So Hunter Biden, who did not serve in the White House, allegedly got $5m from foreign dealings. Jared Kushner racked up $3 billion and Donald Trump himself pocketed money from foreign governments. And somehow, the Bidens are corrupt and the Trumps are beyond reproach.
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@RpsAgainstTrump
He had it all. Right on the cusp of being the most important public intellectual in America by a country mile. He traded it all for Trump. So sad.
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I've never seen the tables turn so fast on an issue. This would have been laughable three weeks ago.
Pierre Poilievre wants to tax builders and cut housing investments – that won’t build more homes for Canadians.
We’re moving forward with real solutions to increase supply and lower prices.
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@RpsAgainstTrump
So, he's suggesting that Republicans are completely unable to control their sexual impulses, leaving them constantly subject to black mail, but that Americans should vote for them?
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@MAGAIncWarRoom
Remember when Trump promised to bring back American manufacturing and didn't, but Joe Biden did and got no credit?
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Two car dealerships and zero residential towers along a subway line seems like a policy failure.
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@PoliticsWolf
So, wait. They could just win the 117 smallest counties and win the election regardless of the popular vote?
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@rex_woodbury
@jean_twenge
I'm sure smartphones were a factor. But I wonder if this is also partly driven by parents increasingly driving their kids everywhere while US metro areas sprawler and traffic congestion got worse. Makes visiting less practical.
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I just can't figure out why the streetcars are slow.
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Last year we were all huddled at home hoping for a vaccine with 60 percent plus efficacy.
Now people will honest to god use the fact that vaccines are only 90 percent plus effective to argue that vaccines don't work. It's just wild.
And tiring. So, so tiring.
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@axios
An entire political party dedicated to ensuring that some octogenarian can break all the laws he wants is such a weird use of people's time.
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@RonFilipkowski
I'm confused. Did he not get around to building that big beautiful wall paid for by Mexico?
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@IAPonomarenko
@TheTorontoSun
Canadians support at least existing levels of support for Ukraine by a nearly 2-1 margin. The cartoon doesn't speak for us.
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I know I sound like a crank being the one guy jumping up and down and pointing, but last week was a game changer for housing policy.
Sean Fraser realized he could wield the Housing Accelerator Fund carrot like a stick. He's going around bashing munis and I am here for it!
This is incredible. Housing minister
@SeanFraserMP
demanding Halifax allow 4-units, 4 storeys by right, more near the universities. That’s more housing supply across a lot of the city
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Wild that we allocate this much space to cars on Yonge Street when everyone is walking or biking.
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@Gray_Mackenzie
I don't agree with his pro-Flyers policy. But I do agree with his anti-Leafs policy.
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@SpeakerJohnson
Weird that you weren't able to achieve that when your party controlled the House, the Senate, and the Presidency. It's almost as though you're setting an impossible standard so that you can use this as a wedge issue rather than doing something.
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Like I said, the GTA is turning into one big park and ride. We're building a city for commuters paid for by local residents.
Toronto just lost access to Ontario Place as construction looms and people are livid
#Toronto
#OntarioPlace
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This is why they're talking about a "rain tax" in Toronto.
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I, for one, am shocked that people who want to build more homes are backing the guy who says he wants to build more homes.
Pierre Poilievre is presenting himself as the solution to Canada’s affordability crisis.
But donation records show Poilievre’s Conservatives have enjoyed support from CEOs at big real estate investment trusts who are driving up costs of living.
#cdnpoli
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Detached house on Leslie being converted to four story fourplex. You love to see it!
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Mayor Chow just said on CBC that she's 100 percent on board and expects council to go along with it. Huge, if true.
Letter from
@SeanFraserMP
to
@MayorOliviaChow
with list of requests in order to approve federal 💰:
- Increase min density near transit
- Increase land with 4 storey as-of-right
- Reduce angular plane requirements
- More multi-tenant near uni/colleges
+ more
Source: CBC
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A handful of houses set to become 289 homes on Gerrard. Let's do this everywhere! 🏗🏗🏗
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My work here is done.
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Back in Toronto. In other news, I have some ideas about where we can put more housing.
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One of the core reasons why Canada got caught so flat footed on housing and transit is that a huge swath of opinion makers thought agglomeration effects were weakening when they were in fact strengthening.
1/x
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In Miami, you're always stuck in traffic because the roads can't handle the demand.
In Orlando, you're constantly in a car with no traffic, but nowhere to go *because* the roads can handle the demand.
Car dependency is so very dull. Walkable urbanism is freedom.
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I'm confused. Do the provinces want to build more housing or not?
One of the more interesting things to come out of Council of Federation meeting with premiers today is call on Ottawa to stop signing one-off housing funding deals with munis (ex: housing accelerator fund) and put money through provinces first. Provinces considering legislation.
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Nice to see the traffic rules being enforced on King Street! Let's keep the streetcars moving.
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@WalshFreedom
He should literally hold a press conference every day to shame Republicans into a deal.
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Now would be a pretty good time to have an Ontario focused public broadcaster covering housing policy. Seems like something worth paying for.
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@AndrewDesiderio
Let's pass military aid.
Only if we tie it to a border bill.
Let's pass military aid tied to a border bill.
No, let's pass stand alone military aid.
Let's try tying military aid to a border bill...
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I'm not sure I've ever gone on record supporting a net tax increase, but Toronto really doesn't have a choice. If thirty two bucks a month is the cost of keeping the lights on, we can manage that.
I’m a lifelong fiscal conservative, and I support raising Toronto’s property taxes, writes
@Steve_Lafleur
#topoli
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There's a cross-partisan consensus that we need to double housing starts. We're not going to come close if we keep vetoing big projects that fall short of perfection.
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Want more grocery competition? Legalize more density!
Seriously. I can go a month without shopping at Loblaws easily. I can walk to all kinds of independent shops and two farmers' markets.
Walkable urbanism is capitalism at its finest.
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There's an asymmetry in infrastructure funding that I think is directly responsible for decreasing life satisfaction among young people: we ask the young to pay the full cost of new infrastructure directly and up front, while legacy infrastructure is paid through taxes. 1/5
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If you'd told me 18 months ago the federal housing minister would be going around wringing concessions out of municipalities, I wouldn't have believed you. But here we are! 🏠🏗🏢
Glad to see this leadership, and
@AlvinTedjo
is right, we need to build the homes Canadians need!
Here is my letter asking the Mayor and Council to do this along with a few more recommendations.
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Every conversation I have in Toronto, by age group.
40s: I wish I could find a 3-bedroom.
30s: I wish I could afford a 2-bedroom.
20s: I hope I can move out one day.
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Actually enforcing traffic laws on King Street? What a concept!
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I thought Mayor Chow would be unremarkable. Didn't vote for her, didn't fear her. I'm now starting to think that she might be the right person for the job. 🤞🤞
Every year, the King Street Transit Priority Corridor moves millions of transit riders. But recently, congestion and the failure to upgrade it since the pilot project have undermined its success.
Today, I joined
@CityNewsTO
to discuss how we’re getting King moving. 🧵 1/4
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CBC/Radio Canada accounts for less than half a percent of the federal budget. If you're looking for cost savings, that ain't it.
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If Canada wants to compete with Silicon Valley, we probably need to connect the heart of our economy (Toronto) to it's brain (Waterloo). We also need to make it easier for young workers to access the Toronto labour market. That means more apartments and more trains. 8/x
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Kitchener Line weekend service can't come soon enough.
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Coyotes arena deal voted down. If only there was a city with an NHL arena just sitting around...
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@NickAdamsinUSA
I love this new definition of Marxists that includes people who earn a billion dollars by exchanging goods and services for money.
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Woah. Hold up. Evil Dead the Musical is coming to
#Winnipeg
? No one is anywhere near excited enough right now!
http://t.co/z2KaBxvQe5
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Think bike lanes are expensive? One parking spot in the Ontario Place parking garage will cost more than the old Jarvis bike lane.
By the standards of a normal government, this would be a huge scandal. But here it’s just a dull process story that involves $500-million. Shrug!
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It wasn't ok when we let anti-globalization activists smash in stores.
It wasn't ok when we let anti-vax protesters occupy downtown Ottawa.
It isn't ok to let pro-Palestinian protesters occupy shopping malls and restaurants.
The rule of law matters in all cases, or not at all.
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Streetcar was delayed by a car accident, again. Maybe we should mostly just use streetcar routes for streetcars?
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@RpsAgainstTrump
Thinking American POWs are losers for having been caught but that failed insurrectionists deserve to be glorified is an interesting set of values.
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East Toronto is so lovely, yet so poorly served by transit. Decided to check transit time to Union while I Uber through. I'm going to guess not many people bother.
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It's kind of embarassing that we can't build cozy apartment buildings like this in most of Toronto. Guess it's more of a Calgary thing...
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Serious question: is anyone planning for the possibility that we'll have another few years of voluntarily unvaccinated people swamping hospital capacity as new variants emerge? Seems like something we should have figured out how to deal with by now.
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@mattyglesias
Framing of urban vs non-urban lifestyles is fascinating. A politician who lives in a McMansion and drives a jacked-up F-150 is an ordinary Joe. Politician who drives a Tesla and shops at Whole Foods is an out of touch elite. But...the Ford/McMansion guy is probably richer!
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I love this picture so much.
A section of Toronto's Gardiner Expressway vanished into dust over the weekend
#Toronto
#GardinerExpressway
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@RpsAgainstTrump
Lol. Trump fan thinks people skirting justice because of their last names is bad.
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To put this in context, rent in my building went up like 500/month over the last year.
We need to remember 3 things before opposing tax ⬆️:
1. People who own homes in Toronto would pay an extra $30/month.
2. Toronto would have the 5th lowest tax rate in Ontario, less than half of Kingston or London.
3. Chow won an election with mandate to fix City’s problems.
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@WR_Samurai
@JesseBWatters
So, just to be clear - it's not possible for anyone to prefer Joe Biden over Donald Trump without financial inducements?
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@RonFilipkowski
@Grant_Morgan81
So weird that no other president needed immunity. I wonder why he thinks he needs it?
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Finance Minister shouldn't do it. Leader of the opposition shouldn't do it. Premiers shouldn't do it. They should all focus on their own jobs.
It's inappropriate for the FinMin to publicly express an opinion about an operational decision made by the Bank of Canada
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We need some urgency around vaccine delivery.
While some people are more vulnerable than others and some are more likely to transmit the virus, we can't afford to be too cute. Shots in arms. 24/7. I'll show up any time of the day on one hour notice. Let's get this done.
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I think we should use streetcar routes primarily for streetcars.
I think Toronto should have an operational subway system
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NIMBYs: you can't possibly build enough to absorb fast population growth.
Austin:
Here's a great visualization: Austin's rent relative to the country (
@Zillow
's measure) is now the lowest it has been in at least a decade.
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@salimfurth
Liberals shuffled out their housing minister and the new guy seems to have gone full YIMBY. Right around the same time CPC fleshed out their housing plans a bit and they're underwhelming. Plenty of time to catch up!
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The Liberal attempt to play nice with municipalities failed. Conservatives were eating their lunch. Then along came Sean Fraser. 🧵
.
@Steve_Lafleur
: Liberals are making their move on housing. Conservatives need to go bigger
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Now seems like a good time to eliminate supply management. Liberals are going to get destroyed in rural Canada anyways and it would force conservatives to oppose cutting grocery prices. What am I missing?
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The Biden administration re-opened the economy, launched a domestic manufacturing boom, and broke OPEC. Sounds like a pretty strong economic narrative to me.
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@whstancil
Just going to point out that Canada doesn't have 30-year mortgages, so households really feel the pain from interest rate increases.
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One side wants to wear shorts, the other wants to overthrow the government. Who's to say which is worse?
Dems who were outraged by January 6 rioters storming the Capitol because of the violence wrought against that great Temple of Democracy are okay with a man at war with the English language and pants getting to wear a hoodie and shorts onto the Senate floor. Just no bison helmets.
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@Alex_Panetta
I don't get the politics. If I was a governing party in danger of getting wiped out in the suburbs, I might let these few seats go.
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