The Globe & Mail speaks the inconvenient truth that politicians won't: homes can't both be good investments and affordable. "Making homes more affordable, for instance, means bringing down the prices of existing homes – something homeowners who are sitting on big capital gains on their primary residences aren’t eager to contemplate." Bullseye 💯 Virtually every housing policy and pundit dances around this point, when our entire political economic system is aligned towards raising land prices — regardless of which party's in power. "He [JT] kept saying he wanted to make homes affordable for young buyers while simultaneously insisting that home prices had to remain high to ensure the net worth of older Canadians wasn’t hurt." The public is gaslit into believing we can blow and suck at the same time, making homes affordable without lower prices. By definition that's not possible. "No astute politician is rushing to antagonize the two-thirds of Canadians who already own a home by engineering a big decline in house prices. So we remain stuck. No matter how much our leaders talk up the need to make homes more affordable, the political calculations lean entirely in the other direction." Maybe Canadians aren't willing to make the hard choices because no one is presenting them with a real choice. Compare the housing plans of the 3 major parties — in mechanism, scale, and ambition they can barely be differentiated when contrasted against the scope of the problem. We will not crack the housing problem without tough choices: make land (what makes RE appreciate) a less attractive long-term investment. Shifting taxes from income to land value will lower its returns as an asset and therefore price, while better rewarding work and productivity. Any politician or policy silent on this is simply ignoring the real problem.

The Conservatives called it the “Back to Work Bonus” and it was like a guaranteed basic income where people keep part of the benefit when they begin earning work income.

RT @CommonWealth_ca: Toronto real estate broker John Pasalis talks about land value tax, an old idea with renewed interest to improve the h…

@DanSull36510584 @ubi_works And the benefits to entire generation of having a basic income, make it worth it even if the funding source is not perfect in the long-term.

@GarnetLollar @ubi_works Getting a basic income collectively out of a few dozen ‘rebates’ like this that have better political messaging would also be ok to me. Grocery rebate, child benefit, carbon rebate, rent assist, continuing education rebate, transportation rebate, bring it on.

We already have basic incomes that work extremely well and have been overwhelmingly successful in lowering poverty. This is plain fact. Guaranteed basic income just expands on these to help more people in need.

RT @ubi_works: Guaranteed basic income costs 3-5% of all spending, less than what poverty costs. UBI is a dividend from things like natura…

RT @CommonWealth_ca: The answer is right in front of us.

RT @floydmarinescu: UBC's @pmcondon2 has 3 suggestions to address the housing crisis, and it all ties back to land. 1. Stop using tax doll…

RT @CommonWealth_ca: This ad is all the reason we need to tax land more and work income less.

RT @kenjaminyang: Canada's productivity and affordability crises are deeply intertwined. Stop pouring gasoline on housing as an investment…

@CommonWealth_ca @yanisvaroufakis @DiEM_25 Looking forward to our talk @yanisvaroufakis

RT @CommonWealth_ca: We're excited to host Greece's former Finance Minister and Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 founder @yanisvaroufakis…

UBC's @pmcondon2 has 3 suggestions to address the housing crisis, and it all ties back to land. 1. Stop using tax dollars to boost demand even more. 2. Capture land value to benefit the public, not speculators. 3. Use that value to build non-market housing.

RT @ubi_works: Canada's next Prime Minister will be chosen on March 9. No matter your political views, this is a rare chance to be heard b…

RT @kenjaminyang: Regardless of your politics, this is undoubtedly a major development for the US. Canada is already squandering $1,000,00…

@EndWokeness How much did he reduce poverty?

@longonelon Well yes and the largest resource by orders of magnitude is land, so a land value tax funded GBI would be the dream.