In a world dominated by Donald Trump’s influence, Canada shares the current dilemma facing many nations. As Canadians cast their ballots for a prime minister today, looming Trump-inspired tariffs and annexation threats cannot be dismissed. Media coverage across the border in the U.S. fixates on whether a center-left Liberal party leader, Mark Carney, can surf the anti-Trump wave to an unlikely victory against his opponent, the Trump-inspired Conservative candidate, Pierre Pollievre. Yet, amid these complexities, there is another issue that needs scrutiny – the housing policies of these contenders, a matter where spanners are thrown into the works by the alarming resemblance between Carney’s approach and that of the U.S. Democratic contestant, Kamala Harris.
Carney’s housing policy partially mirrors that of his U.S. peer, Kamala Harris, entailing some critical differences. A comparison of their strategies illuminates the inadequacies of the Democratic party when held against its international peers. Harris’ housing strategy, characterized by her supposed drive to stimulate housing development through tax incentives for starter home builders, reveals a misguided emphasis on expanding the existing rather than innovatively creating new. A $40 billion ‘innovation fund’ for affordable home developers and the promise to eradicate bureaucratic red tape are among her hollow promises.
Harris further attempted to curb housing costs by controlling Wall Street’s grip on single-family rental homes and regulating automated rent-setting software. To bolster her argument, she proposed a $25,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers and an increase in rental assistance programs. However, all these initiatives work within the existing structure, portraying her efforts as merely a remodel of the existing system rather than a novel approach to the issue.
Harris ambitiously targets the construction of 3 million new homes within a four-year term, a commitment for which she fails to provide the specifics such as whether these numbers are additional to the current annual housing construction rates. Assuming her stance is to add these new homes to the existing production levels, Harris’ goal equates to a 50% rise in housing development – a vague promise made without a concrete plan.
In stark contrast, Carney presents a bold vision for a new governmental entity designed to thrust the federal government back into the business of erecting homes. Reflecting nostalgically upon Canada’s public housing program, he seeks to revive it into a program that can directly undertake substantial affordable housing projects. This audacious plan is routed through an entity christened as Build Canada Homes (BCH), equipped with a whopping C$26 billion funding to kick-start Canada’s modular construction industry with a view to shrink both the cost and time of housing construction.
Carney’s vision for BCH also extends to nurturing the Canadian timber industry while creating new opportunities for the building trades. Furthermore, he wants to burn half the municipal development charges driving up construction costs, offer tax incentives for multifamily housing developers, apply pressure on landlords to sell their buildings to the government or affordable housing providers, and announce a tax credit of up to C$50,000 for first-time home buyers.
Carney’s ambitious aim is to produce half a million new houses per year, double the current rate of output. This is significantly more explicit and adventurous than Harris’s on a percentage increase basis, made possible by his scheme for the federal government to dive into the housing development business. ‘Build Canada Homes’ promises a future that goes beyond the democrats’ tamed dream, demonstrating that housing reform requires revolutionary zeal.
Internationally, Carney’s proposed system fits snugly with the global social housing movement where the government develops large-scale blended-income residential areas, much like in European and East Asian countries. This scheme takes a more proactive approach, creating impactful quantities of homes on public land in architecturally awe-inspiring complexes linked to public transit, providing the potential for directed shaping of the overall housing market and moderating average prices.
The public development corporations established in many countries are significant players in the real estate market, benefiting from economies of scale and cross-subsidization. In this scenario, rents from higher-income tenants can directly subsidize rents of their lower-income neighbors, providing a tangible solution for housing affordability issues.
Carney’s mention of modular construction, timber and building materials supply chains, and labor uses housing policy as a tool for economic upliftment, revealing that a robust housing policy can help achieve broad geopolitical and economic development goals in addition to providing people with affordable living spaces.
Contrarily, Harris’ proposed tax breaks and innovation fund did little to change the privatized and decentralized affordable housing system of America. Her offering painted a picture of the housing crisis that was mainly a better-funded version of the status quo, which lacked the visionary approach necessary to shake up the system.
Harris’ promise to challenge corporate landlords of single-family homes is merely an echo of the platform propagated by Canada’s left-wing New Democratic Party led by Jagmeet Singh, reflecting the diluted nature of America’s dual-party system. Disappointingly, the Democrats must juggle a variety of policies from moderate to progressive due to this broad umbrella they occupy.
Plagued by Trump’s antics, liberal Canadians have aligned with Carney, causing the NDP to lose traction in the polls. Had Harris championed such populist economic messages, she might have gained more traction. Unfortunately, such realizations are often valuable in hindsight.
It’s tragically ironic that Harris was defeated by a president who is currently on a mission to dismantle America’s scarcely adequate affordable housing framework. Perhaps Canada, through Carney, will teach its neighbors that a more daring, bold approach is the solution for remedying housing sector flaws.