PM Justin Trudeau has just announced a new slew of policies to tackle the housing problem in Canada, despite most of the policy being plagiarized from his opponent Erin O’Toole.
Everyone knows that houses are becoming more and more unaffordable due to house flippers, corporations buying houses as soon as they hit the market, and wealthy foreign buyers rushing in to store their dubiously earned money in a relatively safe market. These factors contribute significantly to the inflationary nature of the market and make homeownership unattainable for many.
According to a 2020 study, the average first-time home buyer in Canada is now 36 years old. That is 18 years of renting after high school—eighteen years of not having a place to call your own. In 1960, the average age of a first-time homebuyer was 24-25.
The problem went unaddressed for too long and has weighed heavy on the minds of young adults wishing to buy their first home.
Thankfully, PM Justin Trudeau is finally stepping up to the plate and proposing solutions to the problem. There is only one problem. His solutions are almost the exact same as those given by Conservative Party Leader Erin O’Toole last week.
Even worse, when Parliament was sitting most recently – Trudeau and his caucus voted against these very same measures!
On August 19, O’Toole laid out his plan to address the housing crisis, promising to crack down on foreign investors and build over one million homes by repurposing federally owned buildings and office space, as well as deferring capital gains taxes for developers.
Today, Trudeau laid out his plan to address the housing crisis, promising to crack down on foreign investors and build over one million homes by… Sound familiar?
Jokes aside, while there are some differences between the two centrist candidates, such as Trudeau wanting a special tax-free savings account and paying municipal developers to build houses, the timing could not be any less sincere.
Unable to concede that O’Toole is trying to do something good, and both being unable to work together, Trudeau has instead taken up the schoolboy pastime of cheating off your neighbour’s essay during an exam — tweaking the wording ever so slightly but plagiarizing the overall thesis.
Of course, Trudeau knows this and decided to further distinguish his plan by hurling insults at O’Toole, claiming his plan, O’Toole’s, was too capitalist and too kind to landlords.
Politics aside, both proposed reasonable solutions, but it is a wonder if either will fulfill their promises post-election. Politicians promise a lot around election time: Trudeau has had six years to attack these problems, yet they remain unresolved.
