You need something more attention grabbing. Something Titan-like that the media will run with for days. Something like what started the Arab spring or similar movements. Not advocating for self-immolation, but it has to be dramatic enough to wake people up.

There are too many incumbents benefiting from the status quo that it’ll take a monumental effort to turn things around.

Chow would probably be at the front of any Arab Spring type protest in Toronto championing housing.

Yet her whole website is the same shit we've been sold as solutions since the 1970s: city wide rent control that has repeatedly resulted in a long term reduction in housing supply, a small set of new gov built skyscrapers that will take a decade to build and come in at twice the cost of budget, doubling down on disincentivizing renting properties by 2xing the amount of legal worries property renters have to go through when dealing with bad tenants, some weak stuff about city spending $100M to buy homes off the market so they don't get renovated (so basically 10 homes), etc, etc.

https://www.oliviachow.ca/plan

Is the NDP the party of the wealthy elite in Toronto? Over valuing protecting a small amount of exclusive neighbourhoods with old Victorian homes at the expense of the rest of the (very large and varied) city and only ever allowing expensive skyscrapers to be built?

The answer to that might be yes. But it's hard to disconnect those critiques from the language and policies of municipal politics here in Toronto... and almost every major western city. Which always sounds the same, while conventiently blaming someone else.

Always has been.

I have no idea what you're complaining about. All of the policies you want are what she is promising. And has done.

She made it so that you can now build four story, four unit multiplexes. It's right there on the website you linked. This already happened a few months ago.

And she says "Olivia would streamline, coordinate and simplify the approval process for housing so we can get more built, faster."

And she wants to put a wealth tax on those expensive homes you don't like.

You can complain that the city could move faster. But, all of the things you want are what she is doing.

Those are generic sentences without substance. Of course the city wants to be efficient. But unless I hear specifics I'm extremely skeptical.

> She made it so that you can now build four story, four unit multiplexes

Good, but city approval for heights is probably the most boring and lowest hanging of my complaints. Zoning reform and NIMBYism is 90% of what reduces supply and kills off meaningful development.

This is a multi-decade crisis, it's not a minor policy debate in city council.

Even if they can get approval for a 4 story multiplex the fact 90% are building skyscrapers instead of other (legal) arrangements happen because it's the only one people are willing to risk $$$ on. It's extremely risky to run a development project in the city, because a) where you can build is severely capped so you have to build as high as possible and b) if you're going to navigate all of roadblocks and NIMBY backed lawyering you better be getting a property who's ROI can fund teams of lawyers and support years of development, often well before any construction start.

If we actually want to solve the housing crisis we literally need to start razing whole blocks of single family homes, industrial areas, old office buildings, etc and build high density housing.

This is radical stuff. Nothing about what Chow is proposing is anywhere close to addressing the crisis.

I'm a pretty boring social democrat in most regards, so saying this as someone who generally holds fairly leftist views on many things: the leftist ideology, very roughly speaking, believes that government intervention results in better results for the common man than a capitalist market left to its own devices; this gestures directly towards price controls, zoning laws, every kind of regulation, and socialized housing. Leftists are deeply skeptical of market-based solutions; even basic economic principles like supply-and-demand are viewed with skepticism by association with Economics as a field, which tends to be viewed (not totally or necessarily wrongly) as a false science that's more of an ideological tool of capitalists than anything. They view profit-making and companies that seek to make profit - like developers - as fundamentally impure and in need of reining in. And because of decades of urban sprawl in North America, they associate development with environmental destruction, even though, ironically, one important way we could help save the environment is by densifying the hell out of our cities. And don't get me started on fears of gentrification - although there we're beginning to blur the line between "progressives" and leftists, but those lines are already pretty blurred.

I know enough left-NIMBYs to know that their intentions are pure - it's not a case of ladder-kickers. Just a particularly bad strain of thought that's - like you said - pretty widespread in municipal politics. Probably because NIMBYism transcends ideology in a way - there's different kinds of NIMBYism across the spectrum, always with the same outcome, and many voters will happily cross party lines to keep their neighbourhood just the way it is, thank you very much.

Happily, in my experience younger urbanists - even the left-wing ones - tend to (though don't always) recognize the excesses of left-NIMBYism.

That they may have nice words and ostensibly good intentions doesn't change the fact that they're kicking the ladder and will continue to do so.

They're only "not ladder kickers" in the same way typical Republicans "aren't sexist" but continue to keep voting for the sexist party.

This is in comparison to more conventional NIMBYs, who don't really care - they feel entitled to "preserve neighbourhood character", say things like "city's full, don't move here", that sort of thing.

They probably had to pay the jacked up real estate prices...

There is an ongoing process of densification, it can be faster but it can't be done too quickly, it's not fair to blot out people's views or destroy neighbourhoods or destroy every remnant of past eras.

With these dynamics it's no surprise that city housing is so expensive, and I don't think it comes down to one factor like interest rates or greedy people, so that billboard is just political pandering. What would your attention-getting measure ask for?

I get the impression a lot of people are complaining they can't afford a family home basically in a prime-ish city location. Can't blame them for wanting that, but an option could be to move outside the cities. Properties are quite affordable, and there are some good transit corridors and decent towns (and advantages of living in the country), though better commuting options will always be welcome.

This is what I've done, an hour outside a city, I'm on a forested acre with a lake, with beautiful views year-round. I'm far from house poor so I can afford to travel all winter or do overnights in any city.

To enable this, I would push for better commuting, with more hubs and extended service so it's super easy to get to downtowns. But resolving scarcity of talent in the trades would also be key.

Software developers are used to paying sub-10% income tax there (or no tax at all).

Software developers are not allowed to leave Ukraine.

Why wouldn't they be able to leave?

They meant to say "Men of conscription age, hence most software developers ..."

Once there is a critical mass of single-issue pro-housing voters, we can expect to see a huge tsunami of pro-housing bills get passed for this politically lucrative issue.

As of now, old homeowners are the electoral majority. So, pro-housing politics is a losing strategy. But you can only sustain it so long in a nation with at ton of younger owned-home-started immigrants.

[1] https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-canada-home...

Did previous generations not do this as well, or is this unique to the boomers?

Before they were called boomers they were called "generation me". It should hardly be a surprise that this is what generation me would do in old age.

So could previous generations have done the same? Their generation just wasn't large enough. Then along came this crazy baby boom and suddenly there was this all-powerful voting bloc which has shaped the world.

The current 66% is (a) not that big a change and (b) still high compared to historical averages so it's not so much "plummeting" as it is "reverting to the mean".

(which means we'll just continue to uphold the status quo like we always have)

This is a direct result of insufficient supply and skyrocketing values (thanks to interest rates being too low for too long).

> About two in three Canadians lived in an owner-occupied home in 2022. Since 2017, the home ownership rate in Canada has fluctuated and in 2019, it peaked at approximately 68.6 percent. In 2022, this figure was slightly lower, at 66.5 percent.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/198969/home-ownership-ra...

If I'm living at home with mom and dad, and they own their home, I'm technically living in an owner-occupied home, aren't I?

Even those living at home with parents will be benefiting from the status quo when they eventually inherit their parent's property.

If this was actually a problem then it would have been solved. It's not that hard to build houses.

Personally I'd like to buy a house and convert it to an unreasonable number of apartments with a common kitchen. If you happen to hookup a kitchen in your apartment how would I know?

https://www.statista.com/statistics/198969/home-ownership-ra....

I think the right billboard should cover our shit roads and transit, and our healthcare/ER. That affects everyone (and seniors the most!)

Going to Edmunston won't be very useful for them.

Can you name a few that haven’t seen house prices relative to household income skyrocket over the last 5-10 years?

https://www.point2homes.com/CA/Home-For-Sale/ON/Sault-Ste-Ma...

$260k for a multifamily home is pretty reasonable, in my books. The eternal issue though, is convincing new Canadians that there exists a life outside of the GTA and Vancouver.

Many places don't necessarily have expensive housing in absolute dollars for someone making top money, but that doesn't mean they don't have housing issues

All are safe, welcoming cities, all are relatively affordable. No they don't have an NHL team, yes they get cold in the winter. This is a cold country!

The cold is a real issue, but it's an extreme issue if you have the other two qualities, all 3 present in Winnipeg too because it's like 9 hours from any other city over 300k. I remember bussing to school every day, and walking one block would make my face feel like it was on fire, then I'd get home later and it would be dark, nobody really wants to do much except drink because there isn't much else. Sprawl and the same terrible zoning as anywhere else made it so only copy/pasted franchises would go up in the commercial areas, always along a major roadway with giant parking lots. I revisit once or twice a year, and it's deeply upsetting.

I pass through many towns like North Bay on road trips, and I have nothing against them inherently, but I think they're only suitable for the same people who just have no interest in being around many other people and bailed from Toronto as soon as their work went remote (I don't personally care for TO as much as Van). That, or people who just literally need any place to set up shop and support a family, but it's crazy to me that the major cities are essentially saying to a majority of young people who are renting their basement suites and have been for a decade, "It's cute that you want to stay where you've already built your community, but we own this and you get to pay my mortgage"

Housing is relatively affordable outside of Ontario and BC. Montreal, Calgary, Edmonton, Quebec City, Winnepeg, Halifax, Saskatoon, Regina, and St Johns are all major metro areas where homes are less than half the price of the GTA and Vancouver metro.

The obvious fix for Ontario and BC to make housing more affordable is to allow people to build more where people want to live by relaxing zoning requirements. In 80%+ of Vancouver and 60%+ of Toronto it's literally illegal to build anything besides detached single family homes. Little of the remaining land zoned for more dense development is suitable for development. There are some smaller changes like streamlining permitting, not exempting 100% of capital gains and incentivizing speculation, and a vacancy tax to discourage speculation that would help. The problem is any changes to make housing more affordable are politically unpopular, almost 70% of Canadians are homeowners and in the short term benefit from the status quo. Also younger people are ~20% less likely to vote.

Yeah, all of these cities also have long, harsh winters.

FWIW I'm a Canadian who lived in California on work visas for several years and relocated to Australia in 2011, where I'm now a citizen. I've never regretted leaving Canada.

There are many names that Canadians from outside Toronto call Toronto...few repeatable in polite company...but I have never heard this Banana Belt term either.

> "Affectionately termed the `banana belt' of Canada, this zone boasts the warmest average annual temperatures, the longest frost-free seasons, and the mildest winters in Ontario." -- https://caroliniancanada.ca/legacy/FactSheets_CCUniqueness.h...

> "The city where I live, Toronto, is situated in what Canadians call the banana belt, because of its relatively mild climate." -- https://www.jamaicaobserver.com/columns/gardeners-have-a-sen...

> "The 'banana belt' or Carolinian Canada is a region in Ontario found south of a line which runs approximately from Grand Bend to Toronto." -- http://erintown.blogspot.com/

> "Although this area is also known as the “banana belt” of Canada, you won't find any bananas growing here!" -- http://onnaturemagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2002-spring-c...

> "This part of Ontario is often known as the "Banana Belt", because of our moderate climate, in comparison to the rest of Canada." -- https://www.pinterest.es/pin/621919029764992451/

Multiple English dictionaries describe the term as specifically Canadian, e.g. Collins:

> "a region with a warm climate, esp one in Canada" -- https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/bana...

This is not the right way to think about it. Yes these cities are cheaper than GTA/GVA, but that has always been the case. And this metric only matters if you are earning GTA/GVA incomes and looking for something cheaper than these mega cities to buy in, which arguably only affects a tiny percent of the population.

The right comparison is how these cities’ house prices compare to themselves of 3, 5, 10 years ago versus their average household income over the same time periods.

When you look at that, which is a much more relevant metric of affordability, you will find there is essentially no city in this country that hasn’t been absolutely obliterated on affordability over the last decade.

7-10 years ago it was a GTA/GVA affordability issue. Now it a story of every podunk 2 horse town from coast to coast. Why? Because of interest rates! The BoC, like most central banks, left rates too low for too long and then massively overreacted to COVID.

The ERs in GTA are just always clogged. I've had to deal with multiple instances of 10+ hour waits in the ER. When they were not addressed in time, one such incident got worse, and ended up in a 10 day serious hospital stay (love the logic on that one).

Getting an appointment with any sort of specialist is also a gauntlet.

I'm an immigrant and it was surreal hearing the new Toronto mayor talk about how much she accomplished as an immigrant to Canada. It was indeed possible when she and I came to this country. It is a fantasy today. GTA has become a terrible place to live in a very short time period.

I live in the middle of nowhere and when renewing my annual lease my rent went 10% up

It is expensive for most people who live here

And Calgary prices have shooted up due to people leaving BC and ON. Not as expensive as BC or ON but nevertheless local people are feeling the changes.

To make matters worse, enjoy not having any road infrastructure, dealing with construction and traffic, paying the highest tax in country and dealing with an incompetent government who is more concerned about replacing stop signs that say "STOP" with "ARRÊT" instead of focusing on healthcare, education and employment.

I'm not sure why everyone thinks we live in a paradise. Montreal is only "hip" if you are 18 and want to go clubbing at night. The allure of "Jazz Fest" drops off quickly.

The market has proven totally unable to solve the housing crisis and your solution is to relax regulation and incentivize builders to make more profits. The price of units and homes is already too high, incentives will just get us more market rate or above housing.

Here's another option: start to decommodify housing by building good, mixed income public housing. Vienna and Singapore have two different models that could work here.

Yes, it is. The state caused the housing issues because of their Soviet-like zoning laws.

In the US and Canada, it's very similar, though a bit different: the State has decided that only ridiculously inefficient single-family housing is allowed to be built.

Both of them are situations where the State has forced limits on what kind of housing is allowed, but the type of housing is obviously diametrically different. A better system is one where the State sets very few limits on housing, only very practical ones (no 50-story towers next to the airport, for instance), and lets landowners do what they want with their land, within reason.

My family purchased a home in the province in 2007 for less than 100k. We had to repair the foundation and roof of our house multiple times, and the previous owner used seven layers of wallpaper instead of installing insulation. Cheap homes have their own problems, and two pensions was the only reason we could afford to fix it.

Plus there's Starlink if you want to live way out in the sticks.

Given that Canada is more spacious, government expects free market will solve the housing.

I nearly choked on my milk reading this. When in the recent period has housing ever followed the rules of supply and demand? The government policy makers, nimbys and banks are constantly doing everything possible to prevent the bubble from popping and to limit supply to ensure thier nest eggs keep appreciating regardless.

If housing actually had liberated free market, without government or nimby interference, we wouldn't have a housing crisis.

Same in Europe. Nobody wants the unsustainable housing bubble to pop, because everyone , from the voters to policy makers, are heavily invested into it with the idea that it must always go up no matter what. We've basically chosen going full steam ahead towards the iceberg because "line must go up".

In better accommodations than the "berry picking talent", "retail talent", "warehouse talent" or "trucking talent" that was fashionable to bring in in previous years.