2022 CPC Leadership Discussion: Et tu Redeux

[Navy_Pete]

That the GST cut will actually save people money is a polite fiction, realistically it will do a combination of two things
-allow people to get more house for their max affordability
-allow homebuilders to capture more of a given home's purchase price as profit

I'm leaning towards more of column B- which is how it will get more homes built.

That being said- to give Pierre credit as a political operator, this might be a "have your cake and eat it too" play. I'm curious as to what percentage of the municipalities that have signed on to the HAF have already made the attached zoning and approval process changes, have the projects underway etc. What will that number be by next October? How binding are the agreements? It's quite possible that by replacing the "failed" HAF with the GST cut he gets to reap the functional benefits of both, while distancing himself from the elements of the HAF that are unpopular with the NIMBY portion of his base.

GST is a short term solution, the HAF is a medium to long term solution that puts the onus on the municipal governments. I think it would be smarter to do both.

Having said that, we really have to stop bulldozing grade A farmland to drop some mcmansions on it when there is a lot of undeveloped brown fields in the cities. The fruitbelt in southern Ontario is a lot of townhouses now.

If the GoC was smart, they maybe would have provided funding to help clean that up, especially as a lot of it is in city limits so would help with intensification, which saves money on infrastructure and cuts down on emissions in real terms by making commutes on public transit or other means easier.