A real solution to the Housing crisis! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yf7d_5wGAIM&list=WL&index=1&t=1735s
Too bad the ‘professional’ reporters for the legacy news were too busy trolling for a ‘gotcha’ that they couldn’t be bothered looking into the first realistic proposal for ending the housing crisis.
It’s actually kind of bullshit this isn’t on the front pages of CBC or The Globe.
In fact, if you click into the politics section of both it’s all about the circus and has almost nothing about policy updates.
It’s the first thing that shows up for me on cbc, posted 4 hours after your comment. I think this might have been more that it takes time to research, interview, get responses from the opposition and fact check.
Thank you, at the time I posted it only appeard when you scrolled down to the news sections. Later on it did appear in the grouping of articles about the liberals on the front page but was under then canddiate with the stupid china comments (good riddance).
Carney sounds like a man with a solid plan. I’m much more hopeful about housing than I’ve been in maybe a dozen years?
Edit: After listening to the speech in its entirety, I’m pretty impressed.
Don’t worry: the cons will find mud to sling, as normal. Brown suits, theatre make-up, traditional clothing, the ability to not sound like a whinier Trump; all these are apparently indictable offenses.
Remember when the Liberals also promised the 2015 election would also be the last under FPTP?
[something Justin didn’t do on time]
P a n d e m i c
Quite right.
But what I’m excited about is a major party actually saying that the govt can actually solve the housing crisis, a reference to when the govt did this in the past, and describes a practical way of doing it.
If we won’t reward a party that actually comes up with a plan because we don’t trust them, when is any party going to actually do it?
And don’t forget, Trudeau actually did do some of the things he promised—like legalizing cannabis. And that was something that I heard nothing but hand-wringing about from other politicians my entire life!
You make fair points about housing and cannabis legalization. The Liberals do occasionally follow through on promises, especially when they align with both political opportunity and public pressure.
However, electoral reform is more fundamental than any single policy area. When Liberals promised that 2015 would be “the last election under first-past-the-post”, they weren’t just offering another policy - they were promising to fix the democratic foundation upon which all other policies rest. According to the opposition, Trudeau repeated this commitment to “make every vote count” more than 1,800 times, clearly understanding how much it resonated with voters.
The Electoral Reform Committee recommended proportional representation after extensive consultation, but Trudeau abandoned it when he couldn’t get his preferred system. More recently, 68.6% of Liberal MPs voted against even creating a Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform.
This matters because in a proper democracy, citizens are entitled to meaningful representation. A housing program (however needed) can be implemented and cancelled with each election cycle under our current system - what experts call policy lurch. But proportional representation would fundamentally reshape how all policies are developed, ensuring they better reflect what Canadians actually vote for.
I’m not saying we should dismiss other policies - housing is critically important. But it’s worth noting that the same party repeatedly promising electoral reform for over a century (since Mackenzie King in 1919) while never delivering it suggests a deeply entrenched pattern that voters should question.
Again. The Liberals said they’d change it. That’s more than any of the other parties have said they’d do.
The NDP talk a good game, but when they get elected provincially they never actually do it. And the Conservatives don’t want it—ever.
For me, it’s a minor victory that a party leading in the polls actually says it takes housing seriously!
I have to disagree with a few points here.
First, it’s not accurate that “Liberals said they’d change it. That’s more than any of the other parties have said they’d do.” The Green Party, NDP, and Bloc Québécois consistently support proportional representation. In fact, in 2024, all the Bloc, Greens, NDP, and Independent MPs, 3 Conservatives and 39 Liberal Party MPs voted for a Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform - but 107 Liberal MPs (68.6%) voted against it.
Second, Justin Trudeau admitted in 2024 that Liberals were “deliberately vague” about electoral reform to appeal to Fair Vote Canada advocates, while privately preferring a non-proportional system that would have benefited their party. This suggests their promises weren’t made in good faith.
On housing specifically - yes, it’s important that parties address the crisis. But under our current electoral system, we’re vulnerable to what experts call policy lurch, where each new government wastes billions undoing the previous government’s work. Even a promising housing program can be cancelled after the next election, with all investments wasted.
This is why electoral reform is fundamental rather than just another policy promise. Proportional representation creates the conditions for stable long-term policies on housing, climate change, and other complex issues that require planning beyond a single electoral cycle.
I’m not saying we should ignore housing - it’s critically important. But fixing our democratic foundation would help ensure housing policies (and all others) better reflect what Canadians actually vote for and are more resistant to politically-motivated cancellation.
You present real facts, yet people downvote you. Insane.
Electoral reform should be a priority. It’s what the majority of Canadians want. Like most Canadians, I’m sick and tired of always having to vote for the least worst party to avoid the worst one becoming a majority. I’m sick of having MPs and parties being elected into power by a minority of the population.
Oui, c’est pourquoi j’essaie tres forte!
When Liberals promised that 2015 would be “the last election under first-past-the-post”, they weren’t just offering another policy
I mean, they weren’t offering a policy at all. They had no plan, no specifics. They said they would take away one thing, but never gave details about what they would replace it with, and “nothing” was never an option.
They offered no policy.
This is policy. This has specifics. There is a plan attached to this.
Moreover, you can’t truly hold Carney accountable for Trudeau’s lack of action. He wasn’t there, he wasn’t involved. You may as well hold the NDP accountable for not getting it done while Trudeau was beholden to their support agreement.
Or hold the NDP accountable for all of the provinces they’ve made government in and never changed the electoral system. Who’s actually worth trusting on this?
I appreciate your perspective, but there are several points worth clarifying.
First, the Liberals did have specific plans for electoral reform. The entire Electoral Reform Committee process produced clear recommendations for proportional representation after extensive consultation. The problem wasn’t a lack of plan—it was that the plan (proportional representation) didn’t align with Trudeau’s preference for Alternative Vote, a system that would have benefited the Liberal Party.
Regarding Carney’s accountability: while he wasn’t personally involved, he’s now leading a party with an established pattern of promising electoral reform without delivering. Since Mackenzie King in 1919, Liberals have campaigned on PR during multiple elections. Carney has been notably vague when asked about his position, despite being an economist who should understand the mathematics of fair representation. When an intelligent person is “uncertain” about ensuring every vote counts, it suggests political calculation rather than genuine indecision.
As for the NDP’s provincial record, this “whataboutism” doesn’t address the fundamental issue: our electoral system systematically discards millions of valid votes. At the federal level, 87% of NDP, Green, and Bloc MPs supported a Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform in 2024, while 68.6% of Liberal MPs opposed it. Actions speak louder than words.
The housing policy comparison misses the point. Electoral reform isn’t just another policy—it’s the foundation that determines how all other policies are made. The mathematical reality remains: in our democracy, citizens are deserving of and entitled to representation in government, and only proportional representation can dependably deliver that.
Democracy requires that every vote counts and affects outcomes. This isn’t a partisan position—it’s a democratic principle.
Electoral reform is not the most pressing issue, it is your most pressing issue, which is very different.
And as we’ve discussed, given how well PR is going in our G7 peers like Germany and Italy, goodness gracious I’m glad we dodged that bullet.
Your continued cherry-picking of specific countries while ignoring the fundamental issue of democratic representation is telling.
First, electoral reform isn’t just “my” pressing issue - 76% of Canadians support electoral reform. This overwhelming support exists because millions of citizens recognize their votes are systematically discarded under our current system.
As for Germany and Italy, you’re mischaracterizing how PR functions in these countries. In Germany, the AfD has representation proportional to their actual support, while coalition dynamics have successfully kept them from power. Their support would exist under any electoral system - PR simply makes it visible rather than hidden within a mainstream party.
Meanwhile, PR countries like New Zealand, the Nordic nations, and many others consistently outperform FPTP countries on measures of economic equality, social welfare, and policy stability. Your selective examples ignore this broader evidence.
The core issue remains: in Ontario’s last election, the PCs formed a “majority” government with just 43% of the vote. Under FPTP, 57% of voters who explicitly rejected them have no meaningful representation. How is this democratic?
What you call “dodging a bullet” is actually dodging democracy itself. A system where every vote contributes meaningfully to representation isn’t a radical idea - it’s a fundamental democratic principle. When you oppose this principle, what you’re really saying is that some citizens deserve representation while others don’t, based solely on where they live or who they support.
The mathematical reality is undeniable: PR produces governments that more accurately reflect how people actually vote. This isn’t a minor technical detail - it’s the entire purpose of representative democracy.
For this election, electoral reform isn’t making it into the top 5 or 10 in any poll I’ve seen, feel free to share something contrary! (It’s sort of like climate, many people are in favour of climate legislation but it’s not top of mind for this election.)
We’ve already gone over the merits of PR and I’ve politely shown you why PR doesn’t seem to be a great choice. (For anyone interested, I’ve given this person a boatload of time to hear these same tired points over and over again. https://lemmy.ca/post/40556342/15124577)
tl;dr: Despite cries of cherrypicking (which seems absurd given that our G7 peers are probably the best comparisons, though you could also look at Austria, Netherlands, Poland etc to see PR going so poorly that people are giving up and turning the extreme right. Basically, it comes down to what you think Democracy is for? If it’s to produce good governments that benefit their people, I think our system seems to be doing a better job than PR has recently (Personally, I think polarization, less informed populaces and the emergence of a bunch of serious problems in rapid succession have made a system based on coalitions much more difficult) whereas this person seems to believe the only thing that matters is getting the most accurate reflection of how people vote (though, oddly, hates some forms of PR like Israel’s even if they are more representative of how people vote. I guess it’s vote representation is all that matters until the examples don’t look good.)
Edit: OP also seems to have responded then locked the thread to prevent a response. For anyone who manages to get through the pages of silliness.
I’m so fucking jazzed about this. This is what I’ve been going on about for years. It’s such an obvious part of the solution. I’ll wait to see if they can pull it off, but everything I’ve seen so far is fantastic.
A real solution?
No.
Neither is the Conservative or NDP ideas either though.
How much will all house prices drop if we build X?
If the answer isn’t “the entire housing market will drop by greater than 50%” then you don’t have a solution.
If the answer is “house prices will stay the same, or even keep going up” then you actually haven’t done a fucking thing.
I’m not saying that this proposal will definitely solve the housing crisis. But this is the third housing bubble I’ve seen in my lifetime. If it bursts like the first two, then housing will drop in price. (I bought my home when the 2nd bubble burst.)
The problem all over the world with housing is enough stock hasn’t been built for decades. And Carney’s proposal is the first one I’ve ever seen that actually deals with this problem and on the scale needed. It also identifies two things: that Canada has faced this problem in the past and fixed it, and, there has been a problem with govts not being willing to act decisively and fast enough to really make a difference.
A) Even if the housing market dropped as much as it did in the 90s (about 30% in the toronto area) it STILL wouldn’t be affordable. That’s the problem here, the situation is so bad that even a massive crash isn’t enough to fix it. It has to be completely ruined before we restore that tag.
B) There are more bedrooms in Canada than people, and given that a lot of people share bedrooms (couples and small children) that means there’s actually a significant excess of housing. If you go back through my comment history you can actually find where I did the math and linked sources on this one. The problem is not the lack of housing, it’s the distribution and allocation of housing. This problem can be fixed without building a single new home.
