New report on P.E.I. Buddhist organization land holdings will be made public, minister says
Minister of Housing, Land and Communities Steven Myers has ordered IRAC to launch a new review into the land holdings owned and/or controlled by two Buddhist organizations in P.E.I. While the result of a previous investigation from 2018 was never released to the public, Myers says that won't be the case this time.
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National Post
23 minutes ago
- National Post
Joel Kotkin: Carney's Canada will devolve into feudalism
Article content In this shift towards oligarchy, homeownership and investment profits play a major role. This is particularly true in terms of housing, where the Liberal Party has long championed 'urban containment,' a policy that seeks to limit suburban and exurban development while promoting dense urban growth. The result, notes a new study by demographer Wendell Cox, has been housing prices that, in terms of the relationship between median home prices and household income, are increasingly out of reach for the average Canadian. Article content Immigration, key to Canada's population surge, has contributed to this shortage. While the country's working population swelled by a record 3.7 per cent at the start of this year, housing starts remained essentially flat. At one housing start for every 4.9 people entering the working-age population, 'there is no precedent for a housing supply deficit of this magnitude,' notes National Bank of Canada economist Stéfane Marion. The biggest losers have been people under 40, for whom the homeownership rate has dropped to around 50 per cent, almost 10 per cent less than a decade before. It also helps to have wealthy parents who own a home; children of homeowners are twice as likely to acquire a home as those who do not. Article content If you wish to live in Canada's two great international cities, and are not of aristocratic stock, it's getting tough to get shelter. Four of the six major markets in Canada have a median multiple — a ratio of the median house price by the median gross (before tax) annual household income — of 5.4, considerably higher than the US's 4.8. Vancouver now ranks fourth among all anglophone markets at 11.8, behind Hong Kong, Sydney, and San Jose. Toronto, at 8.4, stands as the second-least affordable market in Canada and ranks 84th out of 95 markets in international affordability, with a severely unaffordable median multiple of 8.4. As late as about 1990, national price-to-income ratios were 'affordable,' at 3.0 or less in Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Article content This pattern severely restricts homeownership, which has been declining since 2021. Not surprisingly, rates are lower in both Vancouver and Toronto than in much of the country. Clearly densification, the preferred growth option of the elites, does not help a housing shortage or reduce prices as Patrick Condon of the University of British Columbia has shown. Indeed, now Vancouver is now producing less-than-half the housing units needed to meet demand, one reason for the high prices even in a weak economy. Condon, an eloquent advocate of densification, cites the 'indisputable' evidence that 'upzoning' increases the value of land (by increasing the development value). Article content Concentrations of property and wealth are likely to worsen under the renewed Liberal regime. Planners and climate activists, as in California, a place which almost rivals Toronto and Vancouver in their progressive domination, will likely get even stronger with 'net zero' devotee Carney in charge. Similarly, industries that tend to create high-wage jobs, notably in oil and gas, will find themselves constrained, leaving the big money to financial institutions and those firms who rely on protectionism to shield themselves from both Chinese and American competition. Article content
CBC
3 days ago
- CBC
Toronto gets $67.2M housing cheque as Ontario housing numbers falter
The Ontario government has awarded Toronto $67.2 million in funding after the city came close to hitting its housing starts target last year — but provincial officials say they'll be handing out fewer such cheques in 2025 as not as many cities are hitting their goals. "You have certain mayors in certain towns and cities that absolutely refuse to build. They aren't building a doghouse," Premier Doug Ford said at a news conference at Toronto City Hall Friday, flanked by Mayor Olivia Chow. "They aren't building a garage, and we all know it. "And then you have great cities, and great mayors like Mayor Chow here that's saying, 'We're going to build, we're going to build as quickly as possible because we need the housing.'" This is the second round of funding from the province's Building Faster Fund, which provides funding to municipalities that hit at least 80 per cent of their provincially designated housing targets. Announced in 2023, it promised to provide $1.2 billion over a three-year period to municipalities that achieve annual targets for new home construction starts. Toronto broke ground on 20,999 new homes last year, the province said in a news release, which works out to be 88 per cent of its 2024 housing target. Municipalities missing housing targets Though Toronto appears to be on the right track, it's now increasingly unlikely that Ford's government will achieve its stated target of 1.5 million new homes by 2031. The latest Ontario budget forecasts 71,800 housing starts in 2025, followed by 74,800 next year and 82,500 in 2027. WATCH | Fewer homes expected to be built in Ontario this year: Ontario budget forecasts fewer housing starts in 2025 22 days ago Duration 3:57 There have been 260,000 actual housing starts in the three years since the target was set. So if you add in the projections for 2025 and 2026, the province would only be about one-quarter of the way toward its goal at the end of next year, which is the halfway point of the target timeline. The province distributed only $280 million from the fund in its first year after more than half of Ontario's municipalities failed to hit the housing start targets in 2023. The government hasn't updated its housing start tracker since October 2024. As of that point, nine months through the year, only 11 of 50 municipalities had reached their annual benchmark. Country facing housing 'crisis,' housing minister says When asked by CBC News at Friday's news conference why the provincial government is no longer showing the numbers for what each municipality is building, Housing Minister Rob Flack said that he would "have to get back to you." "Housing starts are down. We know that," Flack said. "There's a crisis, a major crisis in this country. We're going to hand out some nice Building Faster Fund cheques — not as many and not for as much this year as we did last year." Flack went on to say that's why the government introduced Bill 17, which is intended to accelerate permit issuance and streamline zoning rules. It also defers the collection of development charges until occupancy, which the province says will provide greater cash flow flexibility. "We know the numbers are down, but if we don't make the changes like we did in Bill 17, we're never going to hit our targets," Flack said. Speaking at the news conference, Chow said that the provincial funding will help build homes in the city faster. "At the end of the day we have a housing crisis, we need to build, whether through deferring development charges, exempting development charges, building the missing middle," she said. "We need to build, build, build a lot of housing, especially affordable housing."
CBC
3 days ago
- CBC
Winnipeg council approves sweeping housing zoning reforms
Winnipeg city council approved a package of sweeping housing zoning reforms overnight after days of debate. Council members proposed dozens of amendments in a hearing that went late into the night Thursday, but the reforms council approved did not change substantially from what city staff had recommended. Property owners can now build up to four units on all housing lots in the city, and buildings up to four storeys can be constructed within 800 metres of frequent transit, without the need for a public hearing, as long as they meet certain design standards. Critics of the changes say they take away the right of people to have a say on developments in their neighbourhoods. But Mayor Scott Gillingham said the city needed to make these changes to qualify for $450 million in federal housing funding from a number of different programs, including the housing accelerator fund. The mayor and other supporters say the new rules will lead to more homes being built faster, which will lower the cost of housing. In a news release, Gillingham said the changes will allow for a greater variety of housing in more neighbourhoods, making it easier for young workers, families and older adults to find a place to live. The city began the process of making these reforms in November 2023, when it agreed to implement zoning changes in exchange for receiving $122.4 million from the federal housing accelerator fund, which is intended to speed up housing construction. Other programs, like the Canada housing infrastructure fund and the Canada public transit fund, also made the money conditional on municipal governments making it easier to build housing.
