🏠 Homes are for Living, Not Looting 💰
- cz1635
- Aug 29
- 4 min read
Updated: Oct 6
By: HomesNotBankMachines
For too long, governments at every level have treated housing not as shelter, but as a source of revenue, with ideological, costly taxes and regulations that have become barriers to building affordable homes to rent or buy. The result? A national housing mess: sky-high prices and rents, suffocating red tape, and a shrinking path to affordable homeownership or rentals for the average citizen, coupled with unrestricted mass immigration that made home shortages worse. Vancouver and Toronto continue to top the list for least affordable rental housing.
Where will everyone live when new home building in many cities has virtually come to a standstill? The cranes you may see on the horizon are from projects that sold three to four years ago. They aren’t all available to rent or buy as “new housing supply”. About 60 – 70% were pre-sold so the builder could qualify for a construction loan from a bank or commercial lender.
Let’s be clear: housing is not a “human right” that governments can deliver with slogans or "targets". You can't move into a housing target or a plan, only a completed home. Housing is a product of work, savings, risk, and investment — like anything else of value. Governments don't build homes. Homebuilders and their financial partners, including banks, REITs, pension funds, private lending or capital firms, do. When government decides to interfere with the real estate market — through endless overregulation, punishing taxes and fees — prices rise, supply shrinks, and ordinary people, many of whom don't work for government, lose. Perhaps it's of no surprise the majority of homeowners in BC work for some level of government, according to Statistics Canada data.
Perhaps it's of no surprise the majority of homeowners in BC work for some level of government, according to Statistics Canada data.
We’re now seeing the consequences of failed government housing policies across the country. Families are priced out of starter homes. Young adults are forced to rent indefinitely or live in parent basements forever with growing resentment about ownership opportunities they may never enjoy. This means delayed family planning too. Builders face bureaucratic barriers at every turn, from development levies to approval processes that take years for construction permits. Canada is now three times slower than the US for building permits. Governments (regional, civic, provincial and federal) add layer upon layer of fees, taxes, and new regulations that cause delays and higher costs— then wonder why homes are unaffordable. "The C.D. Howe Institute estimates that these regulations cost homebuyers an average of $230,000 in Vancouver, Abbotsford, Victoria, Kelowna, Calgary, Toronto, and Ottawa-Gatineau. In Vancouver, that figure is an eye-watering $1 million. Studies have consistently shown that wherever land-use regulations are low, so are home prices." This isn't a market failure. It's a policy failure.
This isn’t a market failure. It’s a policy failure. Homes aren't piggybanks for politicians.
Homes aren't piggybanks for politicians
We must stop treating homes like piggy banks for politicians. Development charges, land transfer taxes, and inflated property taxes are suffocating new homes from being built and punishing the renter and buyer who pay all the rising costs in the end. And that's if the project even gets the approval or the financing to build. Once you factor in all the costs of construction, the end unit may be too expensive to build if no one can afford to buy it or rent it.
Proven Solutions:
For real solutions, here’s a good start:
✂️ Cut the red tape. Fast-track building permits, scrap much of the regulatory barriers, and restore the freedom to build. BC's building code of "rules" is nearly 2,000 pages long. Ontario's is even more at almost 2,300 pages, approaching a Guinness World Record for longest book length! In 1975, Canada's national building code was only 198 pages. Shortly after that in 1976, Canada built the most housing ever at 273,200. "Yet this year, Canada will build roughly 237,000 homes. By 2027, Canada Mortgage and Housing (CMHC) projects just 220,000. Two generations later, with twice the population, output is falling," says Chris Gardner, president and CEO of the Independent Contractors and Businesses Association. -Vancouver Sun, August 28, 2025.
💰 Eliminate housing-specific taxes like land transfer and vacancy taxes that do nothing but push prices higher. We must also welcome foreign buyer investments to help fund all the rental housing we need. Governments have admitted they can’t do it alone.
⚠️ Governments: Get out of the way. Let builders build — without city hall dictating what kind of sink goes in the kitchen, what energy source is used or how many bedrooms must be provided.
It’s time to let markets do what they do best: respond to demand, innovate, and deliver. Government’s job is not to micromanage them.
Homes should be for living — not looting, overtaxing, or politicizing.
We can restore affordability the only way it's proven to work, by freeing the housing market.
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