OPINION: A new report calculates how much you’d have to make per hour to afford rent. The result is an indictment of all levels of government

  • @Pxtl
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    511 months ago

    “tax the wealthy” - I would say that in particular this should be taxing wealth. Canada is in the unique position that most of the wealth in this country is real-estate, and therefore has a street address. Capital flight is much more difficult under that circumstance. The guy who owns three houses and a few condos and a car-dealership is far more interesting than a well-paid surgeon, but one owes more of their lifestyle to their wealth rather than their labour. I tend to dislike Jagmeet Singh on policy issues but I think he’s spot on about it being time for wealth taxes in Canada.

    Normally I’m pretty neoliberal when it comes to the housing crisis (ie: a huge part of the problem is overregulation) but at this point the solution will require undoing decades of damage and that will mean a need for below-market housing at least until the free market can catch up, if not forever. Taxing Canada’s wealthy land-owners is an obvious way to fund this, since they’re the ones profiting the most from this shortage.

    • @[email protected]
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      311 months ago

      Canada is in the unique position that most of the wealth in this country is real-estate, and therefore has a street address.

      That’s a really good point I’ve never seen articulated that way before.

      I’ve long been curious about the impact of tweaks to the principal residence exemption for capital gains tax. Eg a cap, ie once a house has appreciated say $1M in value, further appreciation is taxable as revenue.