Supply or Speculation

A plan to alleviate the shortage of housing in Canada is likely to be mentioned in the political platforms of all persons seeking election federally, provincially, and in municipalities. The plans may differ depending on the understanding of the authors about the root cause of the shortage.

Affordable Housing For Canadians

Commentary from the RateSpy website in 2020 underlined the importance of supply and the Law of Supply and Demand in the availability and affordability of housing in Canada.

On that note, an IMF report last October had a radical solution to Canada’s housing crisis: “ To Tackle Housing Affordability in Canada, Build More Houses.” Hey, they might be onto something.

In truth, there’s no easy cure that doesn’t disadvantage someone. Real progress takes hard fixes, like incentivizing more homes within tolerable commutes to job centres, building ultra-high-speed transit to regions with cheaper land, or other capital, time or bureaucratic-intensive solutions. Or maybe it takes more out-of-the-box thinking, like government land acquisition partnerships or near-interest free financing to developers that build strategic high-density housing in/near public transportation corridors.

The Department of Finance has said it many times; home construction is “needed to address…housing supply shortages in Canada, particularly in our largest cities.” The 2019 Federal Budget stated that increasing the supply of housing “is the most effective way to address affordability in the long run.” Righto. Because whatever the solution, supply is the problem, and it has been for 20 years. (Who Repealed the Law of Supply and Demand?, 2020)

Steve Pomeroy, Industry Professor, Department of Health Aging and Society, McMaster University, advises to solve the housing problem we need to address supercharged demand.

If policy-makers and the newly re-elected government want to improve housing affordability and the ability of young families to become homeowners, they need to turn their attention to the primary driver of price increases — super-charged demand, abetted by the sacred cow of non-taxation of capital gains on a principal residence.(Pomeroy, 2021)

Mark Morris, who has established and sold numerous businesses in the legal space and is presently the principal lawyer at LegalClosing.ca and runs and operates LegalReview.ca, shares the opinion that we need governments that can refocus economic incentives around real business value and promote programs that foster enduring products and services with economic potential beyond Airbnb. This will involve unwinding any number of perverse incentives designed to foster real estate growth at the expense of everything else.

Or consider the principal residence exemption, which is usable over and over again by individuals for any amount of money garnered from the sale of their home, as long as they lived in it. Compare that to the sale of shares of an active Canadian business, which is tax-free only on an amount of less than a million dollars and, even then, is only available for use once in a lifetime. 

These perverse incentives exist throughout our system and need to be addressed if this country is to continue to remain on course.

Canada is hooked on real estate. We need to detox fast for our sake, for our children's future and, above all, for all future aspiring business creators who would seek to develop their skills in a system that encourages rather than punishes their efforts. (Morris, 2022)

Adena Ali, of the The Canadian Press, reported that, according to the CMHC, Canada needs 5.8 million new homes by 2030.

If current rates of new construction continue, CMHC said the country's housing stock is expected to increase by 2.3 million units by 2030, reaching close to 19 million units total. But in order to achieve affordability for all Canadians, the agency said an additional 3.5 million homes are needed.

Softening housing market conditions and a labour shortage in the construction sector could get in the way of bringing Canada's housing stock to more than 22 million by 2030, however.

"There are supply issues, labour shortages at the moment and the cost of financing is going up, so clearly there are short-term challenges," said CMHC deputy chief economist Aled ab Iorwerth during a conference call.

BMO economist Robert Kavcic says it will be tough to achieve what the CMHC wants to achieve.

"The jobless rate in construction is near a record low; vacancies are at a record high, we have a deep shortage of skilled trades, and the cost of building materials is already rising quickly," he said. "So, unless the economy really rolls over and is in need of stimulus, effectively doubling the rate of new construction over the next decade will be extremely difficult without significant inflationary pressure." (Ali, 2022)

Supply, speculation, demand, and the lack of taxes on the sale of principal residences are cited as contributors to the shortage of available housing in Canada. In the next election cycles, we expect the successful candidates will support policy to tackle this disastrous situation.

References

Ali, A. (2022, June 23). Canada needs 5.8 million new homes by 2030 to tackle affordability crisis, CMHC warns. CBC. Retrieved August 26, 2023, from https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/housing-affordability-cmhc-report-2030-1.6498898 

Morris, M. (2022, June 21). Canada is hooked on real estate. It needs a detox. CBC. Retrieved August 26, 2023, from https://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/opinion-canada-real-estate-addiction-morris-1.6492967 

Pomeroy, S. (2021, November 25). Want to solve the housing crisis? Address super-charged demand. The Conversation. Retrieved August 26, 2023, from https://theconversation.com/want-to-solve-the-housing-crisis-address-super-charged-demand-169809 

Who Repealed the Law of Supply and Demand? (2020, September 16). Ratespy.com. Retrieved August 26, 2023, from https://www.ratespy.com/who-repealed-the-law-of-supply-and-demand-opinion-091615871 

Fiona Flood Fire and Franklin

The F’s have had a lot of influence on our Maritime quality of life while racking up enormous bills for recovery. Anne Shibata Casselman, writing in McLeans, identifies our time as a weird century of fire, biblical floods, dying forests, retreating coasts, economic turmoil, and political unrest.

Concern about Climate Change

Armel Castellan’s job to know the weather 24/7, Environment and Climate Change Canada’s disaster preparedness meteorologist for B.C. and Yukon, hydrated between speaking to the New York Times and Reuters. At night, he set up a tent in his backyard so his three young children’s bodies could cool down. When Victoria set a record high of 39.8 degrees, he tried not to think too hard about what that meant for the future his kids would inherit.

In other words, more heat domes are inevitable—as are many more extreme events and disasters that were once unimaginable. By the time we reach two degrees, our Great White North will look like the Great Wet North, as precipitation increases and winter’s edge is blunted. The summertime flow of rivers that bring water to prairie cities will decline. Rain, heat and hail will be biblical in scale, with no god to blame. Wildfires will burn hotter, larger and longer, poisoning the air for millions and potentially hastening the decline of our vast northern forests, which will already be stressed by rising temperatures. These disasters will lead in turn to declines in prosperity, productivity, well-being, social cohesion and physical health. Even the unborn won’t escape: in-utero exposure to wildfire smoke, for example, will leave an indelible, lifelong mark on babies’ health. (Casselman & Dyck, n.d.)

Ian Fairclough, a multimedia journalist, with SaltWire, interviewed  Kate Ervine, a professor in the global development studies department at Saint Mary’s University, who says many impacts of climate change have an effect on the fire season.

“Looking at these things globally, whether it’s the wildfires, or the extreme heatwaves, or the droughts, or the flooding and record ocean temperatures, we’re seeing all these cascading events that are intensifying year on year,” 

“Fossil fuels are the primary source of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and stay there for hundreds to thousands of years, so the CO2 that was emitted during the industrial age, there’s a good chance it’s with us today, and what we’re burning in our coal-fired power plant today is going to be around for hundreds of years,” “It’s a cumulative problem.”

“As it accumulates in the atmosphere, we’re now starting to see the much more intense repercussions in terms of all the events we’re (experiencing).” (Fairclough, 2023)

Ervine notes that when she’s out in the community she’s hearing more conversations about climate, and “it seems like the mainstream discussion of climate change is here now because people are seeing it and they’re feeling it.”

Jagmeet Singh in an Opinion Piece for the National Observer, proposes action for the people of Canada.

There is a lot of work ahead of us, and we will not achieve it with half-measures or attempts to divide Canadians. The federal government must work with all levels of government and community leaders to ensure that when climate disasters strike, communities have the resources they need to protect themselves.

We must work together to address the climate crisis — both to reduce our emissions and increase renewable energy. It will not be enough to set ambitious targets. We must also have a plan to meet them and the investments that it takes to prevent even more catastrophic climate disasters.

We must ramp up efforts to make our homes and communities as safe as possible from the climate emergency that is threatening all of us. There is no more time to waste arguing over the science of climate change when the results are right in front of us. (Singh & Fawcett, 2023)

Max Fawcett shares his opinion in the National Observer, that Pierre Poilievre’s version of the CPC has made its indifference to climate change a key selling feature to its base.

 

That sales job seems to be working, too. According to an Aug. 9 EKOS poll, just 24 per cent of CPC voters assign a “high extent” of responsibility for the surge in wildfires to climate change compared to 91 per cent for people who vote NDP, 88 per cent for Liberal supporters and 81 per cent for the BQ. (Fawcett & Saxifrage, 2023)

Climate Change Attention	Climate Change Conservatives
Kelowna under a state of emergency after wildfire in West Kelowna exploded	Kelowna MP, Tracy Gray “Canadians cannot afford Trudeau's carbon tax.
19,000 residents of Yellowknife were ordered to evacuate as another huge fire bore down on their community.	Poilievre postponed his Aug. 24 “axe the tax” rally in Whitehorse due to the wildfires
Market-led transition @BloombergNEF  expects 20 million barrels/day of oil demand destruction by 2040.	Refuse to entertain the possibility that demand for Canada’s oil and gas could decline dramatically in the near future
Invested in protecting the people and communities oil and gas emissions put at risk.	Invested in protecting the oil and gas industry’s status quo

As we struggle to cope with the disastrous climate events of the past year, we can not longer delay development of mitigation and adaptation strategies to reduce destruction of our environment and our quality of life.

References

Casselman, A. S., & Dyck, D. (n.d.). Canada in the Year 2060. Macleans.ca. Retrieved August 23, 2023, from https://macleans.ca/society/environment/canada-in-the-year-2060/ 

Fairclough, I. (2023, August 21). Wildfires have always happened, but climate change is making them worse. SaltWire. Retrieved August 23, 2023, from https://www.saltwire.com/atlantic-canada/news/wildfires-have-always-happened-but-climate-change-is-making-them-worse-100884746/ 

Fawcett, M., & Saxifrage, B. (2023, August 22). Conservatives tweet while Canada burns | Canada's National Observer: News & Analysis. National Observer. Retrieved August 23, 2023, from https://www.nationalobserver.com/2023/08/22/opinion/pierre-poilievre-conservatives-tweet-while-canada-burns? 

Singh, J., & Fawcett, M. (2023, August 22). The climate crisis is here. It's time to act like it: Jagmeet Singh. National Observer. Retrieved August 23, 2023, from https://www.nationalobserver.com/2023/08/22/opinion/climate-crisis-here-its-time-act-it 

Fire and Rain

James Taylor is certainly not the only person to have seen fire and rain. This summer, Nova Scotia residents have suffered severe losses to the ravages of wildfire and torrential rain.

Bulging Brook 

Hina Alam reporting for The Canadian Press describes to Global News correlation between wildfires and  flooding in Nova Scotia.

Kent Moore, an atmospheric physics professor at the University of Toronto, Nova Scotia is about two degrees warmer than usual for this time of the year, Moore said. And as Nova Scotia and the rest of the planet heat up, the atmosphere’s ability to hold water vapour increases, he added.

“Water vapour is what produces clouds, and also produces rain. It is like an engine for weather.’

The last time Nova Scotia got more than 250 mm of rain — 296 mm fell on Aug. 15-16, 1971 — hurricane Beth hit the province. But Nova Scotia might not have to wait another 50 years for a similar weather event, Moore said, as extreme weather becomes more frequent.

“Scientists have predicted for many, many years that as we continue to pump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, we’re going to see a warming, and that will probably lead to more extreme conditions,” he said.

“When we talk about global warming, the impacts of that changing or increasing temperature, is we’re going to see more fluctuations, we’re going to see extreme events — extreme dry events, and also extreme rain events. And that’s what Nova Scotia has seen so far this year.” (Alam, 2022)

John Paul Tasker of CBC News reports that wildfires have already burned approximately 13.4 million hectares of land in Canada.

The "monumental fires" in Quebec and unusual fires in Nova Scotia have been "challenging" for the country's firefighting resources, Michael Norton, the director general of the northern forestry centre at the Canadian Forest Centre, said.

Federal data reveals just how devastating this wildfire season has already been with more than 5,500 fires reported so far — events that have burned approximately 13.4 million hectares. That stunning figure is significantly more than the 10-year average of 2.2 million hectares burned in any given year.

It also easily dwarfs the previous record of 7.6 million hectares reported in 1989 — and the season isn't even over yet. (Tasker, 2022)

Fire, Flood, and Fiona have been very costly to residents of Nova Scotia. Emergency action to mitigate and adapt to these climate crisis scenarios is immediately required by government, industry, and commerce.

References

Alam, H. (2022, August 30). Climate change: Correlation between wildfires, flooding in Nova Scotia. Global News. Retrieved July 25, 2023, from https://globalnews.ca/news/9854680/ns-flooding-climate-change-wildfires/?utm_source=%40globalhalifax&utm_medium=Twitter 

Tasker, J. P. (2022, October 2). Wildfires have already burned approximately 13.4 million hectares of land. CBC News. Retrieved August 18, 2023, from https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-wildfire-season-worst-ever-more-to-come-1.6934284?__vfz=medium%3Dsharebar 

Summer of fire, flood and wind

The summer of 2023 has brought frequent and disastrous climate events that threaten life and property in Canada.

Risk of Water Damage

 

Marsha Lederman, Globe and Mail Staff Columnist, reflects on recent climate events and concludes despair alone is not an option. 

It can feel futile – I get it. But despair alone is not an option. Accompany it with debate, protest, action. Invest and shop ethically (if you can), ride your bike to work (if it’s not too hot), eat more sustainably, argue with that climate-change denier at the family barbecue. The time to swelter in silence is over. (Lederman et al., n.d.)

Brenna Walsh, Senior Energy Coordinator at the Ecology Action Centre, comments:  “Here in Nova Scotia wildfires and floods this summer have destroyed homes, displaced hundreds of people and taken lives, and has brought the challenges of living in a climate emergency to light for many people,” 

“In Nova Scotia, we have one of the dirtiest grids in the country – 43 per cent of emissions come from electricity, compared to the national average of nine per cent. Although progress has been made in committing to get off coal by 2030, we have a long way to go to get to net zero for the electricity grid, but it is possible.” 

The Clean Electricity Regulation helps ensure that Nova Scotia is taking advantage of wind and solar – now the cheapest form of electricity ever – and disincentivizes turning on expensive fossil fuel assets during times of peak demand. Bringing projects like the Atlantic Loop online support this by allowing trade with Quebec, providing access to their hydro power when Nova Scotia would have to turn on polluting peaker plants and allowing Nova Scotia to sell wind and solar back when it has extra. This can help drive cost effective decarbonization of our grid, reduce rate increases and protect Nova Scotians from the volatile prices of fossil fuels. (Clean Electricity Regulation Important to Green Nova Scotia’s Grid, 2023)

Electrify for the future in Nova Scotia

Stephen Thomas, Clean Energy Manager, David Suzuki Foundation, said “The wildfires, floods and droughts we’re seeing across Canada this year are unprecedented in their costs to our people, land and economy. They are an urgent reminder that we need to move away from the root cause of this climate crisis: fossil fuels.

“We know there is broad support for a zero-emissions future in Canada. More than 40,000 people signed petitions calling for the end to fossil fuels, and for renewable power for all.

“It’s not just an environmental argument to move away from fossil fuels. Wind and solar are the cheapest forms of electricity in history, while fossil fuel prices are increasingly volatile and costly. We will all see the benefits on our energy bills of a grid powered by renewables.”(Thomas, n.d.)

The clean electricity regulations of the Government of Canada set a direction for electricity generation and distribution that will reduce the GHG emissions of fossil fuel generation, create opportunities for the electrical transition workforce, and mitigate future effects of climate on floods, fires, and wind.

References

Clean Electricity Regulation important to green Nova Scotia’s grid. (2023, August 10). Ecology Action Centre. Retrieved August 11, 2023, from https://ecologyaction.ca/resources-media/press-releases/clean-electricity-regulation-important-green-nova-scotias-grid 

Lederman, M., Picard, A., & McLister, R. (n.d.). Opinion: This summer of our climate discontent should drive us to action. The Globe and Mail. Retrieved July 21, 2023, from https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-this-summer-of-our-climate-discontent-should-drive-us-to-action/?utm_medium=Referrer:+Social+Network+/+Media&utm_campaign=Shared+Web+Article+Links 

Thomas, S. (n.d.). David Suzuki Foundation comments on clean electricity regulations. David Suzuki Foundation: Home. Retrieved August 11, 2023, from https://davidsuzuki.org/press/david-suzuki-foundation-comments-on-clean-electricity-regulations/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=tweet-link&utm_campaign=cleanElectricity-governmentDraftCleanElectricityRegulationsAnnouncement-10aug2023