Housing Minister Sean Fraser says the government is still considering a wide range of potential moves to help ease the acute housing insecurity Canadians across the country are feeling.
One thing that isn't talked about enough is the possibility of beefing up infrastructure in smaller (and cheaper) cities/towns. The federal government should consider building up network infrastructure in more rural and remote locations. Make "work from home" more accessible—allow people to buy homes where they are affordable and work from there. It cuts down on commutes and helps limit the sprawl of our major urban centres.
The federal government should set the example by creating their own work from home policy for their public servants. Show how it could be done, and then pressure the provinces to revamp their labour laws to implement work from home protections.
I realize this wouldn't be applicable to all kinds of work, but it would alleviate some of the housing demands in the most expensive parts of the country.
My suspicion is that this would actually just serve to spread the contagion of investment property ownership to previously less affected areas.
The fundamental problem will always be that as long as housing remains an investment, there must be a housing crisis.
Scarcity creates competition for housing. Competition inflates prices. Price inflation becomes investment growth. Without the scarcity, there is no investment growth.
And as long as you control the capital, scarcity can be created. No matter how much housing the government builds or creates access to, if the people with money can afford to buy it all up then they will intentionally hoard it and force scarcity.
I do agree that encouraging more work from home is a good thing, and the government should absolutely institute their own WFH policy, as well as creating strong incentives for companies to institute WFH. While I don’t think it will make that much impact on housing, WFH has numerous other benefits that are worth investing in.
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