4d ago

Sell me on your candidate!

(I posted this to Canadapolitics as well, but I wasn't sure if I'd get responses so trying here as well!)

Despite the research I've done and the debates I've watched, the fact remains I agree with some of each candidates platform and disagree with other parts. I'm really struggling with how to vote both provincial (Ontario) and federal.

I thought it'd be fun to get other people's opinion on the issues that matter most to you, why you think your candidate is trustworthy, and see if any of it helps solidify my vote! 🇨🇦

16 comments

They're not bigots.

I'm going to make a second comment here just because I wanted to separate the ideas.
All current political parties have zero actual path to affordable housing. If you think about it, affordable housing would mean a drop in prices by greater than 50%, maybe even greater than 75% in some regions. No political party has suggested policies that would even come close to this kind of reduction.
Ask each candidate by what percentage they expect their platform to drop housing prices over the next 8 years (giving them the benefit of voting them in twice)
Given that this is the single largest budget item for anyone under 40 years old, the lack of action means entire generations are screwed.
- This issue has personally effected my own life drastically so I appreciate your focus on it! I didn't hear any specifics mentioned in the debate, just very vague statements about how "we need to build more houses" 😬
  
  It's currently political suicide to actually implement policies that would reduce house prices by 50%+ so the parties are just putting in those vague statements and making token gestures trying to stabilize house prices.
  Unfortunately the majority of voters still own a home (older people more likely to own and more likely to vote) and it's going to be a hard time convincing those people to vote for losing hundreds of thousands of dollars in equity.
  It's going to keep getting worse until that balance shifts, I'd estimate another 20-40 years, then we can start voting in policies to reduce housing prices.
- A big part of this is that it isn't just a "housing problem". Its a problem with the way we build, tax, zone, and maintain cities. Decades of unchecked suburban growth coupled with limiting density on top of our bulldozed cities has not been a good recipe. Solving the housing crisis isn't as easy as paving over more farmland for suburban subdivisions, it means rethinking the entire way we structure our cities and how we get around them. Even current prices would technically be more affordable if we had more robust transit allowing more people to live car free without major sacrafices to their local mobility. On top of this, all 3 levels of governments have to get along to properly implement these changes, which adds delays and red tapes as a municipality argues against a province trying to follow federal direction and funding.
  There is also the real issue that many homeowners are not willing to accept a 50% drop in home value, even when they say they want affordable housing. This might be able to be mitigated a bit if overpriced mortgages can be renegotiated for a lower value.
  
  It's actually more an issue with the financial system we created rather than the physical system. If homes are supposed to be an investment, by definition they need to increase in price faster than inflation. If something increases faster than inflation, it will always eventually become unaffordable.
  You're right about them not being willing to accept a 50% cut, but there is no possible way to preserve existing home values AND reach affordable housing, they're incompatible with each other. This is why political parties are not actually trying to make homes affordable though, they have chosen to side with existing home owners because they're a larger and more powerful voting group.
  The banks aren't going to write off 50% of the mortgages they hold either... that level of default would literally bankrupt every single one of them.
- It's simply not possible to drop housing prices significantly until we get a reasonable supply. Right now (and until the end of the decade) demand is predicted to exceed supply of new housing by about 4:1 (i.e. we need to build about 4x as many new units as we currently are).
  There are some mechanisms to reduce some demand like vacant housing tax, increased taxes on second+ properties, and banning non resident purchases, but it still comes back to supply and demand.
  In theory, once supply exceeds demand, house prices should start to fall. There really isn't any other sustainable mechanism to significantly reduce housing prices until that point. Government owned and subsidized housing is one way that we have attempted in the past, and I think it's a good idea, but it won't actually reduce prices except for those lucky enough to get one of these units.
  Each of the parties has a plan to increase housing supply, targeting different aspects of the supply chain. It's a good first step, and realistically all that they can do in a single term.
  
  That's not true at all.
  The government could crash the house prices overnight if they wanted, for example they could implement a 20% yearly tax on home value. Prices would plummet instantly because owning a house would cost a lot more, the increase in yearly cost needs to then be offset by a drop in the fixed cost (selling price) to bring back equilibrium at the current supply level.
  It also increases supply massively without building a single new house, because the bigger your home, the more tax you're going to pay and if you aren't using it you're likely going to sell and downsize immediately to save money.
  The best way to do this would be then to take all that massive tax influx, and remove income taxes entirely or provide a UBI to everyone.
  There are other ways to achieve similar price reductions overnight too. The problem is that it's political suicide to crash the housing prices, since home owners would be absolutely pissed if you just kill 50-75% of their home value overnight. That's hundreds of thousands of dollars for most owners, and 65% of residential properties in Canada are owned by the family that lives in them.
  It's a fallacy that there isn't enough housing, there are already way more bedrooms in Canada than people, and on top of that a large portion of people share a bedroom with their significant other. The problem is the distribution of housing (both in terms of who owns it, and where it's located) not the total.
- The roll over and join the USA party would help to depopulate Canada if full US citizenship allowed workers to follow the jobs headed south. Sovereignty has its price.

Does a candidate accept a platform which hates others based on gender, race, or religion? They don't even need to have espoused those views themselves, but if they're willing to support a platform or other candidates who have those views.
They're disqualified from my list.
Im willing to listen to the policy ideas of pretty much anyone else.
A point of clarification, adjusting immigration can be racist but it can also not be racist. I'm willing to listen to non-racist reasoning and policies for adjusting immigration numbers.
- Yeah that's something I take into consideration as well. So far the only thing I've seen is that the Conservatives platform says they want to ban gender affirming care for minors which personally concerns me given what's happening in the states at the moment.
  
  The federal Conservatives are in bed with all sorts of hateful people, Mr. PP sat down for a 2 hour interview with Jordan Peterson just a month ago for fuck sake. The man who resigned from the University of Toronto complaining about DEI practices (and calling them DIE in his letter) and who actively campaigned against a government bill that banned discrimination for gender identity.
  Peterson was literally stupid enough he started a meat only diet to be more Masculine and reduce his depression, a diet which he had such a bad reaction to that he ended up on Benzos, and got addicted for which he sought treatment in Russia because no western doctor would put him in an induced coma long enough to ride out the withdrawal symptoms.
  When a leader of a party is setting up 2 hour interviews with "SMRT" people like that... I don't want them as my Prime Minister at all.
  The Conservatives even had better choices in the leadership race, but no, they had to go with the guy who likes hate.
  
  I'm interested in learning whether that's even legal considering that discriminating based on gender identity is explicitly against the Charter.

16 comments