Economy
Housing policy should focus on closing the demand-supply gap, not inducing demand or stifling supply
From the Fraser Institute
FEDERAL REFORMS TO IMPROVE HOUSING AFFORDABILITY
BY JOSEF FILIPOWICZ AND STEVE LAFLEUR
Canada’s declining housing affordability reflects a large, worsening imbalance between housing demand and housing supply.
Few policy areas are gaining as much attention in Canada as housing. This is unsurprising, given that Canada has the largest gap between homes prices and incomes among G7 nations (OECD, 2023) and rents continue to rise in most cities (Statistics Canada, 2023a). As eroding housing affordability has expanded to more parts of Canada, demands for policy solutions have grown beyond local jurisdictions, pressuring federal decisionmakers to act.
First, this essay offers a diagnosis of the issue—a large, growing imbalance between housing demand and supply. Second, it discusses federal policies affecting housing demand, urging better coordination and restraint amid tight supply conditions. Third, it discusses the federal government’s less-direct—though still important—options to improve housing supply.
Guiding principles: do no more harm, and close the demand-supply gap
Canada’s declining housing affordability reflects a large, worsening imbalance between housing demand and housing supply. This is evident when comparing trends in population growth and housing completions. Figure 1 charts these two metrics between 1972 and 2022. In recent years, Canada’s population growth has accelerated, while the number of homes completed has declined relative to the 1970s. 1
Policy efforts should focus on closing the demand-supply gap. The federal government should first ensure that it is not exacerbating the problem, either by stoking demand or by stifling supply, and second by both reviewing all existing policies through a supply-demand lens while implementing tailored policies aimed at closing the demand-supply gap.
Demand-side considerations for federal housing policy
Though all levels of government influence both housing demand and supply, the federal government’s policy levers pertain more directly to demand. They do so in two important ways.
First, federal policy influences population growth. As Canada’s birth rate has declined, population growth has been driven primarily by immigration (including both permanent and temporary residents) (Statistics Canada, 2023c). Though provinces may influence immigration decisions, the federal government establishes annual targets (where applicable) and admission criteria (Filipowicz and Lafleur, 2023).
Second, the federal government influences households’ ability to pay for housing. Policies for home buyers including the First-Time Home Buyers’ Tax Credit and the First Home Savings Account, which, combined with the Home Buyers’ Plan, enable the accumulation of tax-free savings for a down payment. 2 Federal policies for homeowners include the exemption from capital gains taxation on the sale of primary residences, loan insurance through the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, and residential mortgage underwriting through the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions. Combined, these policies influence the relative attractiveness of housing as an investment.
Without adequate supply, these policies result in higher prices, rather than greater affordability. The federal government should review all existing or proposed policies directly or indirectly impacting housing demand. Further, it should adopt the following two policy approaches:
• Stronger consideration of housing supply dynamics when determining short, medium and long-term immigration targets or visa issuance. For example, supply metrics (e.g. housing starts, completions, and rental vacancy rates) should help inform multi-year plans or criteria for permanent and non-permanent resident admissions.
• Refraining from introducing new demand-inducing subsidies, such as tax credits or subsidies to homebuyers and homeowners, while comprehensively reviewing the impact of existing subsidies.
Supply-side considerations for federal housing policy
Housing supply in Canada is influenced primarily by provincial and local governments. Decisions concerning land-use and growth planning—including for lands owned by the federal government—largely rest with these levels of government, meaning housing construction projects cannot be realized without first aligning with, and receiving approval from, local authorities. Federal policies aiming to grow the housing supply must account for this.
Federal influence on housing supply can be divided into four policy types. First are fiscal transfers. Every year the federal government transfers billions of dollars to municipalities to fund infrastructure. In some cases, funding is permanent and based on federal-provincial agreements.3 In other cases, funding is negotiated for specific projects.4
Second, the federal government also funds the development of non-market housing. Programs such as the National Co-Investment Fund and Rapid Housing Initiative offer low-interest or forgivable loans, and direct funding, respectively, to organizations building or acquiring non-market housing.
Third, federal tax policies and programs influence the financial feasibility of homebuilding. For example, federal sales and capital gains taxes apply differently to different housing types, such as condominiums, rental buildings and accessory dwelling units (e.g. basement or laneway suites).5
Further, federal programs such as the Rental Construction Financing Initiative and multi-unit mortgage loan insurance products influence project feasibility by providing rental builders with low-interest loans or reduced premiums.
Fourth, the federal government’s primary responsibility for immigration gives it significant influence over the mix of skills prioritized in application screening, affecting the construction sector’s ability to recruit workers. Indeed, the share of immigrants working in the construction sector was lower than that among Canada’s overall population in 2020 (BuildForce Canada, 2020), reflecting the longstanding selection preferences of federal immigration policy until more recent changes.6
The federal government should coordinate with local and provincial governments as it develops policies, avoiding the creation of additional barriers and duplication. Specifically, the following three approaches should inform federal efforts to improve housing supply:
• Tying all federal infrastructure funding to housing supply metrics such as housing stock growth, starts or completions, ensuring limited funds are directed to those regions facing the strongest growth pressures in a transparent fashion, while reducing administrative costs and jurisdictional overlap.
• Reviewing and reforming the tax treatment of all housing development, helping improve the feasibility of large- and small-scale projects Canada-wide.
• Further prioritizing skills related to homebuilding in immigration policies and eligibility criteria.
Conclusion
Faced with a widening gap between housing demand and supply, this essay focuses on the federal government’s influence on housing markets, offering five areas of policy action.
The most direct federal levers pertain to housing demand. Housing constraints should be weighed more heavily when setting immigration policy, including temporary immigration, and new demand-inducing policies such as homebuyer tax credits should be avoided, while existing policies should be reviewed.
Given the federal government’s less direct influence on housing supply, intergovernmental coordination is recommended. Limited transfer funding should follow local housing supply metrics, while the tax treatment of housing development could also be reformed, enabling a larger number of projects to be financially feasible. Lastly, immigration policies should emphasize skills required to build more housing.
Authors:
1 For more on the gap between population growth and housing completions, see Filipowicz (2023).
2 For a full list of incentives and rebates for homebuyers, see <https://www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/consumers/home-buying/government-of-canada-programs-to-support-homebuyers>, as of February 5, 2023.
3 For example, the Canada Community-Building Fund (formerly the Gas Tax Fund) delivers approximately $2 billion annually to local governments.
It is governed by a series of federal-provincial agreements.
4 For example, the federal government has committed one-third of the capital funding required by the Surrey Langley SkyTrain. Similar agreements
are common for major transit infrastructure.
5 The federal government recently announced the removal of the goods and services tax on purpose-built rental housing, helping the feasibility
of this housing class. For more on the influence of federal taxation on rental housing, see Canadian Home Builders’ Association (2016).
6 Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada changed screening processes in mid-2023, favouring trade occupations, among others. The full effects of these changes will become apparent with time.
Canadian Home Builders’ Association (2016). Encouraging Construction and Retention of Purpose-Built Rental Housing in Canada: Analysis of Federal Tax Policy Options. <https://www.evergreen.ca/downloads/pdfs/HousingActionLab/HAL_EncouragingConstructionAndRetention_FINAL.pdf> as of September 13, 2023.
Filipowicz (2023). Canada’s Growing Housing Gap: Comparing Population Growth and Housing Completions in Canada, 1972–2022.
Fraser Institute. <https://www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/default/files/canadas-growing-housing-gap-1972-2022.pdf>, as of February
5, 2024.
Filipowicz, Josef and Steve Lafleur (2023a). Getting Our Houses in Order: How a Lack of Intergovernmental Policy Coordination
Undermines Housing Affordability in Canada. Macdonald-Laurier Institute. <https://macdonaldlaurier.ca/getting-our-houses-in-order-how-a-lack-of-intergovernmental-policy-coordination-undermines-housing-affordability-in-canada/>, as of February 5, 2024.
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (2023). Express Entry Rounds of Invitations: Category-based Selection. <https://www.
canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/immigrate-canada/express-entry/submit-profile/rounds-invitations/category-based-selection.html>, as of September 15, 2023.
International Monetary Fund (2023). Report for the 2023 Article IV Consultation. [or Country Report: Canada]. <https://www.imf.
org/en/Publications/CR/Issues/2023/07/27/Canada-2023-Article-IV-Consultation-Press-Release-and-Staff-Report-537072> as of
September 13, 2023.
Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development [OECD]. 2023. Housing Prices (indicator). DOI: 10.1787/63008438.
OECD. <https://data.oecd.org/price/housing-prices.htm>, as of February 5, 2023.
Statistics Canada (2023a). Table 34-10-0133-01. Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, average rents for areas with a population of 10,000 and over. <https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/cv.action?pid=3410013301>, as of February 5, 2023.
Statistics Canada (2023b). Table 34-10-0127-01. Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, vacancy rates, apartment structures of six units and over, privately initiated in census metropolitan areas. <https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=3410012701>, as of February 5, 2024.
Statistics Canada (2023c). Table 17-10-0008-01. Estimates of the components of demographic growth, annual. <https://www150.
statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1710000801>, as of March 2, 2023.
From the Fraser Institute
Many Canadians are unhappy about the carbon tax. Proponents argue it’s the cheapest way to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, which is true, but the problem for the government is that even as the tax hits the upper limit of what people are willing to pay, emissions haven’t fallen nearly enough to meet the federal target of at least 40 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030. Indeed, since the temporary 2020 COVID-era drop, national GHG emissions have been rising, in part due to rapid population growth.
The carbon tax, however, is only part of the federal GHG plan. In a new study published by the Fraser Institute, I present a detailed discussion of the Trudeau government’s proposed Emission Reduction Plan (ERP), including its economic impacts and the likely GHG reduction effects. The bottom line is that the package as a whole is so harmful to the economy it’s unlikely to be implemented, and it still wouldn’t reach the GHG goal even if it were.
Simply put, the government has failed to provide a detailed economic assessment of its ERP, offering instead only a superficial and flawed rationale that overstates the benefits and waives away the costs. My study presents a comprehensive analysis of the proposed policy package and uses a peer-reviewed macroeconomic model to estimate its economic and environmental effects.
The Emissions Reduction Plan can be broken down into three components: the carbon tax, the Clean Fuels Regulation (CFR) and the regulatory measures. The latter category includes a long list including the electric vehicle mandate, carbon capture system tax credits, restrictions on fertilizer use in agriculture, methane reduction targets and an overall emissions cap in the oil and gas industry, new emission limits for the electricity sector, new building and motor vehicle energy efficiency mandates and many other such instruments. The regulatory measures tend to have high upfront costs and limited short-term effects so they carry relatively high marginal costs of emission reductions.
The cheapest part of the package is the carbon tax. I estimate it will get 2030 emissions down by about 18 per cent compared to where they otherwise would be, returning them approximately to 2020 levels. The CFR brings them down a further 6 per cent relative to their base case levels and the regulatory measures bring them down another 2.5 per cent, for a cumulative reduction of 26.5 per cent below the base case 2030 level, which is just under 60 per cent of the way to the government’s target.
However, the costs of the various components are not the same.
The carbon tax reduces emissions at an initial average cost of about $290 per tonne, falling to just under $230 per tonne by 2030. This is on par with the federal government’s estimate of the social costs of GHG emissions, which rise from about $250 to $290 per tonne over the present decade. While I argue that these social cost estimates are exaggerated, even if we take them at face value, they imply that while the carbon tax policy passes a cost-benefit test the rest of the ERP does not because the per-tonne abatement costs are much higher. The CFR roughly doubles the cost per tonne of GHG reductions; adding in the regulatory measures approximately triples them.
The economic impacts are easiest to understand by translating these costs into per-worker terms. I estimate that the annual cost per worker of the carbon-pricing system net of rebates, accounting for indirect effects such as higher consumer costs and lower real wages, works out to $1,302 as of 2030. Adding in the government’s Clean Fuels Regulations more than doubles that to $3,550 and adding in the other regulatory measures increases it further to $6,700.
The policy package also reduces total employment. The carbon tax results in an estimated 57,000 fewer jobs as of 2030, the Clean Fuels Regulation increases job losses to 94,000 and the regulatory measures increases losses to 164,000 jobs. Claims by the federal government that the ERP presents new opportunities for jobs and employment in Canada are unsupported by proper analysis.
The regional impacts vary. While the energy-producing provinces (especially Alberta, Saskatchewan and New Brunswick) fare poorly, Ontario ends up bearing the largest relative costs. Ontario is a large energy user, and the CFR and other regulatory measures have strongly negative impacts on Ontario’s manufacturing base and consumer wellbeing.
Canada’s stagnant income and output levels are matters of serious policy concern. The Trudeau government has signalled it wants to fix this, but its climate plan will make the situation worse. Unfortunately, rather than seeking a proper mandate for the ERP by giving the public an honest account of the costs, the government has instead offered vague and unsupported claims that the decarbonization agenda will benefit the economy. This is untrue. And as the real costs become more and more apparent, I think it unlikely Canadians will tolerate the plan’s continued implementation.
Author:
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
The catalog of Vice President Kamala Harris’s history on energy policy is as thin as the listing of her accomplishments as President Joe Biden’s “Border Czar,” which is to say it is bereft of anything of real substance.
But the queen of word salads and newly minted presumptive Democratic presidential nominee has publicly endorsed many of her party’s most radical and disastrous energy-related ideas while serving in various elected offices — both in her energy basket-case home state of California and in Washington, D.C.
What Harris’s statements add up to is a potential disaster for America’s future energy security.
“The vice president’s approach to energy has been sophomorically dilettantish, grasping not only at shiny things such as AOC’s Green New Deal but also at the straws Americans use to suck down the drinks they need when she starts talking like a Valley Girl,” Dan Kish, a senior research fellow at Institute for Energy Research, told me in an email this week. “To be honest, she’s no worse than many of her former Senate colleagues who have helped cheer on rising energy costs and the fleeing American jobs that accompany them. She doesn’t seem to understand the importance of reliable and affordable domestic energy, good skilled jobs or the national security implications of domestically produced energy, but maybe she will go back to school on the matter. No doubt on her electric school bus.”
During her first run for the Senate in 2016, Harris said she would love to expand her state’s economically ruinous cap-and-trade program to the national level. She also endorsed then-Gov. Jerry Brown’s harebrained scheme to ban plastic straws as a means of fighting climate change.
Tim Stewart, president of the U.S. Oil and Gas Association, told me proposals like that one would lead during a Harris presidency to the “Californication of the entire U.S. energy policy.” “Historically,” he added, “the transition of power from a president to a vice president is designed to signal continuity. This won’t be the case, because a Harris administration will be much worse.”
But how much worse could it be than the set of Biden policies that Harris has roundly endorsed over the last three and a half years? How much worse can it be than having laughed through a presidency that:
— Cancelled the $12 billion Keystone XL Pipeline on day one.
— Enacted what many estimate to be over $1 trillion in debt-funded, inflation-creating green energy subsidies.
— Refused to comply with laws requiring the holding of timely federal oil and gas lease sales.
— Instructed its agencies to slow-play permitting for all manner of oil and gas-related infrastructure.
— Tried to ban stoves and other gas appliances.
— Listed the Dunes Sagebrush Lizard as an endangered species despite its protection via a highly-successful conservation program.
— Invoked a “pause” on permitting of new LNG export infrastructure for the most specious reasons imaginable.
— Drained the Strategic Petroleum Reserve for purely political reasons.
As Biden’s successor for the nomination, Harris becomes the proud owner of all these policies, and more.
But Harris’ history shows it could indeed get worse. Much worse, in fact.
While mounting her own disastrous campaign for her party’s presidential nomination in 2020, Harris endorsed a complete ban on hydraulic fracturing, i.e., fracking. She later conformed that position to Biden’s own, slightly less insane view, but only after being picked as his running mate.
Consider also that while serving in the Senate in early 2019, Harris chose to sign up as a co-sponsor of the ultra-radical Green New Deal proposed by New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. It is not enough that the Biden regulators appeared to be using that nutty proposal and climate alarmism as the impetus to transform America’s entire economy and social structure: Harris favors enacting the whole thing.
As I have detailed here many times, every element of climate-alarm-based energy policies adopted by the Biden administration will inevitably lead the United State to become increasingly reliant on China for its energy needs, in the process decimating our country’s energy security. By her own words and actions, Harris has made it abundantly clear she wants to shift the process of getting there into a higher gear.
She is an energy disaster-in-waiting.
David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.
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