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The real winners of the Canada-B.C. condo purchase program are the federal and provincial governments. They are hoping voters think they are doing something big — 2,500 units big — to improve affordability, and that it won’t cost taxpayers much, if anything.
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But, as we’re often told, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably isn’t.
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The untruth is that we’re getting what we pay for, which is no improvement in affordability and a marginal improvement in choice for the lucky(?) 2,500 households who buy the condos. It may be a good deal for developers and their lenders, but that depends on the prices the feds and province pay for the units — and we won’t know that until after the condos are purchased, which is some time down the road of good intentions.
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The fact is, if the 2,500 units remained unsold to owner-occupiers, they will more than likely become rentals, which would increase the rental stock by 2,500 units, which is a good thing. If they are sold through the Canada-B.C. program, it would be at deeply discounted prices to renters, freeing up 2,500 existing rental units, which is also a good thing — and pretty much the same thing.
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Sunrise
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The only gain is that the 2,500 lucky purchasers get to buy a newer condo than they could otherwise afford, so that’s the marginal increase in choice. And the reason is that the lucky purchasers would be indebted to both the bank and the government, and I’m not sure that’s such a good thing. So, at best, it’s all an irrelevant distraction, which is probably what the feds and province are hoping for, and at worst, a modest waste of time and money.
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The truth is that developing and subsidizing housing affordable to those who are paying more than they should on rent — more than 30 per cent of their gross income every month — costs a lot. There is no way around that reality. To have a real impact on affordability requires long-term funding from all levels of government, but particularly the feds and the provinces as they collect most of Canada’s taxes. A real impact would require several billion dollars a year in new funding for the next several decades. Neither the feds nor B.C. have that kind of free cash, and so they pretend to be addressing, if not solving, the problem with make believe.
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Cameron Gray is a former director of housing for the City of Vancouver.
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B.C.’s tree planters face high risk
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Re: Trigger temperature is needed to protect workers in B.C.
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By coincidence, I just finished reading the book Shade, by Sam Bloch, which I borrowed from the Burnaby Public Library.
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In one chapter, Bloch presents the loss of life of farm field workers in California from heat stress, and the campaign for legal rights to shade, water and rest to protect workers from health impacts and even death.
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These shocking details made me wonder whether the province of B.C. has similar regulations for shade, water and rest to protect tree planters. How many tree planters have died from heat stress in the past decade in B.C.? Do some tree planters suffer fainting, headaches, muscle cramps, serious vomiting and diarrhea, and chronic kidney dysfunction, as noted by Bloch?
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Bloch cautions that direct solar radiation exposure is the primary cause of heat stress that compounds dehydration, temperature and wind speed. The wet bulb globe temperature is an internationally recognized index used to measure environmental heat stress. It factors in air temperature, wind speed, solar radiation (sun angle), and cloud cover, as well as humidity, to provide a comprehensive assessment of how the body handles heat, Bloch writes.
