this post was submitted on 26 Dec 2023
101 points (96.3% liked)

Canada

7203 readers
167 users here now

What's going on Canada?

Communities

🍁 Meta

πŸ—ΊοΈ Provinces / Territories

πŸ™οΈ Cities / Local Communities

πŸ’ SportsHockey

Football (NFL)

  • List of All Teams: unknown

Football (CFL)

  • List of All Teams: unknown

Baseball

Basketball

Soccer

πŸ’» Universities

πŸ’΅ Finance / Shopping

πŸ—£οΈ Politics

🍁 Social and Culture

Rules

Reminder that the rules for lemmy.ca also apply here. See the sidebar on the homepage:

https://lemmy.ca/

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
otter@lemmy.ca
101
Why Canada's ban on foreign buyers hasn't made homes more affordable (www.cbc.ca)
submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by breakfastmtn@lemmy.ca to c/canada@lemmy.ca
38 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

A year ago, the federal government instituted a foreign buyer ban after passing the Prohibition on the Purchase of Residential Property by Non-Canadians Act in 2022. The two-year ban, which came into effect on Jan. 1, barred non-citizens, non-permanent residents and foreign controlled companies from buying up Canadian property as an investment.

But Wallace says that ban didn't do much for her family.

"There's all of these very luxurious buildings going in all around us that are outrageously priced," said Wallace, after attending an open house at a promising $1.1-million condo. "The foreign buyers tax … I don't think that's making an iota of difference."

Critics say the foreign buyers ban, which was aimed at making housing affordable for Canadians, had many exemptions and was more of a political manoeuvre. They say it's clear housing remains out of reach for too many in Canada, and that the country should look to other places in the world to find strategies to foster home ownership.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] streetfestival@lemmy.ca 29 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Critics say the foreign buyers ban, which was aimed at making housing affordable for Canadians, had many exemptions and was more of a political manoeuvre.

That's disgusting. This is for placating/misleading voters and keeping the status quo as it is. If a ban is not a ban it shouldn't be called a ban

[–] Alto@kbin.social 10 points 10 months ago (1 children)

For real. "Why didn't a measure that didn't actually do what it says it would work?!"

[–] streetfestival@lemmy.ca 13 points 10 months ago (1 children)

It is working as intended though: Make voters believe that an important issue that affects them is being addressed, and don't actually do anything that would negatively affect the plutocrats or address wealth inequality. The first step was to create a boogey-man out of 'foreign buyers' to centre the housing affordability debate around a PR-friendly issue.

What I'm starting to realize though - through seeing this more and more - is that doublespeak phrases or talking points, like "ban", play a pretty critical role in keeping us misinformed and easily swayed. The term "ban", although factually incorrect, fits the government's agenda of self-promotion and fits CBC's agenda of reporting uncritically of the status quo. We can only begin to understand what's happening after realizing that "ban" doesn't actually mean what "ban" typically does in English.

Sorry, I'm kind of going off on a rant. M/Disinformation and the current/future state of democracy concern me a lot.

One thing I'm coming to the realization of, after learning that the recent online news bill has several shortcomings that the government failed to mention and will exclude smaller news outlets, is that financially supporting the dying breed of high-quality, critical journalism is a democratic imperative

[–] FireRetardant@lemmy.world 8 points 10 months ago

As with most canadian laws, the online news act was to protect big corporate interests, not the media.

[–] pbjamm@beehaw.org 1 points 10 months ago

I moved from the US in the summer and purchased a house in BC. My wife (who is still American) was no allowed to be on the deed, otherwise we would have to pay a giant tax bill. So it at least works against the little guy, if not against the corporate buyers or people rich enough to pay workarounds.