Image Credit: CFJC Today

By Chad Klassen

2021 FEDERAL ELECTION

DECISION 2021: Affordability

Sep 16, 2021 | 2:08 PM

KAMLOOPS — The cost of living continues to rise. From your food at the grocery store to where you live, everything is getting more expensive. Housing prices have become particularly alarming, even here in the Interior. In Kamloops, the average cost of a home is at $573,000, according to July statistics from the Kamloops and District Real Estate Association.

From the start of the pandemic in March 2020 to March of this year, the price of home shot up by 164 per cent. In the fourth installment of our federal election coverage, we look at how the parties plan to help keep things affordable.

If there wasn’t a housing affordability crisis before the pandemic — which there was — COVID-19 exacerbated the problem. In the last 18 months, property values in Kamloops have jumped well over $100,000 compared to the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020 — with more people preferring more “rural” settings in the B.C. Interior.

The Conservatives have promised to build one-million homes in the next three years, including for Indigenous people. The Conservatives also plan to ban foreign investors from buying a home for at least two years.

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“I recently met with someone when I was knocking on doors who told me they were paying $1,200 a month just for a bedroom,” said Kamloops-Thompson-Cariboo Conservative candidate Frank Caputo. “The Conservatives have a plan, and it’s multi-faceted, to bring down costs for people… with the federal government agreeing to divest or to sell 15 per cent of its real estate portfolio, so we can fund more housing.”

RAW VIDEO: Candidates comment on affordability.

People’s Party of Canada feels immigration is playing a role in the ever-increasing housing demands. It plans to reduce the number of immigrants from 400,000 a year down to 150,000 every year. PPC argues even more homes are built, it may not be able to keep up.

“Bringing down the inflation rates by lowering immigration to a more sustainable level, a more easily acceptable level, and lowering the demand for housing will lower the pricing,” said Delwo.

A Liberal government would invest about $20 billion over 10 years into social infrastructure, including new affordable housing units. It will include no GST on new affordable rental housing units.

The Liberals are also promising to determine whether speculation is driving up the cost of housing in markets like Vancouver.

“We have enormous demand for housing and very limited supply,” said local candidate for Kamloops-Thompson-Cariboo Jesse McCormick. “The two most important things we need to do as a country are to help increase the affordability for individuals who want to acquire a home and help to increase the supply. The Liberal Party of Canada in our platform has a very clear plan to do both of those things. Some of the highlights include finishing with the supply and bidding process for acquiring a home, making it more clear how much money to spend is appropriate, advancing significant investments in the construction of new homes for Canadians.”

The Green Party sees affordable housing as a human right, not merely a topic of election discussion. It’s promising a guaranteed livable income.

Green candidate for Kamloops-Thompson-Cariboo Iain Currie also wants the federal government to re-invest in the non-profit and co-op sector, so people can secure reasonable rental housing. It plays into its committment to curb the homelessness issue in Kamloops and across the country.

“There have been lots of government interventions that have been made in the name of making houses affordable in the short-term, and what we need to be concerned about in this area and every other is thinking about the long-term consequences of government action,” said Currie. “Homelessness is a huge problem, housing affordability is a huge problem.”

Meanwhile, the NDP’s housing platform would see 500,000 affordable homes built over the next decade. It is also proposing 30-year mortgages to help buyers get into the market and implement a 20 per cent foreign buyer’s tax on homes bought by non-Canadian citizens.