this post was submitted on 15 Sep 2023
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Faced with increasing pressure to respond to widespread concerns about the cost of living and questions about his leadership, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a series of new measures Thursday meant to deal with rising housing and grocery prices.

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago (5 children)

The federal government also announced it will bring forward legislation to empower the Competition Bureau to ensure that corporate mergers and acquisitions do not have an adverse effect on the affordability of goods and services.

I laughed at that part not gonna lie

[–] Windex007 23 points 1 year ago

Ah yes, just like how the CRTC ensures we keep paying some of the highest prices for internet and phone service in the world.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Wait a minute -- what are they doing now?!?

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago

Don't worry Rogers, you're safe.

[–] ikidd 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Ah, yes, they'll give the Competition Bureau teeth. Sure they will, the fucking liars.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Whatever teeth the Competition Bureau has, the Harper-appointed judge on the Competition Tribunal apparently has bigger ones.

[–] ikidd 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So for how many years of the Liberal administration is the responsibility of the issues with the Competition Bureau going to be Harpers? Should we give it another 8?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

The judiciary is complicated, since they can't just fire a judge they don't like. I think the Liberals have been stung hard enough on that front after SNC Lavalin.

[–] vasametropolis 4 points 1 year ago

It has to be satire.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Yeah, let me check

...

Yeah, that Harper appointee on the federal court of appeals says no.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Nothing with teeth unfortunately. Putting taxes on the corporations will just raise prices. Not very helpful. Getting rid of the GST on new rental units will mean bigger profits for the builders. Nothing here helps the people.

[–] [email protected] 47 points 1 year ago

Taxing corporations does not just raise prices for consumers!! This is a hyper conservative worldview, and very convenient to corporations that don’t want their taxes raised. It is also contradicted by literally any first year economics textbook, so I don’t understand why it keeps getting repeated.

Tax changes to encourage rental construction have been advocated by urban economists for years. This particular measure was proposed by the NDP. An affordable rental market actually puts downward pressure on the overall real estate market.

That said, I agree the Liberals aren’t doing enough.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The GST part is to incentivize new construction, and you are right it will increase profits but without increasing prices for the end consumer, on the contrary if more builders see this as an attractive opportunity, there will be more units built which increases the offer and when the offer goes up, the prices goes down.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Hopefully it somehow managed to avoid the trend of only building higher end housing to increase those profit margins.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That one is caused by zoning.

If I can make a low-rise building and sell 12 units for $250k on the same property that I can build two detached houses to sell for a $million, I'll do the former, right?

But city hall is going to make me drag out the approval process for the low-rise for 3 years and grind me down to 6 units. I'll just save the ball-ache and build the mcmansions.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Zoning laws are definitely a big (probably the largest) part of it, but it's not the only issue. Even when buildings with a higher number of units is approved, they tend to be more upscale. There's not a lot of lower end housing being built in any capacity.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I mean yeah, they charge what the market will bear, and the market can bare a crapload right now. I mean, if you just upzoned and cut out the red tape, eventually the price would come down as supply ramped up to meet the demand... but I don't think anybody can wait for "eventually".

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

What needs to happen is some prosecutions of executives and investors for price gouging.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

Is it strongly worded?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

All of these problems are symptoms of crony capitalism. He isn't going to fix anything by treating the symptoms. Grocery prices are insane because Loblaws owns everything. Housing prices are insane because landlords own city councils all over the country and refuse to build more housing (and also because of an immigration policy which the Liberals themselves say is intended to prevent wages from rising)

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (3 children)

The government needed to legislate price caps for key groceries and give the municipalities more control over their zoning and construction. This neoliberal policy bullshit just serves to take money from public coffers and put it in the pockets of the rich.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

If you place price caps on a product that are below the point where it is profitable for companies to sell it then they will simply stop stocking them in in their shelves. There is historical precedent, too.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Profitability has clearly not been a problem for smaller grocers. Why is it only a problem for the big chains?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] -3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

The government needed to legislate price caps for key groceries

By definition, a shortage occurs when an external mechanism, such as government intervention, prevents price from rising.

Explain to us how creating a shortage of food, of all things, is a good idea. From my point of view as someone who likes to eat, a shortage of food is the scariest proposition.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Costs are driven up by grocery chain skimming. This is most obvious by stepping into any large independent grocer. In Vancouver, these include Foodymart in Richmond and the Crystal Mall produce stands in Burnaby.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Happy to see the Housing Generator fund pay out with some YIMBYism, but imho it doesn't go far enough. I hate and fear Poilievre, but he's right when it comes to the carrot-and-stick approach to municipal governments blocking housing:

They do not deserve the carrot. They deserve the stick. Poilievre, being a gigantic asshole, is much more willing to use the stick.

[–] Zephy 5 points 1 year ago

I don't care what Poillièvre says he'll do. He has a voting history, and his party has a very long history of siding with landlords and CEOs. Anyone who genuinely believes Poillièvre is going to help the little guy and not simply enrich the landlords just because he says he's going to do something is a complete moron. He's voted against it in the past, and he will in the future, because it'll hurt his own bottom line.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I think he is all talk no delivery.

I like some of those things he says, but I don't believe he would actually act on them