Six

Disappointing, but not entirely surprising. I'm seeing people shouting "Argentina! Argentina!" already, which is hyperbolic to the point of being ridiculous. However, if you want an Argentinian economy, sowing doubt in the stability of the Bank is a great way to do it.

A 5% interest rate and inflation that is higher than it should be, but not even piercing double digits is not the crisis these 'Chicken Littles' are bemoaning. At least not yet.

I loathe the "common sense" narrative. It's really no different than a "customer is always right" policy, applied to politics. To which, if you have ever worked in a service job that faces the general public, you very well know that the customer is rarely right, especially when the topic doesn't relate to their expertise or profession.

Yes, technocrats can miss the forest for the trees. Sometimes they lose focus on what the general will of the nation is in favour of a precise, but aloof policy directive. That said, it doesn't mean you fire your accountant and hire a plumber to do your taxes instead.

This is neither the first nor the last time that politicians have and will use the Bank of Canada as a political football. It's really quite bad for the economy when they do so. The last thing we want is a partisan Bank where half the country has lost confidence in it.

Of course, that doesn't mean we are forbidden from being critical of the bank. In those moments we ought to turn to economists, and not politicians, to inform us on what the correct policy should be.

You get a poll! You get a poll! Everyone gets a poll!

Seriously, everyone is dropping polls today. You'll note that Nanos' poll from yesterday showing the LPC and CPC in a dead heat was conducted via telephone, while today's three polls with a CPC lead were all from online panels.

Methodology:

Survey dates: August 31 - September 6

n=3113

MOE 1.5% (equivalent)

Online

Methodology:

Survey dates: September 2-4

n=1000

MOE 3.1% (equivalent)

Online

Methodology:

Survey dates: August 29 - September 4

n=3330

MOE 1.7% (equivalent)

Online

What’s fascinating about yesterday’s public spat is that it demonstrates that the federal Conservatives are willing to jump into bed with urban progressive local politicians in their quest to win over younger urban voters. [...] The common enemy for Poilievre’s Conservatives and the urban progressive councillors is … a bunch of conservative (and sometimes Conservative) Calgary City Councillors. Calgary is the spiritual home of the Canadian conservative movement, and suddenly the city councillors who were holding the line against ‘progressive silliness’ are being taken to task by their federal comrades.

It is a gamble, but Calgary being such an overwhelming CPC stronghold, they can probably afford to shed some votes in order to pick up demographics that otherwise would not vote for them. I'm genuinely curious to see if it pays off—not out of any personal investment in the CPC, but it would be a very interesting shift in Canadian politics. The NDP and Liberals have owned the youth vote for such a long time. Recently, it seems like it is flipping, where the LPC hangs onto the 55+ vote and the CPC are chasing the 18-35 year-old demographic.

Kwan said the NDP will press the Liberals to expand the not-for-profit housing market and build more housing co-operatives. She said New Democrats also will pressure the federal government to change the initiatives that accompany the national housing strategy, which she said have not been "particularly effective."

I agree that those kinds of initiatives need to be pushed forward, but 'the devil is in the details.' To which, we are rather scant on 'details.' As I've mentioned before, the housing crisis is a massive coordination problem as federal, provincial, and municipal governments need to collaborate to solve it. If you are the federal government, you need to come up with a way to skirt jurisdictional restrictions; this is the main challenge.

To which, if we want to take the NDP seriously, they need to say what their plans are. Are they going to go along with Daniel Blaikie's sentiments that the CMHC should take a stronger role? Are they going to provide financial incentives for municipalities to zone for more co-operatives? Are they going to convert office spaces into low-income residential? Who knows!

The NDP could be stealing the show here. People are more cynical than ever towards the Liberals and Conservatives. All the NDP have to do is show up saying that they are brave enough to stand up to NIMBY's and willing to implement policies that are aimed at deflating the market. I mean, they are one of the best positioned parties to do so. Both the Liberals and Conservatives are very reliant on suburban home-owners for support. The NDP are not as incentivized to appeal to that demographic.

"Municipalities may be disincentivized to provide adequate risk information to property owners or developers, especially for high-yield taxable properties such as those on waterfronts, because the financial responsibility for damages falls to the DFAA when insurance is not available," the panel's report reads.

"It's really a perverse incentive in a way," Pentland said. "Why do they bother building in the right place if somebody's going to come and bail them out?"

It is a fair point, but I am wary of how we would adjudicate which areas are high risk. Frankly, if we were going to put those kinds of restrictions in effect, I would want to take it completely out of the municipalities' hands, and have an independent board review development and risks before handing out build permits. This would probably have to be run at a provincial level.

As mentioned last week, the gap between the LPC and CPC was starting to narrow. It looks like things are all even now, at least according to Nanos.

Methodology:

n=1000

MOE = 3.1%

Telephone

Link to last week's Nanos poll: https://kbin.social/m/CanadaPolitics/t/405354/Nanos-Research-August-25-2023-Federal-Poll-CPC-33-LPC