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The Liberal Party's promises to improve housing affordability includes cutting default insurance premiums, creating a tax-free First Home Savings Account and banning foreign ownership.

Mark Blinch/Reuters

If youre struggling to afford a home, youre probably ticked off at those responsible for Canadas housing crisis.

You might even blame the government. Thats why, with the election just 25 days away, the Liberal Party has rolled out its most ambitious package of housing solutions yet.

But will their proposals really save you money when buying a home in the next five years?

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Below is the Liberals housing agenda decrypted, a look at whats sound, and what seems like hastily conceived election madness.

What doesnt make sense

When you buy a home with just 5 per cent down, you pay 4 per cent of your mortgage in default insurance. Thats too much, the Liberals say. They want to slash that by 25 per cent.

But if default insurance premiums are so high that is, consumers are paying more than what is actuarially justified based on the insurers risk of loss thats a failure of our federal government. They approve these fees.

Policy makers have preached since 2008 that Canada must shelter taxpayers from mortgage insurance risk. Now, despite extreme valuations and high indebtedness, theyre backtracking on this.

The mandarins at the Bank of Canada are probably shaking their heads. Borrowers with both a high loan-to-income ratio and a high loan-to-value ratio are associated with greater risk, the central bank said in May. Should the Liberals lower costs for riskier buyers, reducing taxpayers insurance buffer if home values nosedive?

They fail to acknowledge that when you make it cheaper and easier to get a mortgage, more people buy homes and overpay. How about we stick to solutions that dont exacerbate overvaluation?

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Canadians already have all the home savings vehicles they need: the RRSP Home Buyers Plan and tax-free savings accounts. Less than one in 1,000 Canadian adults (20,250 in 2017, according to CRA data) maxed out their RRSP Home Buyers Plan, and that was when its limit was $10,000 less.

The truth is, Canadians are so overleveraged, underemployed and overtaxed, that most simply cant save fast enough to afford ever-appreciating properties. An FHSA tax shelter would do little more than reduce tax revenue and further lift home prices.

Down payment loans? This one must be a bad joke. How on earth will government down payment loans not spark further appreciation and indebtedness? You might as well just go back to 100-per-cent financing, circa 2007. If home values dive between 20 per cent and 25 per cent some day and people default on those loans en masse, how much will that cost taxpayers?

Lose your job? Dont pay for six months, the Liberals propose.

Unfortunately, financial options arent free. If the government forced deferrals down lenders throats, lenders would promptly raise fees and interest rates, burdening millions of mortgagors, not just the ones who dont pay as agreed.

Borrowers overall would be better off self-insuring risks such as unemployment and relying on lenders existing work-out programs, whereby lenders restructure your terms if you cant pay. And no one should get a mortgage in the first place without emergency cash resources.

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Voters love this idea and thats why career politicians love it. But non-resident ownership is a scapegoat, a drop in the bucket. Its a small, single-digit share of housing and just a tiny fraction of cities have more than 1 per cent foreign ownership, according to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. By closing Canadas doors to international buyers, even temporarily, we risk losing vital non-housing foreign investment. Whats more, offshore buyers dont typically buy working-class homes, and an array of punitive taxes already discourage unproductive ownership.

Investors play an essential role in improving neighbourhoods and fixing up old and dilapidated housing. Details on this are scarce but a policy that discourages renovation of inferior housing stock is ill-considered. The Liberals claim theyll allow sellers to deduct legitimate investments in refurbishment, but if this tax discourages such investment in the first place, Canadians are worse off overall.

What makes good sense

The Liberals want to bribe sorry, incentivize municipalities to grow housing supply faster than their historical average. Its not perfect, but itll help. Federal funding will get more city-level policy makers off their rear ends and working toward solutions. The only problem is the proposed $4-billion and 100,000 homes wont be enough. And as TVO.orgs John Michael McGrath wrote Tuesday, the feds must bribe provinces as well if they hope to build homes quicker.

The Finance Department forbids default insurance on homes valued at $1-million and up. Its almost a crime that this threshold hasnt been adjusted since its inception in June, 2012. Policy makers should have indexed the limit to home values so that low-risk, small-down-payment borrowers across all income strata have a chance at suitable home ownership.

Canadas real estate market desperately needs more transparency. Proposed measures such as open bidding, mandatory inspection periods and transparent public comparable sales data foster efficient home price discovery. Following the complicated implementation and inevitable court challenges, such measures could materially and immediately slow overvaluation.

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Theres little economic reason to allow foreign land-banking of precious land for years on end. For that matter, one might argue that domestic owners who tie up strategic buildable land long-term create similar housing constraints.

What Canadians really need

We will increase the power of federal regulators to respond appropriately to housing price fluctuations to ensure a more stable Canadian housing market, the Liberal plan says. But Canadas housing crisis is not a new problem. The Liberals have been in government for six years. What has their housing oversight team been doing?

If you believe the likes of Scotiabank Economics, which looked at the structural housing shortage in a May report, Canada might have up to 1.8 million housing units too few. What voters need from housing officials and politicians are fewer schemes that fuel buying power, and more policies that directly resolve undersupply.

Robert McLister is mortgage editor at RATESDOTCA and founder of RateSpy.com and intelliMortgage. You can follow him on Twitter at @RateSpy.

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Liberal housing pledge: What makes no sense, what makes good sense and what Canadians really need - The Globe and Mail

Appointing Zak Kirkup WA Liberal leader before the party's March state election disaster was "a desperate and ill-advised move" that should never have happened, according to those tasked with determining what led to the landslide result.

And the authors of that damning internal review lashed the MPs who made the decision to elect Mr Kirkup for their "staggering laziness", finding many of them did not make a single phone call or knock on any doors during that ill-fated campaign.

The 2021 Liberal election review, which pointed to "unethical and underhand" conduct by party members and MPs in calling for sweeping reforms of the party, saved some of its harshest criticisms for the decision to elect Mr Kirkup leader just four months from the election.

"Surely there were better choices for leader," the review, from a three-person panel headed by party elder Danielle Blain, stated.

ABC News: Hugh Sando

"It is difficult to accept there were no other options available for a more senior MP to assume the leadership.

"It should never have happened, and all members of the parliamentary wing who actively encouraged this move must take responsibility for that, as they should for the election result.

"Zak Kirkup was just too inexperienced and perhaps a little overwhelmed."

The review blasted the campaign Mr Kirkup led, saying there was "policy disconnect" and his statement that the party could not win the election "caused much anger and loss of morale".

"[It] critically had a significant negative impact on most of the party candidates standing for election," it stated.

While Mr Kirkup was the MP singled out for the strongest criticism by name, many of the party's most powerful identities were not named in the report.

It comes after more than 700 pages ofmessages between party powerbrokers were leaked to the media, revealinginternal game-playing and branch stacking.

AP: Patrick Sison

Other MPs were also lashed for their failure to appropriately campaign.

In what was labelled "staggering laziness" and "poor performance", four of the 13 MPs did not knock on a single door of a constituent in the four months prior to the election.

And five MPs were not recorded as registering a single phone call during that same period.

Both practices are seen as basics of political campaigning.

Meanwhile, policies such as Mr Kirkup's contentious 'green energy plan' also faced heavy criticism.

"The Liberal Party lost most of its voter base, who deserted it, because of its leadership squabbles, factional activities and loss of principles," the report states.

"The state party lost its way because its members were more concerned about holding power than the power of ideas.

"It failed on both counts."

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Former WA Liberals leader Zak Kirkup bears brunt of scathing internal election review - ABC News

Welcome to Political Outliers, a column that explores groups often portrayed as all voting the same way. In todays climate, its easy to focus on how a group identifies politically, but thats never the full story. Blocs of voters are rarely uniform in their beliefs, which is why this column will dive into undercovered parts of the electorate, showing how diverse and atypical most voters are.

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Mack Bair, 24, supports same-sex marriage. Matthew C., 22, backs marijuana legalization and Luke T., 22, is solidly pro-abortion rights, (both of whom asked to not use their last names out of fear of retribution for their political views). John Henke, 20, says he believes climate change is happening and that humans are playing a role.

At first blush, these young men might seem like progressive voters. But theyre not: All four voted for former President Donald Trump in 2020 and, for those old enough, in 2016 as well.

Theyre all also part of Generation Z, Americas youngest adult generation, which is more ethnically and racially diverse than any generation before it. And similar to millennials, who are now in their mid-20s to early 40s, members of Gen Z are more liberal on a number of key social issues than older generations. According to Pews 2020 verified voter survey, millennials and Gen Zers also backed Biden over Trump in that years election, by a 20-point margin.

But despite the generations overall progressive bent, this hasnt translated into overwhelming Democratic support. In fact, some research suggests that Gen Zers are no more likely to identify as members of the Democratic Party than registered voters in the overall electorate, and a plurality are unwilling to identify with either political party. That means that, despite their overwhelming support of Biden in the presidential election, there is also a small but, so far, solid chunk of Gen Z that identifies as Republican.

To better understand who these voters are and what motivates them to align with a party that has remained conservative on many issues important to Gen Z, I looked at polling data and political science for clues. I also spoke with six Gen-Z voters who voted for Trump and either identify as Republican or lean Republican. What I learned is that most of them break with the mainstream of the Republican Party on many social and cultural issues, but solidly agree with the GOPs stances on the economy. They also think the Democratic Party, as it is now, has veered too far left, specifically with its stances on immigration, gun control and race.

When it comes to Gen-Z Republicans, I think folks need to understand that we dont fit neatly in a box and I think that boggles the media, said Javon Price, 23, a self-described conservative Republican who spoke in his personal capacity but works as a policy analyst for the America First Policy Institute, a nonprofit group allied with Trump that promotes the former presidents policies. Were normal everyday people like everybody else, and political beliefs arent the end-all be-all.

Republicans in this generation are more likely to take what they call libertarian approaches to social issues like same-sex marriage, and surveys show that these young Republicans are more likely to care about cancel culture than the electorate as a whole. Theyre also overwhelmingly white and male. But despite being more liberal on social issues than older Republicans, most of the young Republicans I spoke with admitted to me that they dont see themselves ever leaving the GOP. And if Trump runs for president in 2024 and wins his partys primary, most also said they would vote for him again. Even so, many of them are not too far behind their Democratic peers on a number of social issues, according to polling analysis as well as interviews with these young voters.

Recent polling from Democracy Fund + UCLA Nationscape found that both Democrats and Republicans in this generation, ages 18-24, have favorable opinions of people who are LGBTQ (83 percent of young Democrats have a favorable view compared with 66 percent of young Republicans) and support legalizing marijuana (67 percent of young Democrats compared to 55 percent of young Republicans). The gap between Democratic and Republican Gen Zers is also fairly small when it comes to separating children from their parents at the border when their parents could be prosecuted for illegally entering the U.S., with just 7 percent of young Democrats and 26 percent of young Republicans agreeing with that policy.

The fact that young Republicans arent that different from their Democratic peers on some social issues is largely on par with what academic research and studies from Pew have found, though not all social issues were as cut-and-dried. For example, even though two-thirds of Gen Zers want stricter gun measures, according to Rasmussen Reports survey data, young Republicans are still far less likely than young Democrats to want to ban assault rifles, according to Democracy Fund + UCLA Nationscape. One of the Republican men I spoke with said gun rights had even become a barometer for how he judges political candidates. If you know somebodys opinion on gun rights, you can make a pretty educated guess as to where they stand on every other issue even unrelated ones, Stephan Kapustka, 22, told me.

Abortion may be another issue like this. Although the Democracy Fund + UCLA Nationscape polling showed that a majority of Gen Zers from each party said they believe at least some abortions should be permitted and only 16 percent of young Democrats and 33 percent of young Republicans said abortions should never be permitted the issue divided the men I spoke with. For example, Price, who voted for Trump in both 2016 and 2020, is strongly anti-abortion. Regarding his childhood neighborhood outside of Newark, New Jersey, he told me, I could more easily find a Planned Parenthood than I could a park. Henke, who is Christian, agreed; during a separate phone call, he said he used to take a more hands-off stance toward abortion, but switched to an anti-abortion stance after talking with his pastor. Matthew C., meanwhile, told me hes pro-abortion rights. Overall, few Republicans want to outright ban abortion, but this is one social issue where young Republicans appear to be closer to the opinions of their elders in the party.

But the biggest gaps between Gen-Z Republicans and Democrats arent on social issues. Its how they view issues of economic and foreign policy. And for many young Republicans, thats whats driving their support of the GOP. For example, Gen-Z Democrats are way more likely than Gen-Z Republicans to support raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour (79 percent for young Democrats compared with 43 percent for young Republicans), cutting taxes for families that make less than $100,000 a year (69 percent compared with 43 percent) and raising taxes for families that make over $600,000 a year (70 percent compared with 38 percent).

A lot of us are very financially motivated, and maybe thats because we grew up in the Great Recession, Henke told me. I was raised to be financially responsible because my parents started with pretty much nothing and now theyre both pretty successful. Theyve taught me and my family to be fiscally responsible, and thats the biggest thing that motivates me.

Indeed, even though the Democratic Party is closer in line with where some of these Gen-Z Republicans stand on social issues, it might be economic policy plus opposition to abortion and gun control that has a bigger hold on them. Some of Trumps more populist messaging around draining the swamp has also resonated with them.

[Trump] made me really proud to be an American and made me feel like the American Dream is alive and well, Luke T. said. He did a really good job of grabbing hold of peoples frustration with the establishment, and I liked that he was an outsider, rather than a traditional Republican.

But its not just the economy and Trump that has made these young voters loyal to the GOP. Kapustka told me hes open to more left-leaning views on social issues, but that hes had conversations with his fellow Republican friends who think that the Democrats dont really care about them because theyre evil, white males or something like that.

Data and interviews with Gen-Z Republicans illustrate a cap on young Republicans more socially liberal views, particularly as it pertains to recent political fights over cancel culture and how socially progressive or woke Americans should be. For instance, polling from Democracy Fund + UCLA Nationscape found that over half (55 percent) of Gen-Z Republicans believe we should end the practice of shaming people who say things that arent politically correct, versus 38 percent of Gen-Z Democrats who believe the same. This could be related to research that suggests Republicans are more likely than Democrats to say that they self-censor their political views due to fear of judgment for what they believe. Shutting people down or attacking them on Twitter seems to be a new thing, Matthew C. told me. And I think cancel culture is horrible. I grew up around social media and the internet, and they both can be very toxic.

Indeed, political science research suggests that young voters are shaped by what happens in their late adolescence and early adult years, so if there is a fear among younger Republicans that voicing their political views risks retribution, it could explain in part why recent GOP culture-war issues have played such a role in shaping these voters political consciousness.

To be sure, theres still a lot we dont know about Gen Z as a whole because they make up less than 10 percent of the electorate. Moreover, most of what we do know is limited to how they voted in the past one or two presidential races. But its possible that, over time, Gen-Z Republicans wont be a political minority. Theres already some evidence that todays younger liberals might get more conservative as they get older, and roughly one-third of Gen-Z voters who dont identify as Republican said that they would consider voting for a moderate Republican candidate, according to a June 2020 survey by the Niskanen Center. For now, though, young Republicans are just a small slice of the electorate, but as long as the party sticks to its roots or, its founding principles of small government and free enterprise its unlikely these voters are going anywhere anytime soon.

Meredith Conroy contributed research.

CORRECTION (Aug. 24, 2021, 6:09 p.m.): An earlier version of the first chart in this article said there was a +23.2 point gap between Republicans and Democrats ages 18-24 on whether they supported capping carbon emissions to combat climate change. The gap was actually +33.3 points.

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Why Some Socially Liberal Gen-Z Voters Arent Leaving The GOP - FiveThirtyEight

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The subtext is: if the Liberals cant manage the foreign affairs file, how can we trust them to manage anything?

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I want to take this opportunity to speak with our brothers, the Taliban. We call on you to ensure the safe and secure passage of any individual in Afghanistan out of the country. We call on you to immediately stop the violence, the genocide, the femicide, the destruction of infrastructure, including heritage buildings.

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Those words were spoken Wednesday by Maryam Monsef, Canadas minister for women and gender equality. Unsurprisingly, her use of the term brothers generated a firestorm. The language used by the Trudeau government is completely unacceptable, Conservative leader Erin OToole riposted. I think of the women and girls in Afghanistan who are at risk with the Taliban regime once again coming into place. Canadians deserve a government that will always stand up for our values.

Monsef, who was born in Iran to Afghan refugee parents, defended her remarks as a cultural reference, but was called out on social media, including by Muslim journalist Fatima Syed who tweeted FACT: brothers is a term of respect FALSE: Muslims call the Taliban brothers OPINION: this was dumb SOLUTION: Move on; theres lives on the line.

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But the opposition has not moved on. Thats because, while foreign policy is traditionally not a ballot question, when a gaffe like this feeds a larger narrative, it can shift the course of a campaign.

Thats what happened almost exactly six years ago. A photograph of three-year-old Syrian refugee Alan Kurdi, lying drowned on a Turkish beach, went viral one month into the 2015 federal election campaign. Alan, his mother and brother died trying to reach Europe in a rubber raft; their father claimed the family had applied for asylum in Canada but their application had been rejected as incomplete. NDP MP Fin Donnelly then reported that he had hand-delivered the familys file to Citizenship and Immigration Minister Chris Alexander, already on the hot seat for the slow pace of refugee approvals from Syria, who rejected it for the same reason.

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This incident had a profound impact on the election, because it fed into a larger political narrative: that the Conservatives were uncaring, anti-refugee, and racist. Further announcements by the Tories compounded the problem: less than a month later, the Tories pledged to appeal a Supreme Court ruling in favour of Sunera Ishaq, a woman who had refused to remove her veil to take the citizenship oath; a week after that, Alexander and fellow Tory candidate Kellie Leitch announced the Tories would set up a tip line to report barbaric cultural practices such as female circumcision and forced marriage. In Alexanders view, that was the nail in the coffin; after nearly 10 years in government, the Tories were turfed, and Liberal leader Justin Trudeau promised to usher in a new era of compassionate foreign policy.

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In 2021, the roles are reversed. It is the Liberals who are in government, asking for a third mandate, defending a foreign policy record that can only be described as a series of fails. These include the PMs disastrous trip to India in 2018, Canadas dilettante attempt at obtaining a seat on the UN security council in 2020, and China detaining two Canadian citizens for the past two years while openly mocking Trudeau as a boy who has turned Canada into a running dog of the U.S. Add to that Trudeaus incredulous statement this week, that he is concerned about revelations that his government contracted to build a $100 million Canadian ferry in China (the Tories immediately pledged to terminate the deal), and it is clear that when it comes to international relations, the emperor not only has no clothes, he has no clue.

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Monsefs comments shone the spotlight on a larger narrative: competency. Not only is this government nave and undiplomatic, but it is ineffective: Canadas efforts to evacuate Afghans who assisted Canadas war efforts have been described as a catastrophe. The subtext is: if the Liberals cant manage the foreign affairs file, how can we trust them to manage anything? And if thats the story that sticks, they are in serious trouble.

The big issues are far from settled.Sign up for the NP Comment newsletter,NP Platformed.

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Tasha Kheiriddin: Trudeau Liberals have no clue on foreign policy 'our brothers' gaffe just the latest fail - National Post

Under the Liberal Partys proposed 'Home Buyers Bill of Rights,' sellers would be required to tell buyers the precise dollar amounts of competing offers on properties.

Christopher Katsarov/The Globe and Mail

The Liberal Party plans to give home buyers more consumer protections by banning blind bidding, establishing a legal right to home inspections and forcing realtors to disclose more information on their conflicts of interest.

The party is raising the issue ahead of the federal election on Sept. 20, amid a heated national debate over housing affordability. With the typical home price across Canada now 25 per cent higher than this time last year, governments are under increasing pressure to act.

Under the Liberals proposed Home Buyers Bill of Rights, unveiled on Tuesday, sellers would be required to tell buyers the precise dollar amounts of competing offers on properties. Currently, most bids on homes are blind, meaning buyers are unaware what others are offering to pay.

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According to the plans other provisions, the pricing history of properties would be public, and buyers would have the legal right to conduct home inspections. Also, realtors would be required to disclose if they are representing both buyer and seller in a deal. Such double-representation situations are seen as potential sources of conflicts of interest.

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It is unclear how the Liberals would push through the majority of the changes, because real estate rules fall under provincial and territorial jurisdiction. Liberal spokesperson Brook Simpson said in a statement that the party would implement the ban on blind bidding with an amendment to the Criminal Code.

The largest and most influential real estate groups condemned some of the proposals, saying the measures would infringe on the privacy of buyers and sellers. Blind bidding has been blamed for contributing to the spike in home prices, by creating conditions where a winning bid can be much higher than a second-highest bid.

The Toronto Regional Real Estate Board (TRREB) called the blind bidding ban proposal a substantial overreach of government, and said the measure would punish buyers and sellers by making it impossible for them to keep financial decisions private during the largest transactions of their lives.

TRREB has tried to restrict access to data on the historical sale prices of homes, which the Liberal proposal would make public.

The Ontario Real Estate Association had a similar reaction. You cannot fix Canadas housing crisis by denying millions of hard-working families the choice of how to sell their home and by pitting homeowners against buyers, the association said.

Individual realtors, meanwhile, have come out in favour of ending blind bidding, as they have to deal with clients repeatedly being outbid.

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The rules have the potential to become a messy patchwork, dependent on provincial and territorial co-operation. An example of this is the Canadian Housing and Statistics Program (CHSP), which the federal government created after the housing boom of 2016 and 2017.

Although the CHSP has produced revelatory reports on the countrys housing market, it relies on data from the provinces, as well as private companies. As a result, the reports are not comprehensive. A recent one was only able to analyze off-market sales for three provinces, not including Ontario.

Phil Soper, president of Royal LePage, said he did not think that opening up the bidding process would slow price increases but, he said, it would make buyers feel more comfortable. He added that he has noticed how buyers change once they become homeowners. Its like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. When someone is shopping for a house, they think all the information should be provided. As soon as they own the house, suddenly it is all about privacy.

The Liberal bill of rights would also require lenders to offer mortgage deferrals for up to six months if a homeowner loses their job. On the rental side, the proposal calls for stopping renovictions, where landlords oust tenants to renovate units and jack up rents. The Liberals say they would also slap an additional tax on what they deem excessive rent increases as a result of renovictions.

The party also took aim at Real Estate Investment Trusts, or REITs, and other large corporations that operate rental housing. The Liberal proposal says the party would curb excessive profits while protecting independent landlords. The proposal does not define excessive profits.

With rental vacancy rates near 3 per cent in Canada, all types of investors, including REITs like Minto and private equity firms like Starlight Investments, have been expanding their portfolios of rental units.

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The Liberal Party also said it would review down payment requirements for investment properties, but it provided no detail on what this would consist of.

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Liberals pledge to ban blind bidding as home prices soar - The Globe and Mail