to ease Canada’s housing crunch, at least one expert believes there are more cultural factors that need addressing before any headway can be made.
Paul Kershaw, founder of Generation Squeeze and policy professor at the UBC School of Population Health, told BNN Bloomberg Thursday that the federal government tends to blame housing issues on a single “easy villain.” Kershaw,, said previously the government has placed blame on developers, red tape or homeowners, but that foreign students are now the “latest flavour of the month.”
When home prices go up, the retirement nest egg for homeowners grows and homeowners can take out loans off the home value, meaning homeowners really stand to benefit from rising values, Kershaw explained. Kershaw said housing has become a fraught political issue because the parties don’t want to push for home price declines and risk alienating the homeowners.