Nanaimo is one of Canada's fastest-growing metropolitan areas, and at a federal election debate this week, candidates talked about their parties' plans to address the housing crunch.
The Canadian Home Builders’ Association Vancouver Island, the Greater Nanaimo Chamber of Commerce and the Ladysmith Chamber of Commerce co-hosted an all-candidates' meeting Wednesday, April 23, at the Coast Bastion Hotel. All five Nanaimo-Ladysmith candidates attended and answered questions about small business, economic growth, arts and culture, homelessness and more, but one of the primary topics of discussion was housing.
Tamara Kronis, Conservative Party of Canada candidate, said wholesale change is needed on the file and said a Conservative government would "supercharge" the home-building efforts already being made. She said young people can't afford to live in B.C. and are moving away, interest rates are unaffordable and housing starts aren't where they need to be.
"These are problems that are not going to be solved by layering on another housing bureaucracy as the Liberal platform plans to do," she said. "We need the government to get out of the way to get more homes built at a lower cost."
Kronis said the Conservatives would boost trades training and eliminate the federal sales tax on new homes, not just for first-time home buyers, but for all Canadians including seniors looking to downsize.
Paul Manly, representing the Green Party of Canada, said the federal government can help with the housing crisis by assisting in streamlining permitting processes and supporting local governments' infrastructure needs so they can keep up with growth. He said the Greens would address speculation and real estate investment trusts, and support tripling Canada's affordable housing stock. Market housing will take care of itself, he suggested, and the federal government's role should therefore be in building affordable and co-op housing.
"I have a development behind my house that was zoned 10 years ago, that was permitted eight years ago, and it hasn't been built yet, and that's because it is a market-driven economy," he said.
Michelle Corfield, Liberal candidate, promoted her party's housing platform and indicated support for training tradespeople, bringing in skilled workers via immigration, assisting first-time home buyers, supporting the forest industry to provide finished wood products for home construction, and cutting permitting delays for Indigenous, co-op and non-profit housing.
"To quote the prime minister, Canada needs to get back in the business of building homes," she said.
Lisa Marie Barron, the New Democratic Party incumbent, talked about her party's platform to replace the federal housing accelerator fund with a strategy to empower communities and provinces with tools to get homes built faster and protect affordable rental homes. She also mentioned the importance of supporting provinces to help deliver trades training, and said the NDP wants to better protect renters from renoviction and price gouging.
"Housing is a basic human right and instead what we've seen is consecutive Liberal and Conservative governments that have allowed the housing market to be used as an investment tool," Barron said.
Stephen Welton, running for the People's Party of Canada, expressed skepticism about the government's ability to pay for housing programs, but he also suggested that even more home building won't solve housing affordability, because it will lead to increased material costs and exacerbate worker shortages, which will drive up the cost to build.
He suggested that "extraordinary" immigration rates encouraged by the federal government have created outsized demand for housing, and high demand has led to high prices.
"So we do have to answer the question, if we're going to bring them in, how are we going to house them? Well, we don't have an answer to that, so an answer is to reduce the immigration to a more sustainable level and that will reduce the pressure on house prices," he said. "We'll actually be able to house people again. Canada first."
Three Nanaimo-Ladysmith candidates participated in a forum at Nanaimo District Secondary School on April 15, and four participated in an all-candidates' meeting at Vancouver Island University on Tuesday, April 22.
Election day is Monday, April 28.
