It feels like Canadian governments have forgotten how to plan. As the op-ed states, we don’t have the sewer/water/road/fire for the 5,800,000 houses we’re building by 2030. And politicians aren’t budgeting for it’s construction.
In the bigger picture, we aren’t training enough nurses and doctors to service our current population, let alone what our population is forecast to become. Similarly, we aren’t funding post-secondary education beyond overcharging students from abroad.
But I digress. On the housing file:
The politicians who are promising action to build the 5.8 million new homes Canada needs by 2030 seem to be forgetting that, unlike that log cabin, the millions of homes that are needed can’t even begin to be built without connection to the world around them, to roads, bridges, clean water, electricity and waste management. They don’t seem to be factoring in that those houses will have people in them, millions of people, who need access to hospitals and schools, to civic and recreational facilities, to public transit, to emergency services. In other words, it is not possible to build so many new homes across Canada without considering essential housing-enabling infrastructure. Yet no one is even talking about that part of the equation, let alone announcing funding for it.
It is a significant oversight. A report by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities estimates that each new housing unit will require $107,000 in public infrastructure investment. This amounts to a total of $620-billion in new public funding needed to produce workable housing, which far outstrips currently projected investments of $245-billion.
It means a huge number of things: building schools, community centres, sewers, etc. And yes, transit and density need to be in the mix.
The key raised by OP (oh hey! that’s me!) is that our politicians aren’t allocating funds for any of those things. Housing is just the tip of the melting iceberg.
Canada has a mind-boggling planning deficit. Our governments are showing incredible incompetence at figuring out what we need before we need them. That’s why we’re in the housing crisis, the healthcare crisis, etc.
I completely 💯 % agree about the need for more planning. We might be not agreeing entirely on the direction. Transit and mixed use density are not just in the mix, they should be the mix. Suburban, car centric sprawl is not just not-a-solution, it is creating financial problems for the future.
I’m cool with the direction. I just want to highlight that the planning deficit covers more than housing crisis, it includes the lack of healthcare workers, etc. Basically all government responsibilities.
Just to troll: I’d be more confident about the future if politicians could plan in a bad direction. I don’t want suburban sprawl either, but if our governments could plan a sprawl properly (enough sewers, schools, grocery stores, community centres, not in a flood plane), then we’d have a chance. Because we just need to change the direction of planning.
But we don’t even do that right. Politicians just do random shit and hope it gets them elected. They don’t even bother to get their shitty sprawl plans working properly.
But yes. More transit and density. 👍
I think the Liberal party is ideologically the “the lack of plan is the plan” party. The market is supposed to magically sort itself out in their heads.