Published in The Hub.
The Canadian housing market is in turmoil. Supply has lagged far behind demand as the population surges. This imbalance has led to soaring property prices, high rents, and increased homelessness.
The situation calls for urgent action, and while long-term solutions, like building more homes, are essential, policymakers are also deploying short-term measures—most notably, vacant property taxes. As these policies are becoming increasingly popular, the potential impact and drawbacks of such taxes call for careful examination.
My new C.D. Howe Institute publication with Enrico Miglino aims to shed further light on this matter by using Vancouver’s empty homes tax as a case study. Implemented in 2017,…
Dahir, Robson - Cities sit on too much cash. Here’s how they could help with Canada’s housing crisis
Published in The Globe and Mail.
The short supply and high cost of housing are top-of-mind concerns for many Canadians. So it is necessary to pay more attention to the quirks of municipal financial management, as cities budget for and finance infrastructure in ways that can slow construction and raise costs.
Many of Canada’s major cities are sitting on large amounts of cash that they collected before – often years ago – the capital projects they were collected to fund are under way. If cities matched the revenues they collect more closely with the expenses they incur, we could enjoy more and less expensive housing.
Panic over cities’ budgets is an annual ritual. And when Ontario municipalities gather in Ottawa this…
Published in the Financial Post
Regulation is an important part of Canada’s financial landscape. But to ensure the rules support an efficient, effective financial regulatory framework regulators need to be “constant gardeners.”
Canada has 44 different federal and provincial financial regulators and, as our recent analysis for the C.D. Howe Institute shows, the word count of their various rules and mandates continues to rise significantly year over year. The rules’ predominant focus is on risk reduction and consumer protection. Much less attention is paid to market efficiency, innovation and growth — though in the big picture they are at least as important. Our research shows that the balance is almost five-to-one: 85 per…
