The federal government used to build social housing. Then it stopped. How is that going?

The only way it makes sense as a financial investment is if population continues to grow and homes values continue to rise above inflation - it's inherently unsustainable.

Seriously, a simple though would show how bad of an idea financializing a basic human need is.

Homes are infrastructure.

No, this is revisionist history. The 90s were part of a nearly 15 year period when house prices were flat in Canada. For quite a few years your return would have been negative. People in the 90s were not thinking of their house as their retirement account.

We did stop making enough housing, but it’s precisely that artificial scarcity that is making people treat it as an “investment”. If we make enough, it will not be treated primarily as an investment anymore, which is how it should be.

It literally was affordable just fine when it was treated as an investment before, back in the '90s.

Yes, that's how investments work. They are less money at the beginning and then grow over time. If you want apple stock to be affordable like it was in the 90s you'd need to harm the investments of everyone who has already bought it. If you want housing to be affordable you need to hurt the property values of everyone who already has a house.

Do you get a return on investment directly in merely owning a car? No, of course not. People still buy cars. (To avoid confusion: cars open other economic opportunities, but just sitting on a car by itself is not an investment.)

On the other hand, if cars did become an investment, people would hoard cars and they would be less affordable for people who actually use cars productively. High real estate prices are similarly hurting the economy.

You're being downvoted because this is the attitude that got us into, and is keeping us in, this mess. Let us be precise with terms: housing is not a speculative investment. You don't buy a house because you presume it will appreciate 100-1000% by the time you sell it. That attitude leads to the paradox that the government is unable to stop: you either build/allow affordable housing, lowering prices and crashing people's speculative investment, or you restrict new home building through restrictive zoning and NIMBYism run wild, letting houses appreciate to the point of unaffordability.

You buy a house to live in long term: to buy it back from the bank and own it all to yourself. You have right to sell it for an equal or roughly price tracking rate with inflation. That's a good investment. Every Canadian has the right to buy affordable housing. Saying affordable housing is affordable renting is not only reductive but downright prejudicial: people don't rent because they're poor. They rent because they want the freedom to move without selling a house. They rent because they are building lives as students or young families or their careers. They rent because they choose to invest their money in something other than house equity. And all the real, concrete policies which help new homeowners (ie building more housing) help renters: these two groups are not at odds with each other.

Oh so you wouldn't want to own a home if it didn't pay well? Yeah. Same. And why should I get so shafted for wanting to live in a small apartment as opposed to 'investing' in a home?

A home is meant to be a depreciating asset like a car is. You need to maintain and repair it in order to sell it. You live in it, therefore it would be okay to pay a bit for it, buuuuut thanks to government subsidies and bankers and housing shortages, you are guaranteed to profit.

I don't support downvoting you. I disagree with you, but you've made a concise and detailed argument for neoliberalism.

I did not downvote, but I'd like to offer my point of view.

Owning a home IS an investment. Renting is not.

I think this is a superfluous distinction. Purchasing real estate can be an investment vehicle if you aim to recoup the investment through appreciation (land speculation) or income generating usage (like rentals). It may also not be an investment if you just want to purchase a property to live in it - this is a passive asset, much like a car. You can "rent" your car (and time) to the gig economy, and car prices can rise and you can make a profit by selling one, but in a stable supply market that's not the norm so cars are generally not regarded as investments. Conversely, renting retail space for commercial usage is an obvious example of income generation on top of a rented property, so rental costs are a factor in other types of investments.

Nobody would want to own a home if they didn’t get some kind of return on investment when it came time to scale down/retire/put it in your will, etc.

Plenty of people want to own a home regardless of financial returns. Ownership has its perks, there are plenty of people willing to pay for it. It is a bit of a luxury good nowadays, but one that is very entrenched in most cultures as a symbol of "making it".

The reason to own a home is that it's yours. You don't have to obey the tyrannical whims of your landlord and you cannot be capriciously evicted. Homeownership is self-defense.

Let's get them in just once and see. In the meantime, they are a black box as far as how they would govern, and yet, everyone keeps choosing the turd sandwich or the giant douche.

Aw come on man. Quit that bullshit.

Who else are you going to vote for then??? Liberals or conservatives??? Are you going to give away you vote to some other minor little party or individual while those two get the majority?

Nah man. Fuck it. NDP is the only viable option at this point that can gather enough views to beat the libs or the cons. If only people would rally behind them, they'd win.