Housing crisis is serious

Re Mayors form alliance to push for housing cash, Sept. 25 It is good to see John Tory and other mayors collaborating on holding our federal and provincial governments accountable.

Paul Martin and the Liberals cancelled Canada’s national housing program more than 20 years ago, and then downloaded it to the provinces and municipalities without providing the necessary funding. Now Canada is the only Western country without a national housing program.

Former Ontario premier Mike Harris cancelled 17,000 housing units that were ready to go when he came to power in the 1990s. Most of the savings went to consultants to study the issue, with little results. The Trudeau government has had a year in power and continues to study the issue.

It is time for our senior levels of government to wake up to the seriousness of the affordable-housing problem, and to take action rather than having more meetings and studies. David Walsh, Toronto

Toronto and other Canadian cities should look to Vancouver, which announced last week that it has raised $2.2 billion through land-transfer taxes plus the new 15-per-cent real estate tax on foreign buyers. Half the money will go to affordable housing and the other half into a legacy fund for a rainy day.

But to make the tax fairer and simpler to administer, Toronto should extend the tax to all buyers, both foreign and domestic. This way it would serve as a non-prejudicial policy tool to raise revenue and make housing more affordable by reducing the size of mortgages and thus the amount of interest paid to banks.

The revenue could be earmarked for affordable housing and for the much-needed transit infrastructure — a major political win for Mayor John Tory.

Frank de Jong, Faro, Yukon