Canada to change how it counts foreign students, workers amid housing crunch - eviltoast

Canada will change how it counts non-permanent residents, the main statistics agency said on Thursday, after an economist said the current methodology may have overlooked about a million foreign students, workers and others.

    • yeather@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      11
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      Over 2,100 properties were self reported as being vacant in Toronto. No doubt in my mind many people lied and the number of vacant units sits around 3,500. Which isn’t a lot but would definitely help.

      • RehRomano@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        In a city with 1.25 million homes, why are we so focused on “taxing empty investment homes” (something that already exists) for a few thousand units instead of building new homes?

          • RehRomano@lemmy.ca
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            3
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            Yeah sure. This is more a response to the top level comment (and the general sentiment) that empty units and financialization cause the scarcity, instead of just addressing the scarcity.

      • RehRomano@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        a) this is before Toronto instituted the empty homes tax - less incentive for homeowners to rent out their empty unit

        b) this is before the explosion of rental price increases post-covid - even less incentive for homeowners to rent out their unit

        c) measuring lights on or off a couple of times a year isn’t a great proxy for assessing empty units