It takes a special kind of stupid

Vincent J. Curtis

11 Sept 23.

RE: The free market won’t solve this mess,  Op-ed by Marie-Josée Houle, Canada’s Federal Housing advocate.  The Hamilton Spectator 11 Sept 23

It takes a special kind of stupid to write an piece like that by Marie-Josee Houle; and a show of the paucity of knowledge of basic economics is that such socialist trash as purveyed by Houle could pass muster with the Spectator’s editors.

Houle complains that the housing crisis today was caused by the ending of the federal affordable housing program - in the 1990s.  From this she concludes that for-profit housing contractors cannot bring the crisis to an end.  Her solution is Stalinist goverance.  She argues that public money should be used to support non-market housing, which seems to be housing permanently owned by the government (“permanently affordable and accessible”).

Houle’s solution is faced with the same problem as that of the private contractors: When is the land this new housing is to be built on to be made available?  Where’s the money coming from to buy the materials and to service the land?  Most importantly, where are the workers and contractors to come from to do the government’s work, if not from the construction companies themselves – the ones that can’t get the job done without making a profit?  None of these questions occur to the author.  Neither does the irony.  With Stalin in charge, the land will be made available, or those in the way will be sent to the Gulag.  The compulsory nature of the work, and the likely low rates of pay, will certainly cause a labor and skill shortage, and demonstrate the advantages of the carrot over the stick.

The housing crisis in Canada was caused by the creation of the greenbelt, and like artificial shortages of land.  Force reluctant municipalities to cooperate; trample the opposition; unhobble the horse, and watch it run.

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