A Proposed Housing Plan Will Make Life Worse for Tenants in Alberta
As Canada’s conservative heartland goes to the polls, the incumbent United Conservative Party is planning to sell much of Alberta’s social housing to landlords. Under the plan, landlords will prosper, and tenants will suffer.
A view of a construction site of Telus Sky, a skyscraper in downtown Calgary, September 10, 2018, in Alberta, Canada. (Artur Widak / NurPhoto via Getty Images)
The oil-producing, prairie province of Alberta, Canada’s conservative heartland, is going to the polls on May 29. If reelected, the United Conservative Party (UCP) plans to sell off most of the province’s remaining twenty-seven thousand social housing units to private landlords.
Alberta is not immune to the country’s housing crisis. The UCP plan comes amid skyrocketing rental costs in the province. It is difficult to see how the plan will not exacerbate the province’s rental crisis, but the UCP claims that the scheme is somehow part of its plan to “support affordable housing.”
This absurd proposal is a perfect example of supply-side “solutions” to the housing crisis — it is a “solution” that will actually make matters worse. It appears that the party believes that by privatizing social housing, thereby raising housing costs, it can . . . reduce housing costs. It is wishful thinking at best, mystical obfuscation at worst.
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