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Yeah.. some of that is true.
My steelman for the government's actions is that they're doing what they feel is best for the country because something something Century Initiative. Country needs population to support its social program Ponzi scheme (and I mean that with love. Free healthcare is great, but it is expensive. So is OAS). It needs to be paid for with an expanding population's taxes, and where that population lives is not Ottawa's problem. It's not Trudeau's fault most of Vancouver still looks like this.
But no. I don't think the average Canadian benefits from higher home prices. The average voter? maybe. So then you have the PM just come right out and admit it. "Home prices cannot be allowed to fall". It's generational warfare, and our politicians have picked the side their votes come from. The boomers get to retire. You get to eat the bugs.
How can the average Canadian not benefit from higher property values if the vast majority of property is owned by Canadians?
It's not generational warfare. People are free to give the proceeds of higher property values to their children, and most of them do. It's not the government's fault if some people don't want to help their children. But when the government does intervene and artificially suppresses property values or taxes them to redistribute to the young, a large share of that is redistribution to immigrants or their children. This is the opposite of what the government should do if it wants to help Canadians at the expense of foreigners as so many claim it should.
"Generational warfare" was perhaps hyperbolic. I mean that the government is propping up assets that, absent their meddling, should come down in value, if things were at all sane like in the US.
It doesn't help the younger generation of Canadians now if their parents will eventually croak in 25 or 30 years and leave them the house (along with god knows what owed in deferred property tax. Have fun with that, kids! Edit: actually, maybe this is only a BC thing), nor does it help those who can't bank on an inheritance.
Why should they come down in value?
Of course it helps them. They don't have to save as much for retirement or their parents can take out a mortgage and provide them with a downpayment. Their grandparents also own property and their parents and grandparents own REITs and rental properties.
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