<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>voisin</author><text>&amp;gt; Housing is relatively affordable outside of Ontario and BC. Montreal, Calgary, Edmonton, Quebec City, Winnepeg, Halifax, Saskatoon, Regina, and St Johns are all major metro areas where homes are less than half the price of the GTA and Vancouver metro.&lt;p&gt;This is not the right way to think about it. Yes these cities are cheaper than GTA&amp;#x2F;GVA, but that has always been the case. And this metric only matters if you are earning GTA&amp;#x2F;GVA incomes and looking for something cheaper than these mega cities to buy in, which arguably only affects a tiny percent of the population.&lt;p&gt;The right comparison is how these cities’ house prices compare to themselves of 3, 5, 10 years ago versus their average household income over the same time periods.&lt;p&gt;When you look at that, which is a much more relevant metric of affordability, you will find there is essentially no city in this country that hasn’t been absolutely obliterated on affordability over the last decade.&lt;p&gt;7-10 years ago it was a GTA&amp;#x2F;GVA affordability issue. Now it a story of every podunk 2 horse town from coast to coast. Why? Because of interest rates! The BoC, like most central banks, left rates too low for too long and then massively overreacted to COVID.</text><parent_chain><item><author>gnopgnip</author><text>&amp;gt;But where will these new people stay?&lt;p&gt;Housing is relatively affordable outside of Ontario and BC. Montreal, Calgary, Edmonton, Quebec City, Winnepeg, Halifax, Saskatoon, Regina, and St Johns are all major metro areas where homes are less than half the price of the GTA and Vancouver metro.&lt;p&gt;The obvious fix for Ontario and BC to make housing more affordable is to allow people to build more where people want to live by relaxing zoning requirements. In 80%+ of Vancouver and 60%+ of Toronto it&amp;#x27;s literally illegal to build anything besides detached single family homes. Little of the remaining land zoned for more dense development is suitable for development. There are some smaller changes like streamlining permitting, not exempting 100% of capital gains and incentivizing speculation, and a vacancy tax to discourage speculation that would help. The problem is any changes to make housing more affordable are politically unpopular, almost 70% of Canadians are homeowners and in the short term benefit from the status quo. Also younger people are ~20% less likely to vote.</text></item><item><author>babuloseo</author><text>But where will these new people stay? There is not enough housing being built for people, you are going to see people come here only to leave when they realize that they can&amp;#x27;t afford the housing for their families there.&lt;p&gt;Net migration is probably pretty high in Canada right now and will increase once people figure out that there is not enough density or proper housing for them.&lt;p&gt;Check out these two top threads thread at canadahousing subreddit:&lt;p&gt;[1]&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.reddit.com&amp;#x2F;r&amp;#x2F;canadahousing&amp;#x2F;comments&amp;#x2F;13jl3gf&amp;#x2F;came_to_canada_3_years_ago_and_now_leaving_due_to&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.reddit.com&amp;#x2F;r&amp;#x2F;canadahousing&amp;#x2F;comments&amp;#x2F;13jl3gf&amp;#x2F;came...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2]&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.reddit.com&amp;#x2F;r&amp;#x2F;canadahousing&amp;#x2F;comments&amp;#x2F;147p0tx&amp;#x2F;ontario_get_readyyoure_going_to_lose_your&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.reddit.com&amp;#x2F;r&amp;#x2F;canadahousing&amp;#x2F;comments&amp;#x2F;147p0tx&amp;#x2F;onta...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;I am waiting to see what the cabinet shuffle looks like, but we are probably going to run some billboard campaigns or do some fundraising soon to address the housing crisis if the government is not tackling this properly. If you are Canadian or have interest in this space on addressing these social issues, hit me up.</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Canada’s new tech talent strategy</title><url>https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/news/2023/06/minister-fraser-launches-canadas-first-ever-tech-talent-strategy-at-collision-2023.html</url></story>
<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>brutus1213</author><text>Issue is not just housing. Our health services and infra is crumbling. 401 near Yonge st is jammed nearly 24 hours (yes!!!). We literally have no more space for cars. We have switch to the 407 for as much travel as we can (and it is crazy expensive and silly given how much tax I pay as a techie).&lt;p&gt;The ERs in GTA are just always clogged. I&amp;#x27;ve had to deal with multiple instances of 10+ hour waits in the ER. When they were not addressed in time, one such incident got worse, and ended up in a 10 day serious hospital stay (love the logic on that one).&lt;p&gt;Getting an appointment with any sort of specialist is also a gauntlet.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m an immigrant and it was surreal hearing the new Toronto mayor talk about how much she accomplished as an immigrant to Canada. It was indeed possible when she and I came to this country. It is a fantasy today. GTA has become a terrible place to live in a very short time period.</text><parent_chain><item><author>gnopgnip</author><text>&amp;gt;But where will these new people stay?&lt;p&gt;Housing is relatively affordable outside of Ontario and BC. Montreal, Calgary, Edmonton, Quebec City, Winnepeg, Halifax, Saskatoon, Regina, and St Johns are all major metro areas where homes are less than half the price of the GTA and Vancouver metro.&lt;p&gt;The obvious fix for Ontario and BC to make housing more affordable is to allow people to build more where people want to live by relaxing zoning requirements. In 80%+ of Vancouver and 60%+ of Toronto it&amp;#x27;s literally illegal to build anything besides detached single family homes. Little of the remaining land zoned for more dense development is suitable for development. There are some smaller changes like streamlining permitting, not exempting 100% of capital gains and incentivizing speculation, and a vacancy tax to discourage speculation that would help. The problem is any changes to make housing more affordable are politically unpopular, almost 70% of Canadians are homeowners and in the short term benefit from the status quo. Also younger people are ~20% less likely to vote.</text></item><item><author>babuloseo</author><text>But where will these new people stay? There is not enough housing being built for people, you are going to see people come here only to leave when they realize that they can&amp;#x27;t afford the housing for their families there.&lt;p&gt;Net migration is probably pretty high in Canada right now and will increase once people figure out that there is not enough density or proper housing for them.&lt;p&gt;Check out these two top threads thread at canadahousing subreddit:&lt;p&gt;[1]&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.reddit.com&amp;#x2F;r&amp;#x2F;canadahousing&amp;#x2F;comments&amp;#x2F;13jl3gf&amp;#x2F;came_to_canada_3_years_ago_and_now_leaving_due_to&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.reddit.com&amp;#x2F;r&amp;#x2F;canadahousing&amp;#x2F;comments&amp;#x2F;13jl3gf&amp;#x2F;came...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2]&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.reddit.com&amp;#x2F;r&amp;#x2F;canadahousing&amp;#x2F;comments&amp;#x2F;147p0tx&amp;#x2F;ontario_get_readyyoure_going_to_lose_your&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.reddit.com&amp;#x2F;r&amp;#x2F;canadahousing&amp;#x2F;comments&amp;#x2F;147p0tx&amp;#x2F;onta...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;I am waiting to see what the cabinet shuffle looks like, but we are probably going to run some billboard campaigns or do some fundraising soon to address the housing crisis if the government is not tackling this properly. If you are Canadian or have interest in this space on addressing these social issues, hit me up.</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Canada’s new tech talent strategy</title><url>https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/news/2023/06/minister-fraser-launches-canadas-first-ever-tech-talent-strategy-at-collision-2023.html</url></story>