As taken from this article:

Jagmeet Singh said he’s hearing from families who call the rise in interest rates “sharp and rapid” — resulting in “mortgage misery.”

“There are so many families that are wondering how to afford to keep their homes,” he said.

The federal NDP leader addressed ongoing concerns with Canada’s high cost of mortgages and interest rates in front of a Windsor, Ont., home Wednesday morning.

[…]

He said adding to the problem is Canada is in the midst of a housing shortage and needs to build more faster than ever before.

“We also need to build more homes, rapidly. More homes that are affordable to rent or to buy. We need to make massive investments and make those investments as quickly as possible … And we need to make sure we’re taking measures to save people money, to put money back in their pockets.”

Singh said the government should be exploring incentives to encourage developers to build privately.

All of this had my incensed so I opted to write a letter to my MP who is also in the same party.

Mr. Davies,

I am writing you today to express my displeasure at your leader, Jagmeet Singh’s decision to put the plight of mortgage-holders above the plight of renters. For him when speaking with reporters to use “mortgage misery” and then not discuss what renters are facing such as “eviction atrocity”, “rent increase melancholy”, and “displacement agony” is counter to the values I expect from the NDP and its leader.

Why must we rely on the private sector to provide housing as he proposed in this media show he made on July 20th, 2023? What are you, your leader, and your party proposing to do that doesn’t require housing to turn a profit?

We have seen over the past 40-years that relying on the private sector to build adequate housing stock has simply not worked. I’ve watched many rental properties in your leader’s own riding of Burnaby South be turned into luxury condos at price-points none of the former residents of the area could ever afford. We’re now seeing this play out in our own riding and as a renter, it doesn’t help my anxiety.

Where is his demand for the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation to return to funding new development of cooperative housing? Why are we sticking to the binary of either renting or owning? The building of cooperative housing should be front and centre as an alternative to ownership.

If we must stick to the binary of renting and owning, why are we then not having the CMHC or some similar body be the landlord? What is the problem with having the government compete with the private sector to depress rental prices and make it less compelling to rent homes that aren’t purpose-rental to begin with?

Let’s stop making housing a problem for the private sector to resolve.

I’ve had to deal with the messaging that housing is an investment throughout my life, yet somehow it is overlooked that investments come with risk. I invest my retirement savings as a way to increase its worth for me, but I watched in 2021 my loss of tens of thousands of my hard-earned dollars because of market conditions. Where was my relief? I never expected it because I knew that my investments were a risk, yet somehow housing is too sacred?

All of this stinks and hurts everyone. I do not want to see mortgage holders suffer as I can make arguments to why owning is better than renting, but to see this sort of messaging and then be tone deaf to everyone else all in the same speech goes to show how out of touch Mr. Singh is with the public. Mortgage-holders who do not have the means to pay as interest rates rise definitely need assistance where reasonable, but renters are once again being forgotten.

Jagmeet’s desire to stick to this binary speaks volumes about the lack of imagination coming from the NDP during a housing crisis created by the Liberals and Conservatives since I was born. To seemingly want to stick to messaging to assuage the status quo instead of proposing something as radical as what other countries have done tells me that your leader and party are out of touch with actual solutions that hard-working people in this country need.

Regards,

Cariad Heather Keigher

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[Name of Member of Parliament]

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