Tim Harper: The middle class may be squeezed but Liberals offer housing help where it is most needed
(The Star Toronto Raptors)

First, let’s not pretend there isn’t a healthy helping of politics in the Liberal government’s new national housing strategy.It does address an urgent need – but apparently not urgent enough to get most of the money flowing before the next federal election. Deferring major spending until after the next ballots are cast is a grab from the playbook of the former Conservative government.It requires buy-in and funding from the provinces, so there is still work to do before the Liberals can truly announce this with their attendant celestial horns.The Liberals voted down an NDP private member’s bill that would have made housing a human right so they could make the announcement themselves, a garden variety political manoeuvre.This does little or nothing for the millennial laying awake at night in some Toronto or Vancouver tower wondering whether they can ever buy a house.It offers nothing for the boomerang offspring who is back in his or her roost in mom and dad’s basement.And let’s not forget that it will become that much tougher come Jan. 1, 2018, to buy that home, that middle-class dream the Liberals advertise.New rules will require buyers who are making down payments of more than 20 per cent to undergo a “stress test” to prove they could still afford their mortgage payments if interest rates were to rise two percentage points.Whether this valuable Liberal constituency feels it has been ignored – absent some expected future government action to help first-time home buyers – remains to be seen.But there are two bottom lines here.Yes, affording that new home in Toronto and Vancouver (or Victoria or Hamilton for that matter) is no closer to reality but the government of Justin Trudeau has embarked on a bold, long overdue strategy to help the marginalized who need that lifeline much more than someone about to rely on the bank of mom and dad.A strategy with this many moving parts can’t be delivered i ...