In my opening remarks I talked about things I thought about that would create immediate change.
The ban on short-term rentals would create immediate change. It would immediately reduce prices, instantly. It would discourage developers in the private sector from building micro condos, from building a 385-square foot condo, which is frankly ridiculous. It would eliminate the desire to create that product, because there's no market for it other than as an Airbnb unit. The release of inventory into the space would be immediate. The investors in these Airbnb projects would simply say, “Well, I can't make any more money; I'd better sell it,” and it would be sold to a long-term landlord or, better still, it would be sold to individuals who want to live in the unit, which is critical. That would be a great benefit.
The next move has to be that we look at the number of empty homes in major cities in Canada, in the whole of the GTA and Vancouver. This area of empty homes is real. Often people say it's false. You get that feedback on social media that it's not real, that there are no empty homes. People like to talk about that all the time, but it's also obvious that there are. The recent Toronto move to tax empty homes showed that there might have been as many as 28,000. That still has not been determined as yet. Heavens to Betsy; we should release empty homes into the hands of people who want to live in them. That should be a priority for any government. I realize we have overlapping responsibilities, provincial and federal, but getting more inventory into the hands of homebuyers quickly, efficiently and effectively would be my top priority.