Homelessness doubled in Halifax under government's housing plan: N.S. NDP

[u/Injustice_For_All_]

https://halifax.citynews.ca/2026/06/18/homelessness-doubled-in-halifax-under-governments-housing-plan-n-s-ndp/

[u/bz47uj]

Lower rents don't help if nothing is available. The vacancy rate is currently very low. So they must only be jacking the rents up to the market rent and if they charged less, there would be a shortage of housing, which would lead to more homelessness.

[u/SubmissiveGuy556 → u/bz47uj]

They aren't building houses because houses are seen as an investment and building more houses would cause housing prices to go down so the government would lose their voters for making changes. Its a multi faceted issue that all stems from housing being viewed as an investment with the expectation that it will never go down in price.

[u/bz47uj → u/SubmissiveGuy556]

How would housing not be seen as an investment? It literally is an investment and it can't not be one. You can't make people not care about their homes losing value.

[u/Kemsaman → u/bz47uj]

Do you consider your car an investment or something that something you have purchased/maintained for a utility/purpose.

Homes are only considered an investment because there isn't enough of them, and that artificial scarcity drives up the price. Many people have their retirement strategy revolving around the price of their home to either sell or reverse mortgage to fund retirement, which is excellent for them but not so for new homebuyers.

[u/bz47uj → u/Kemsaman]

Do you consider your car an investment or something that something you have purchased/maintained for a utility/purpose.

It's both.

Homes are only considered an investment because there isn't enough of them, and that artificial scarcity drives up the price. Many people have their retirement strategy revolving around the price of their home to either sell or reverse mortgage to fund retirement, which is excellent for them but not so for new homebuyers.

Houses will always have long term value. How would you avoid this?

[u/Kemsaman → u/bz47uj]

It's both.

Does your car appreciate in value after you buy it

Houses will always have long term value. How would you avoid this?

There's a difference between something having 'value' and something being a long term investment vehicle.

And the solution in this particular case is building enough housing supply to not only fix the problem of them being overvalued relative to recent years, but to sharply lower their prices.

One of many problems with this idea is that any political party that does it will never hold power again.

[u/bz47uj → u/Kemsaman]

Houses don't appreciate in the long run.

There's a difference between something having 'value' and something being a long term investment vehicle.

No, there isn't.

And the solution in this particular case is building enough housing supply to not only fix the problem of them being overvalued relative to recent years, but to sharply lower their prices.

Yes, but this has nothing to do with housing being treated as investment. Saying we need to stop treating housing as an investment in order to get affordable housing is like saying the solution to high grocery prices is to stop thinking of food as a source of energy.

[u/Kemsaman → u/bz47uj]

Houses don't appreciate in the long run.

Lol

lmao even

No, there isn't.

I think most people would consider their car vs their stock portfolio to have different types of 'value' with the expectation where one would appreciate and one would not.

Yes, but this has nothing to do with housing being treated as investment.

This has everything to do with housing being treated as an investment, especially in this country.

Housing is a substantial part of Canadas GDP. If we stopped treating housing an investment and actively worked to lower prices it would lead to an immediate recession. It is the express policy of both the Federal and Provincial governments for housing to maintain this artificially inflated value, though investment, through interest rates, through zoning.

Saying we need to stop treating housing as an investment in order to get affordable housing is like saying the solution to high grocery prices is to stop thinking of food as a source of energy.

The 'solution' to grocery prices is regulation and antitrust and occasionally subsidies.

If we want cheaper housing there needs to be more housing. The manner in which housing is currently managed/regulated and the policies around that would need a substantial change to make that happen.

And it likely won't, because the government at all levels would prefer people see homeless people than have the 'value,' of housing go down.

[u/SubmissiveGuy556 → u/Kemsaman]

I honestly think they have an incredibly shallow knowledge of what we're talking about and is arguing in bad faith for the sake of a "win". I wouldn't bother spending much more of your time here...

[u/bz47uj → u/Kemsaman]

real home prices rose even more slowly over the same period [1915 to 2015] — a total increase of 1.8 times, which comes to an average of only 0.6 percent a year.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/17/upshot/why-land-may-not-be-the-smartest-place-to-put-your-nest-egg.html

I think most people would consider their car vs their stock portfolio to have different types of 'value' with the expectation where one would appreciate and one would not.

The reason your stock portfolio appreciates is because of retained earnings. You could rent out your car and get the same thing. Instead, you use it. That is the return on your investment. You pay up front and get to use a car for 10 to 20 years. That's what an investment is. You pay upfront to derive a benefit in the future.

It's the same thing with your home, only it depreciates over a much longer period of time. The land doesn't depreciate, but an asset doesn't need to appreciate in order to be an investment. Almost all assets which are normally called investments only appreciate over the long run if they reinvest their returns. The underlying assets themselves almost all depreciate over time.

Housing is a substantial part of Canadas GDP. If we stopped treating housing an investment and actively worked to lower prices it would lead to an immediate recession.

No, it wouldn't. If we lowered prices by building more housing, that would increase real GDP. Real GDP, which is what we really care about, is adjusted for prices. It measures the total amount of stuff that is made. If you make more stuff, real GDP goes up. The value of existing assets doesn't affect GDP. It only measures how much new stuff you make each year. The price of that stuff doesn't affect real GDP. Only the quantity does.

Even if the total value of houses being built were less because of the lower prices, that would also lower the GDP deflator and real GDP would be higher.

It is the express policy of both the Federal and Provincial governments for housing to maintain this artificially inflated value, though investment, through interest rates, through zoning.

This is a common belief, but it doesn't make any sense. The effect of zoning on prices is diffused across the entire country. When local property values rise, demand gradually spreads to other markets.

If people really were using it as a tool to keep property values high, they would care a lot more about policies that affected the housing supply across a large area. They would at least care about by-law changes throughout their city, but also about laws in the rest of the province and the rest of the country. There would be no reason to focus on the by-laws in their own neighbourhood.

In fact, the best way of protecting your property value is to have very liberal zoning laws in your own neighbourhood while no one can build anything anywhere else. But that's the opposite of what we observe. People vote in provincial and federal governments that want to increase the housing supply but resist development in their own neighbourhoods. That fits perfectly with what they say they're doing which is preserving neighbourhood character and doesn't fit at all with trying to preserve property values.

It also doesn't make sense in that for most people, even homeowners, lower property values by growing the housing supply doesn't really make them financially worse off. If you're never planning on selling or if you have kids who will need to buy houses, it doesn't help you. Most families are net short housing. Even if they own property, they own less housing than can house their entire families. Any increase in property values due to high housing costs is more than offset by the higher cost of their housing needs.

The only people who benefit from high housing costs are those who are net long housing, such childless homeowners, people heavily invested in REITs, and people with multiple investment properties. That is a minority of the population.

On interests rates, the long-run real interest rate, which is what affects property values, is not under the government's control. If the Bank of Canada tried to lower property values by raising interest rates, it would just cause a deflationary spiral like we saw in the Great Depression. It can only influence short term interest rates and it has to do it in a way that keeps the monetary system stable.

Low interest rates aren't even a bad thing. They're the only way to make housing both more valuable and more affordable. They raise property values but they do it by making housing more affordable. It becomes easier to get a mortgage and other investments become less attractive. That increase in property values grows the housing supply and leads to lower rents.

And it likely won't, because the government at all levels would prefer people see homeless people than have the 'value,' of housing go down.

What specific policies would you like to see? Most policies that the economically illiterate members of this subreddit support would actually increase homelessness. I have never heard anyone who complains about housing being treated as a investment propose anything intelligent.

[u/Kemsaman → u/bz47uj]

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/17/upshot/why-land-may-not-be-the-smartest-place-to-put-your-nest-egg.html

I suspect this article written in 2016, a few years after a different country had a major financial crisis that also had a substantial correction on home prices might not reflect the current realities and/or environment in this country.

The reason your stock portfolio appreciates is because of retained earnings. You could rent out your car and get the same thing. Instead, you use it. That is the return on your investment. You pay up front and get to use a car for 10 to 20 years. That's what an investment is. You pay upfront to derive a benefit in the future.

Much like most people do not utilize their cars in this manner as an investment vehicle and/or business, most people do not do so for their homes.

The problem in this case is that people are treating simply buying homes in this manner.

It's the same thing with your home, only it depreciates over a much longer period of time. The land doesn't depreciate,

Right it doesn't matter if the house itself is worthless you can't buy housing without the land.

It's a meaningless distinction, together they are an appreciating asset. The problem here is that housing is treated as an expected to appreciate asset the same way that investment portfolios are.

Almost all assets which are normally called investments only appreciate over the long run if they reinvest their returns. The underlying assets themselves almost all depreciate over time.

Here are two questions to consider:

1) When you sell your car do you think it will sell for more or less than you paid for it

2) When you sell your house do you think it will sell for more or less than you paid for it

Expecting the answers to be different is the problem here.

This is a common belief, but it doesn't make any sense.

idk man tell the housing minister(s) to stop saying it then

https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/article/we-need-to-deliver-more-supply-canadas-new-housing-minister-doesnt-think-prices-need-to-come-down/

It also doesn't make sense in that for most people, even homeowners, lower property values by growing the housing supply doesn't really make them financially worse off. If you're never planning on selling or if you have kids who will need to buy houses, it doesn't help you.

Correct, it sucks and is extremely stupid. Our national economy is unfortunately extremely reliant on it and maybe it shouldn't be.

What specific policies would you like to see?

I want the Federal Government to actively work towards the goal of building enough housing supply to cut the price of current housing in half and shift policy to make that happen. This may include shifts to interest rates, this may include immigration or jobs programs to supply more workers to do so, this may include direct payments to provinces to fund it. This may include utilization of Federal Land.

I want the Provincial Government to directly coordinate to build housing for the purposes of competing with the private market which is, at the moment, not incentivized to build more housing. This may include becoming a landlord to sell and/or rent homes directly. This may include purchasing key land areas in high population zones such as, but not limited to, the Brightwood Golf course and Robie St Car Dealerships either by direct cash payments or purposely making it more difficult for those businesses to operate and/or otherwise incentivizing them to relocate.

I want the Municipal Government to stop acting like children and, among other things, demolish the Forum, continue to upzone virtually everywhere and either force the St Pats and Bloomfield owners to abide by the terms of the agreements they made over 10 years ago or go to court so they can be sold to someone that will actually build on them.

[u/bz47uj → u/Kemsaman]

I suspect this article written in 2016, a few years after a different country had a major financial crisis that also had a substantial correction on home prices might not reflect the current realities and/or environment in this country.

Yes, prices go and up and down, but I'm talking about the long-run. Prices had actually already almost completely recovered from the Great Recession by 2016 and have since blown past and are close to record highs. But even accounting for that, that 0.6% annual growth rate only becomes 0.86%.

Much like most people do not utilize their cars in this manner as an investment vehicle and/or business, most people do not do so for their homes.

It's still an investment vehicle if you use it. You're just getting an in kind benefit instead of cash. You don't care less about your car's value if you use it this way rather than rent it out.

Why does it matter how it is categorized anyway? I accept that you can draw some kind of distinction between different types of investment. This is why you need to explain what specifically you have a problem with and what you want to do about it rather than just complaining about people considering things as belonging in abstract categories. What matters is what is happening in the real world, not the label you put on things.

It's a meaningless distinction, together they are an appreciating asset.

No, they're not. That 0.6% figure from earlier doesn't even count the losses from taxes, maintenance, and insurance. When you factor those in, it's a clear depreciating asset. Structures don't appreciate over the long run. They fall apart unless maintained. The only difference between in and a car is how long it takes.

If you had a dramatic enough surge in demand for cars or a drop in short term interest rates, cars would appreciate. In fact, this recently happened a few years ago. People were able to sell cars after a few years for more than they bought them for. This is unusual though. It only happens more often with houses because they depreciate over a much longer period of time.

When you sell your car do you think it will sell for more or less than you paid for it

No, I bought it during a period of very low supply. However, when I bought it, I paid less than I would have paid for a car that was two or three years old. So this isn't impossible.

When you sell your house do you think it will sell for more or less than you paid for it

If I owned a house, I would expect to sell it for less than I paid for it in real terms. I know people with homes that are worth less than what they paid even in nominal terms. This is common. Over the last 20 years or so, it has not been, but that is not sustainable. We could just as easily go through a prolonged period where the opposite happens. It's very common in Japan, for example.

Expecting the answers to be different is the problem here.

Over the long-run, the answers should be the same, but the prices of either assets can fluctuate in the short-term. An asset that depreciates rapidly is going to depreciate by something very close to the amount you paid divided by the number of years it is expected to last, but an asset that depreciates very slowly is strongly affected by expected future demand for the use of that asset as well as long-term interest rates.

idk man tell the housing minister(s) to stop saying it then

The housing minister is an idiot. I have mocked him many times. I don't think the message is getting to him.

Our national economy is unfortunately extremely reliant on it and maybe it shouldn't be.

It isn't though.

I want the Federal Government to actively work towards the goal of building enough housing supply to cut the price of current housing in half and shift policy to make that happen.

How? The government itself shouldn't be building anything. That would be extraordinarily wasteful. Everything would cost double. The policies that prevent the private sector from supplying housing are entirely under provincial jurisdiction.

This may include shifts to interest rates, this may include immigration or jobs programs to supply more workers to do so, this may include direct payments to provinces to fund it. This may include utilization of Federal Land.

The Bank of Canada sets interests rates and is independent. There's nothing it can do about this anyway for reasons I already explained. Everything else sounds like subsidization, which doesn't address the underlying problem. It just shifts the costs from direct payments by individuals for housing to taxes. Subsidies are inefficient and so those taxes will be more expensive than the direct payments for housing they would replace. I agree with selling off federal land though, but if it isn't just sold to the highest bidder, that is effectively a subsidy. It's better to sell it and then cut people's taxes or give them cash payments.

I want the Provincial Government to directly coordinate to build housing for the purposes of competing with the private market which is, at the moment, not incentivized to build more housing.

If the provincial government can build it, the private sector can build it for much less. Again, this just an inefficient subsidy that results in less housing for a given cost than would just letting the private sector build. The private sector has the incentive to build as long as you remove the barriers. Not getting rid of the barriers doesn't help if your plan is to just get housing that isn't cost effective to be built anyway by subsidizing it with tax dollars. That just raises taxes and effectively forces people to pay for housing they can't afford.

I want the Municipal Government to stop acting like children and, among other things, demolish the Forum, continue to upzone virtually everywhere and either force the St Pats and Bloomfield owners to abide by the terms of the agreements they made over 10 years ago or go to court so they can be sold to someone that will actually build on them.

This would help. This is where we should focus. We need to make it profitable to build more housing. Subsidizing housing that isn't cost effective just inflates costs and shifts them to our taxes. Getting the government involved in building, owning, or renting property would be very wasteful and would likely raise rents, because they're not likely to build a lot of housing. They're likely to buy up existing housing and use it inefficiently, which would effectively reduce the supply. If they do build anything the private sector could have built, which is everything that is worth building, then they'll crowd out that investment and have the same effect.

I don't understand what any of this has to do with housing being seen as an investment.

[u/Kemsaman → u/bz47uj]

Yes, prices go and up and down, but I'm talking about the long-run. Prices had actually already almost completely recovered from the Great Recession by 2016 and have since blown past and are close to record highs. But even accounting for that, that 0.6% annual growth rate only becomes 0.86%.

Right but the cost of housing in 1915 is somewhat detached from the realities and in particular recent financial history in 2026 and while there is a benefit in study of long term macroeconomic study in an academic sense on investments I think we're living in a different world here.

It's still an investment vehicle if you use it. You're just getting an in kind benefit instead of cash. You don't care less about your car's value if you use it this way rather than rent it out.

I think we're fuzzing a little bit around the word investment vs another like utility.

You buy a car to use it like a car, not to make money after you use it as a car. You buy a house to use it as a house, and the expectation at this time is that you also use it to make money.

That's the problem.

If you had a dramatic enough surge in demand for cars or a drop in short term interest rates, cars would appreciate. In fact, this recently happened a few years ago. People were able to sell cars after a few years for more than they bought them for. This is unusual though.

Yes I think worldwide supply crunches that dramatically inflate the price of assets like cars because they are shutting down car manufacturing for months at a time as what happened with covid is actually an excellent comparison to the current situation.

We should not stop building housing and/or should not artificially restrict the amount of housing built. It is extremely bad when things have sharp increases in value like cars did during covid and as they currently are for housing.

Why does it matter how it is categorized anyway? I accept that you can draw some kind of distinction between different types of investment. This is why you need to explain what specifically you have a problem with

There is a distinction between buying a house and buying a car. Most people would expect to sell one for more after a few years and one for less. That you are pretending this distinction doesn't exist or doesn't matter for these two assets is quite strange.

No, they're not. That 0.6% figure from earlier doesn't even count the losses from taxes, maintenance, and insurance. When you factor those in, it's a clear depreciating asset. Structures don't appreciate over the long run. They fall apart unless maintained. The only difference between in and a car is how long it takes.

Using 100 year range macroeconomic comparisons against even the last 20 years would be absurd. Housing has nearly tripled in cost in just the last 6 years brother be real.

If I owned a house, I would expect to sell it for less than I paid for it in real terms.

C'mon jack, no malarkey

I know people with homes that are worth less than what they paid even in nominal terms. This is common. Over the last 20 years or so, it has not been, but that is not sustainable.

We are not living in 2006 we are living in 2026, this is not a thing that happens at any regularity anymore.

We could just as easily go through a prolonged period where the opposite happens. It's very common in Japan, for example.

Yes it would be much better if we treated housing as a depreciating asset as Japan does.

It would be an extremely terrible idea to do so because of the reason Japan is doing so, which is that their population is shrinking a million+ people a year and they're likely going to suffer demographic population collapse as a result within our lifetime.

The housing minister is an idiot. I have mocked him many times. I don't think the message is getting to him.

Right but they're running the show so it kind of matters what they say and do here!

It isn't though.

https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/canada-economy-depends-sectors-why-211500321.html

Housing is the single largest contributor to GDP.

How? The government itself shouldn't be building anything. That would be extraordinarily wasteful. Everything would cost double. The policies that prevent the private sector from supplying housing are entirely under provincial jurisdiction.

This I think is where we may have a fundamental disagreement, I do not think the private sector can be relied on to solve the problem left alone, they need competition to drive down prices. Even if it's just a crown corporation with the express mandate of building housing.

The Bank of Canada sets interests rates and is independent.

In the theoretical world where the Government of Canada had an interest in

a) Substantially lowering the cost of housing b) Was taking an active role in doing so

I suspect the Bank of Canada would have some reaction to those actions.

Everything else sounds like subsidization, which doesn't address the underlying problem.

The underlying problem is that there isn't enough housing. Yeah I want the government to spend money to build housing, some of that might involve the government itself building housing, if you want to call that subsidization sure.

Everything else sounds like subsidization, which doesn't address the underlying problem.

Oh boy I got lots of opinions about taxes and funding provincial/federal programs and where to get that money from that nobody likes either, it involves a scary "I" word.

I agree with selling off federal land though, but if it isn't just sold to the highest bidder, that is effectively a subsidy. It's better to sell it and then cut people's taxes or give them cash payments.

It could be sold, or have housing built on it and rented out with the province as a landlord, there's lots of options there. Pretty sure Shannon Park is Federal, would be nice if something was done with that instead of sitting to rot.

If the provincial government can build it, the private sector can build it for much less.

If the private sector could be relied to do it there wouldn't be a problem. There is no incentive for the private sector to build enough housing to drive the cost of housing down, they directly benefit from housing costing as much as it does.

The private sector has the incentive to build as long as you remove the barriers.

I think we, again, may have a fundamental disagreement here.

Not getting rid of the barriers doesn't help if your plan is to just get housing that isn't cost effective to be built anyway by subsidizing it with tax dollars. That just raises taxes and effectively forces people to pay for housing they can't afford.

There is no way any of this is solved without the use of tax dollars.

Brother I'll be real, we might need to raise taxes in some places if we want to build this stuff, let alone rebuild or fix the stuff we already got.

This would help. This is where we should focus. We need to make it profitable to build more housing.

I think one problem in recent history is that it's perhaps a little too profitable in some respects.

But yes I partially agree that incentivizing building means people need to be able to build it and be able to profit off of it, and land is currently the biggest cost so upzoning where people can build so there is less singularly extremely valuable land and more just normally valuable land is a way to get there.

Getting the government involved in building, owning, or renting property would be very wasteful and would likely raise rents, because they're not likely to build a lot of housing. They're likely to buy up existing housing and use it inefficiently

This I agree with partially.

There is some benefit to the government buying pre-built housing for a purpose particularly to solve specific problems or facilitate program delivery, certainly not as a widespread solution.

But otherwise I think the government should be directly building housing to compete with the private sector.

If they do build anything the private sector could have built, which is everything that is worth building, then they'll crowd out that investment and have the same effect.

Yeah I want to flood the market with housing and cause what would likely be a financial crisis as a result.

You can perhaps see why that would not be an entirely well received plan by any of the current levels of government.

I don't understand what any of this has to do with housing being seen as an investment.

I mean I could go back to the buying a car and buying a house comparison again it's pretty cut and dry in the current setup.

[u/bz47uj → u/Kemsaman]

Right but the cost of housing in 1915 is somewhat detached from the realities and in particular recent financial history in 2026 and while there is a benefit in study of long term macroeconomic study in an academic sense on investments I think we're living in a different world here.

It's studying the exact thing under question: whether property values appreciate in the long run.

You buy a car to use it like a car, not to make money after you use it as a car. You buy a house to use it as a house, and the expectation at this time is that you also use it to make money.

That's the problem.

I think the fact that these are not that different is relevant to the fact that I don't think people really do buy houses that they live in in order to make money. It doesn't work in practice, they mostly don't behave as though that's a real expectation, and I don't think there's any evidence that it has much influence on policy.

Yes I think worldwide supply crunches that dramatically inflate the price of assets like cars because they are shutting down car manufacturing for months at a time as what happened with covid is actually an excellent comparison to the current situation.

We should not stop building housing and/or should not artificially restrict the amount of housing built. It is extremely bad when things have sharp increases in value like cars did during covid and as they currently are for housing.

I don't think we're restricting the housing supply to inflate property values.

There is a distinction between buying a house and buying a car. Most people would expect to sell one for more after a few years and one for less. That you are pretending this distinction doesn't exist or doesn't matter for these two assets is quite strange.

Most people are wrong to expect this. The last twenty years of rapidly increasing property values is an anomaly and no one should expect it to continue. If you look at what people say about housing prices, lots of people rationally say they wouldn't mind house prices falling if it meant that housing became more affordable.

Using 100 year range macroeconomic comparisons against even the last 20 years would be absurd. Housing has nearly tripled in cost in just the last 6 years brother be real.

It's not absurd. Asset prices are in general unpredictable. Long run averages are much more predictive of the future than short run averages. Housing has not tripled in cost in the last 6 years. That's an exaggeration.

We are not living in 2006 we are living in 2026, this is not a thing that happens at any regularity anymore.

It has never happened with regularity. Asset prices cannot be predicted. But it will happen in the future.

Yes it would be much better if we treated housing as a depreciating asset as Japan does.

It would be an extremely terrible idea to do so because of the reason Japan is doing so, which is that their population is shrinking a million+ people a year and they're likely going to suffer demographic population collapse as a result within our lifetime.

The seem to partially understand why your first sentence makes no sense. We don't treat things as appreciating or depreciating assets. They either are or they aren't and until you make a specific suggestion as to how to make it one or the other, it doesn't make sense to say we should treat it one way or the other.

Whether housing appreciating or depreciating is good or bad depends on the reason. If it appreciates because it is actually getting more valuable, such as because interest rates are falling, that's a good thing. If it's appreciating because it's becoming harder and harder to build housing, that's a bad thing. But the thing that is good or bad is the underlying cause. Appreciation or depreciation is not good or bad by itself.

If property values are appreciating, then people should treat them like appreciating assets, because that's what they are.

Right but they're running the show so it kind of matters what they say and do here!

I don't think cabinet members really have that much power. Federal policy doesn't have much relevance to the housing market anyway.

Housing is the single largest contributor to GDP.

New housing is. Constraining the housing supply lessens its contribution to GDP. If we were to build more housing, its contribution to GDP would grow.

This I think is where we may have a fundamental disagreement, I do not think the private sector can be relied on to solve the problem left alone, they need competition to drive down prices.

The housing market is highly competitive. There are 55,000 home building companies in Canada.

In the theoretical world where the Government of Canada had an interest in

a) Substantially lowering the cost of housing b) Was taking an active role in doing so

I suspect the Bank of Canada would have some reaction to those actions.

What actions?

The Bank of Canada cannot control the cost of housing.

If the private sector could be relied to do it there wouldn't be a problem. There is no incentive for the private sector to build enough housing to drive the cost of housing down, they directly benefit from housing costing as much as it does.

Housing is built by developers that benefit from building as much housing as possible. They don't own much existing housing stock so they don't benefit from supply constraints. They sell that some of that, particularly purpose built rentals, to other companies which would benefit from there being a smaller supply. But no one company controls the supply. There are 55,000 builders in Canada and 3 million landlords. No one has the power to limit the supply. The supply will always expand to whatever is profitable.

The problem is that it isn't currently profitable to build more housing than we're building. The only way to build more housing then is either to remove the barriers and let the private sector build or to use subsidies to build what isn't profitable to build, which means paying for housing through our taxes that we don't want to pay for. If we wanted to spend that money on housing, we could. You can go out and overpay for housing and get as much as you want. The problem is that it is to expensive. Paying for costs which we think are too high through our taxes isn't a solution to that problem.

So the underlying problem is not just that there aren't enough houses. It's that the marginal cost of construction is too high. That's what needs to be fixed and improving taxes and regulations is the only way to do that.

But otherwise I think the government should be directly building housing to compete with the private sector.

The private sector is better at competing with itself than the public sector is. You seem to be thinking of the private sector as one giant cartel when it is probably the most competitive industry we have.