The fatal flaw.

According to a Nov. 13, 2023, CBC News article, "Road to building more multiplex homes in B.C. could be bumpy, experts say, as similar plan in U.S. halted," there are "multiple reasons why developers will be slow to get behind building multiplex homes. Money is super expensive. There's no proven business model on how quickly these things are going to get permitted and approved," and "historically, building multiplex dwellings hasn't proven to be profitable for developers."

The flaw in BC's plan to build multiplex housing on single-dwelling lots is that it is twisting itself into a pretzel to preserve private sector developers' and the finance sector's profits, both of which are squeezed out of renters' and condo buyers' pockets. These pockets – for those who have been living under a rock for the last ten years – are not bottomless.

There is one and only one way to build affordable housing, and that is to build affordable housing.

Shoehorning developers', banks', and other rentiers' profits into a supposedly affordable housing strategy is doomed because it is self-contradictory. Housing is unaffordable because everyone who sucks profits out of Canada's real estate sector sucks and sucks until the productive economy is dry; and it is finally dry.

Ottawa can print however much money is required to hire as many project managers, builders, and tradespeople are necessary to construct thousands of units of social housing. "Social housing" – the phrase – means publicly financed at no or low interest, managed not-for-profit housing that anyone at any level of income can rent. Social housing rents are determined only by what it costs to build it, and the money loaned to get it built is paid back, just like private financing is paid back, in the form of monthly rents.

Public money printed for this purpose is no more inflationary than fiat money created by a bank that, to implement an agreed loan, creates out of the blue a liability (cash that must be paid back) on the debtor's balance sheet and an asset on its own.

This is not rocket science.

Social housing was built for many decades in the U.K. (it was called "council housing" in the U.K.) and housed millions of households affordably until it was privatized under Margaret Thatcher's neoliberal regime. The problem with housing in Canada and every other Western country with a few exceptions that are rapidly becoming not exceptions, is that the housing sector, because it is tailor-made to be ruthlessly exploited by financial predators, has been captured by finance capital.

All that is required for the public to take the housing sector back is to take it back.