At the beginning of this month, between Sep 2 and Sep 4, the research company Nanos conducted a random survey asking Canadians about their views on housing. The survey reached 1,044 adults and you may find the results interesting:

• Nationally, three in five Canadians “support” or “somewhat support” decreasing the number of immigrants coming into Canada until housing becomes more affordable. (The feds plan to welcome 500,000 immigrants per year by 2025.)
• The provinces that are the most in support of reduced immigration are the Prairies (65%), and the province with the lowest support is BC (52%).
• 82% of Canadians are “opposed” or “somewhat opposed” to building new housing on land currently set aside as green space. Of this group, 64% responded with “opposed”.
• 55% of Canadians “support” or “somewhat support” giving tax incentives to private developers to build new rental housing. The highest support for this is in BC (61%), Quebec (60%), and among Canadians 55 or older (55%).
• However, this support flips when Canadians are asked about giving tax incentives to private developers to build for-sale housing. 58% of Canadians are “opposed” or “somewhat opposed” to doing this.

These last two points took me a second to decipher, because the wording in the article is “new rental units” and “new homes.” Naturally, I initially read these two things as being the same thing. New rentals are new homes. So what are they trying to say here?

My assumption (in the above) is that it’s a housing bias coming through and that a “new home” equals a for-sale low-rise house. Hmm. We really need to be more mindful of the semantics in our housing vocabulary.