The fine folks at Pressreader have put out a video featuring Jordan Bateman talking about housing affordability - and how B.C. mayors like Gregor Robertson should look at their own tax and regulation schemes to make things cheaper. 

The video has already been watched 34,000 times! See it here:

It builds on this CTF op/ed, including these points:

These days, new housing is taxed at almost cigarette-like levels. There is federal GST. There’s the provincial Property Transfer Tax, which is charged every time a property changes hands and can often be embedded several times into the price.

Building a new home or buying one built in the past decade? Either directly or indirectly, you’re paying federal income tax on every sub-trade’s work, the employer’s share of employment insurance, the employer’s share of Canada Pension Plan, and federal duties and tariffs on building materials. You’re also paying provincial WorkSafeBC levies, carbon and fuel taxes to move materials to the build site, provincial income tax, and sales tax on everything from the studs to the carpet to the doorbell.

But wait, there’s more: a leaky condo levy if you’re buying a condo, and added costs from BC’s new energy efficiency regulations.

Then there is City Hall with their municipal, regional, school and TransLink property taxes, plus utility charges, development permit fees, subdivision fees, building permit fees, business license fees, rezoning fees, landscaping review fees, offsite servicing charges, storm water management charges, school site acquisition charges, local development cost charges, regional sewer and drainage development cost charges, community amenity contributions, and affordable housing fund contributions.

Plus there are the added costs from all the regulations. The more cumbersome a process, the more time it takes. And when you’re paying people by the hour to build your home, time equals money. When a city is micromanaging a house to the level ofbanning doorknobs and ordering showers be installed on floors that don’t have bedrooms, it means more expense for builders and, ultimately, buyers.