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Opinion: We should ease back on housing support

As governments have poured money and tax benefits into housing, other investment sectors have languished. Policy needs to rejig the balance

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Canada’s housing market correction offers a rare opportunity for a much-needed policy reset. For decades, public policy has centred around supporting homeownership, relying mainly on demand-side measures that helped fuel today’s overly expensive market, the steady rise of home prices since the early 2000s having far outpaced incomes. Meanwhile, underinvestment in other productive assets, such as machinery, equipment and intellectual property, has resulted in a lopsided economy and weakened Canada’s productivity performance.

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