Canadian here who is in favour of truly punitive vacancy taxes. Our housing crisis has been ignored for decades and now drastic action is required on a number o

Canadian here who is in favour of truly punitive vacancy taxes. Our housing crisis has been ignored for decades and now drastic action is required on a number of fronts, including combating vacancy (I'd also like to see zoning laws and development objections in urban areas die in a fire). The issue is now so acute I'd be in favour of vacancy taxing any address in major metros that isn't someone's filing address with CRA. At the very least the owner should need to demonstrate there is a long term, legal tenant at any address CRA didn't get a filing from. Vancouver tried, but I don't think they aimed high enough; many speculators just view the tax as the cost of doing business and subtracted it from their gains. At least it's up to 3% now; the 1% initial was way too small. Added bonus if we measure vacancy right it will kill the short term air bnb market at the same time. I have no issue with people renting their home out a few weeks a year while they are on vacation for some extra cash, but it's heinous there are apartments owned solely for short term rental when tons of people can't afford homes.