ing up all the time. Lots at this price

mean $35,000 to $50,000 homes that
no one but the rich can afford.

On top of this, experience has
proven once and for all that private-
ly-controlled capital simply refuses
to do the job. In 1966, interest rates
for mortgage money were the high-

est in history, yet private capital still

found it could make more returns out
of other sectors of the economy.
Housing construction went down by
20 percent even as the need soared
upward. «+

Yet the results of these rising in- ©

terest rates have been disastrous. If
one bought a new $25,000 house a
year ago with an $8,000 down pay-
ment at 7 percent interest, it took
$119 a month to carry the mortgage.
Now the same house, with the same
down payment, would cost $136 to

carry at 8 percent—and interest rates’

are running as high as 9 percent. To
make matters worse, the price of new
houses has jumped 25 percent in the
past. year.

If we include payments of princi-
pal, property taxes, heating, electri-
city and other needed costs of main-
tenance and repair the cost per
month would be over $200. How
many Canadians can carry such a
load and meet the costs of food, cloth-
ing and education? The answer. is

“

obvious. Only those in the high in-
come brackets. Even middle incem>
people are able to meet the cost of a
home only at the expense of other
essentials. For those earning below
$5,000 the situation is impossible.
The problem is essentially the same
for those who rent a home or an

apartment.

Housing is being used as an instru-
ment of government fiscal policy.
Time and again Finance Minister
Sharp, in the name of curbing what
he calls “inflation,” has clamped
down on money for housing con-
struction. This makes as much sense
as turning off our supplies of power
and water to fight “inflation.” Such

measures do nothing to stop the pro-

fiteering and price gouging which
are the real cause of high prices, but
they do a great deal to make the
housing crisis worse.

A third problem is taxation—not
only the levying of federal and prov-
incial taxes on construction materials,

which is bad enough, but the stub-

‘born refusal of federal and provincial

governments to lift from the home-

owner the huge costs of education,

health and welfare, which in a mod-
ern society must be paid for out of
the profits of industry and commerce
and not saddled on home owners.

To make matters worse, profit

hungry apartment owners have seiz-.
ed on the excuse of rising local taxes
to carry through much larger hikes
in rents, out of all proportion to the
taxes themselves. To head off increas-
ing school costs, local civic officials
connive with apartment builders to

*

The housing crisis shows up dra-
matically the evil nature of capital-
ism which dominates the life of our

_ country.

Housing and food are under the
control of money profiteers. To
them these two essentials of life are
not social needs but only the means
of their own enrichment.

Of course, people can through
their united efforts make important
advances now in meeting their needs
for decent homes, cheaper food and
clothing. But neither housing short-
ages, nor soaring food prices will be
fully and finally overcome until we

keep families with children out of

apartments, thereby compounding
one of the ugliest sides of the hous-
ing crisis—the driving of parents
from pillar to post in -a desperate
search for a home in which to raise
their children.

*

achieve that new, just and humane
system which is socialism.

Socialism would eliminate the land
speculators, the greedy landlords, the
despotic control of big business over
the construction material industry,
the lending sharks and all those who
grow fat at the expense of the peo-
ple’s needs for housing. Socialism
would take over these anti-social eco-
nomic empires and turn them into
public institutions to serve the inter-
ests of the people. It would mobilize
all the vast resources of Canada, and
the most up-to-date methods of con-
struction to build all the good homes
our people need.

The Communist program

The Communist Pary does not say
that nothing can be done about this
Se ee crisis until the Canadian peo-

e decide that they want socialism.
Brass we are saying is that to solve
this crisis, the thinking and the meth-
ods of capitalism must be rejected in
this vitally important sector of our
economy. The solution must be found
in the action of Canadian society as
a whole. Our present governments
‘must be made to act as the instru-
ments of our society, or they must be
changed to governments that will so
act.

It is in this spirit that we put for-
ward our program to meet the hous-
ing crisis. It is a drastic and far-
reaching program. But nothing less
will do.

This program demands the co-
operation of federal, provincial and
municipal governments — with a
powerful initiative from the federal
government in the provision of funds.
We refuse to be bogged down or be
bewildered by buck-passing argu-
ments about constitutional jurisdic-
tion.

iAG~*

*
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