Frequent readers of this site will no doubt be familiar with my view on the growing amount of useless meddling and over-regulation the government is burdening home builders with. The latest is a mandatory licensing program.
I am sure this licensing nonsense appeals to socialist central planning types that believe the bureaucracy is actually useful in improving business practices. This program will no doubt be beneficial to government employees as they expand their employment base and collect a lot of money to fund their own benefits and retirement programs. Unfortunately the money they demand will be taken from the productive element of society, those who invest in land and build homes.
All this is done under the guise of improving building, or protecting buyers. Are there any buyers out there dumb enough to believe that their prospective new house will be built better because the builder has a government badge of honour? Isn't it more likely their new house would be built cheaper so that the builder can find more cash to hand over (annually, forever), to the government?
Let me guess how year one of the program will unfold. Any idiot with a hammer (and $600, inflation adjusted annually no doubt), will get a license. There you have it. Your new home is improved because the government collected $600 it wasn't entitled to, which it then pisses away on a marketing campaign or some new logo and brochure package (plus a little bureaucrat pocket stuffing).
If the government was serious about protecting home buyers, it would find out who the worst builders are right now and put them in jail, or do whatever it can to keep them from building. Everyone else would pass the hurdle of not being in jail, thus wouldn't need a licence. No program fee, no annual cost the builder. The buyer is totally protected because all the shoddy builders are in jail, so licensing the rest is no longer necessary.
The government is expert at solving problems that don't exist, because it is so useless at solving problems that do exist. If you challenge the government to do something meaningful to get rid of problem builders, they would not take any steps because of privacy concerns, confidentially issues, etc. Any builder that can't find a work around to getting a government licence is likely incapable of functioning anyway. Do you really believe a criminal home builder organization wont be able to fool the bureaucrat who is issuing licences to anyone with $600?
What I'd like to do is impose a warranty and licensing program on useless bureaucrats. This would be so easy to do. I'd wander over to the nearest level of government, and find the first person who has no measurable contribution or job of value to the tax payer, and regulate and fee them out of existence. That would be a real improvement to the Alberta economy.
Let me suggest another way to avoid this licensing program. Home buyers actually develop some intelligence and decide what builders are building shoddy homes rather than relying on the government to tell them what is acceptable. Those poorly built homes wont sell, the builder stops building. Problem solved.
I have one other question for the government. If in 5, 10, or 20 years, I havent been regulated out of existence, can I have my annual fee money back? By then it is going to be adding up to a really large amount of cash. Thanks.
This is a really terrible idea. I guess if you build 600 homes per year it will only add 1$ to each home cost. I think the larger builders like this program because it is one more barrier to entry to the market. I think the horrible builder like this program because they can fool the government into giving them a license (or maybe use their mom's name), and the buyer will then be fooled into believing the house they are buying is well built 'because the government said so'.