the issue of high demand hiking prices has always been at the bottom of the market and that's not where new units are being built. the article is primarily talking about the millions of empty condos in toronto, which are sitting empty because they're overpriced shoeboxes. this is a consequence of market failure - canada's inability to build housing that meets actual demand because it's not profitable. but it has no relevance to the decrease in rent.
the only longterm solution to this market failure is going to be for the government to step in and build more government owned and run affordable subsidized rental housing. that, and that alone, will take the pressure off the bottom of the market. there is no market solution to market failure. tax cuts are certainly no solution to market failure.
in the short term, while we continue to live through a market failure, the decrease in rent that normal people are experiencing is due almost entirely, virtually 100%, to the cut in international students, which opened up existing, affordable housing that normal people can afford and created a competitive rental market with a healthy vacancy rate, rather than a <1% vacancy rate across the country, with normal people biting and clawing just to find somewhere to sleep.
when you do the statistics, you'll find that these condos don't affect the vacancy rate because they're not considered to be affordable, despite being comparable to university dorm rooms, rather than apartments, let alone for-purchase condos. that's why they're empty. but that fact is irrelevant, because they're not a part of the housing stock.
canada has been creating incentives for years to build millions of closets for investors to buy that have no effect on rental statistics but have contributed to the ongoing market failure to build useful housing that meets demand and this airhead reporter fell for it in an attempt to argue against basic economics, because what she really cares about is colonizing canada through increased immigration levels and wants to trick you into thinking that immigration levels therefore weren't responsible for high rents. but she's full of shit.