Housing news & insights

We’ll never be able to fix today’s affordability, housing, medical care, and climate crises without understanding and resolving the intergenerational tensions at their core. Here are five impacts a federal Generational Fairness Task Force will have on key decisions made at Cabinet and Treasury tables.

The Prime Minister recently signalled a clarity of purpose for change in our housing system that has not existed in my lifetime. Housing should be for homes first, and investments second.

The CPC's plan for housing falls victim to ‘silver bullet’ thinking on housing, suggesting that building more homes will solve all of our problems. It’s a nice picture, and it sounds simple enough. The villains are clear — the fault lies with municipal ‘gatekeepers’ who unfairly stand in the way of development, or bureaucrats who line their own pockets while failing to do their jobs well. The rest of us are off the hook. Sadly, the answer just isn’t this easy. 

While strong majority support should incline politicians to be honest about the need for home prices to stop rising, most dodge the topic. This is a big problem, because we can’t fix the housing crisis until we convince politicians it is politically safe for them to stand by this hard truth.

It would be nice if the solution to Canada’s housing crisis were as straightforward as ramping up supply. But it’s not. Happily, most Canadians seem to have a good grasp of what's needed to restore affordability.

The Prime Minister boldly acknowledging that house prices must stall strengthens all other housing policy commitments. Ambitious targets for building more homes do little good if we ignore the prices for which these homes will sell. Without deep subsidies funded by tax dollars, new market units will price in the rising land values that have already soared well beyond what most can afford to rent or buy with local earnings.

Talk of “youth issues” is distracting, drawing attention from the root causes of the problems, which have less to do with younger generations than their treatment by older ones as a result of past policy decisions. To begin to fix this, Ottawa should launch a general fairness council to investigate why Canada no longer works fairly for all generations.

After a short pause triggered by interest rate hikes, home prices have returned to their relentless, decades-long upward trend, punishing the finances of young people, newcomers and most non-owners. The policy positions of the two main parties in Canada share responsibility for home prices having left behind local earnings. To rejuvenate the ability for young people to pay for housing, version 2.0 of the National Housing Strategy must focus more on the regular market, starting with a clear goal that has wide public support: Home prices should stall.

Gen Squeeze founder Dr. Paul Kershaw recently joined TVO's The Agenda with Steve Paikin for a discussion about how life milestone timelines are changing and even disappearing. If the standard life-stage achievements for graduation, career, marriage, children, homeowning, and retirement created predictability and comfort, what happens when people don't meet those marks?

Affordability is a top concern for Alberta voters. So it is surprising that the United Conservative Party and the NDP have blind spots on this issue, especially when it comes to younger Albertans.