They even posed for the stereotypical “older homeowners with arms crossed” photo, either because they are unaware of the trope they’re perpetuating or because they simply don‘t care. The latest ludicrous outburst occurred in Stouffville, Ont., where a proposed townhouse development - townhouses! - along the community’s Main Street was met with the usual complaints from existing residents. Witness the outbursts of NIMBYism that inevitably greet any attempt to add density in established neighbourhoods, regardless of its merits or the impact it might have on affordability.

We’re even worse when it comes to the supply side of the picture. And make no mistake: if the federal NDP was ever to form government, they’d probably do it, too.īut all of these demand-side supports are simply adding fuel to a raging fire, one that’s already singed the lives of millions of young and new Canadians. The Trudeau Liberals have done it through new tax incentives for homebuyers and shared equity programs backstopped by the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation, including a new tax-free savings account for first-time buyers. The Harper Conservatives did this when they laid the groundwork in their 2006 budget for the spread of zero-down, 40-year mortgages - the same volatile financial cocktail that nearly blew up the U.S. But the beating heart of any successful housing strategy in this country involves going after the biggest enemy in all this: our own behaviour.Īs cartoonist Walt Kelly famously observed in 1970, “We have met the enemy and he is us.” So it is for housing in Canada, where politicians on both sides of the House of Commons talk a good game about affordability and opportunity and then fall over themselves to prop up the existing system - and pour rocket fuel into its engines as required. Another key part is more market-oriented housing, which the NDP and people like Blaikie sound far less unenthusiastic about. As Blaikie noted, if you multiply the 15,000 to 20,000 units the federal government used to build every year by the 25 years that have passed since the Chrétien government cut funding for them, that adds up to … well, approximately 500,000 units.īuilding more affordable housing is a key part of any strategy to bring some sort of sanity back to our housing markets, and it’s one a Poilievre government would almost certainly avoid. But the decision by the Chrétien Liberals to get out of the business of government housing, and the refusal of the Harper Conservatives to get back into it, has resulted in an approximately 500,000-unit shortfall of affordable housing. Interest rates that only seemed to keep going down and immigration levels that boosted demand for housing were also key drivers. The failure of government to build affordable housing isn’t the only reason why house prices in this country have shot through the roof over the last two decades. It’s a problem, and it’s a growing problem. So don’t tell me that this is a product just of the last little while. “They doubled every few years under the last Harper Conservative government. “Housing prices in Canada have been doubling for a long time,” Blaikie said. Instead, he argued, much of the pain felt by renters, immigrants and young Canadians is the result of the failure - one shared by both Conservative and Liberal governments - to build affordable government housing the way we did in the 1970s and 1980s. In a House of Commons speech that went viral, he lashed out at Conservative Party of Canada Leader Pierre Poilievre’s housing message, one that predictably lays all the blame for Canada’s dangerously overheated market at the feet of the Trudeau Liberals.

Daniel Blaikie, NDP MP for Elmwood-Transcona and son of former NDP stalwart Bill Blaikie, has become something of an online celebrity in recent weeks.

Canada housing bubble 2021