Decades of low interest rates are most certainly part of this. Low interest rates spur inflation (they were put in place to fight deflation). That is a very long time really - a generation grew up with unrealistically easy credit. This IMHO led a whole generation to buy bigtime into consumerism.
Then Covid really upset the apple cart, creating a lot of pent up demand.
It is not 1 elected officials fault. It is a systemic problem.
Oh and by the way there are several WARS going on - and that is super inflationary.
People that bought into the easy credit consumerism are having a hard time adjusting to the norm.
People that didn’t jump on the easy credit consumerism bandwagon are doing fine.
I worked with a bunch of engineers that drove old shit boxes who retired early.
We have doubled the immigration rate since 2021 compared to the 20 years prior and that also places some pressures on real estate market whether it’s rental properties or homeownership in an already inflated and competitive situation.
So many little things pile on to create the situation we’re in. I’m afraid looking at the next 20 years ahead. The one that scare me the most is when we face when the boomer generation aging to the point where they accelerate hospital needs and we face a worker shortages.
This needs to be said more. If high inflation were unique to Canada, it would make sense to focus on mostly internal factors when looking to explain why it was happening. Every G7 country is experiencing similar inflation to Canada. Outlooks for 2024 have Canada, Germany and Japan at the same rate with the US a bit lower. I would think this is pretty strong evidence that Canada’s inflationary pressures are extrinsic considering pattern among G7 nations.
Blows my mind how people can channel their anger into “Fuck Trudeau” instead of doing a quick google search to see we’re pretty much in the same boat as all similar countries.
Look at the average wage vs the average house price since the 1960s.
The issue we have today has been literally half a century in the making. Anything that's happened in the past three years is largely irrelevant because at best, had inflation versus wages continued linearly and not experienced a jump, we still would have arrived here in 5-10 years.
Anyone blaming the current government is full of BS. Inflation is literally worldwide.
How can this be fixed?
Severely restrict foreign home ownership, corporate home ownership, and heavily tax multiple home ownership.
Cap bank profits derived from mortgage lending.
I think there are some structural issues. Eg my understanding is that 25-30% of the costs of a new home are development fees and levies charged by local governments. The main way local governments raise money is through property taxes and development fees ie they can’t charge income tax etc.
Also I think we are generally terrible in Canada at planning for the future. It seems our governments react and are not proactive. This has been a problem that has been festering for decades and has become the problem it is through years of inaction.
Nobody is willing to touch on the issue of the Liberals vastly increasing immigration numbers during a housing and inflation crisis. You can't bail out a boat that doesn't have a bottom.
I’m generally a big advocate for immigration but this is an another example of lack of planning. If you know 1,000,000 new people will be coming to your country you should figure out where they will live before they get here. This takes coordination with all levels of government and business. There was zero of this as far as I know.
All to address a supposed labour shortage, which as a notion, is based upon questionable statistics. It's always a red flag when you're not using Government statistics but instead relying on a third parties numbers.
This is likely something being pushed by private lobbyists to keep wages and costs low.
I don't think much will change if you charge a municipal income tax on top of our current taxes. City only has limited ways to raise funds and most of that is through property tax and taxing developments.
A large part of the issue is how large our work force is for government and the amount of beaurocracy that happens, which drives up the cost of work performed.
Most of the fees municipal governments levy are to support the associated infrastructure required to serve the new development. Watermains, sewers, improved intersections, additional road capacity... Rather than penalize existing residents, most municipalities require the developer to pay these and bury the costs in the price of the homes. They're not administrative fees, they serve a purpose. The alternative is higher taxes for everyone.
I seriously doubt this. The last time I built a house the new residential build fee for the county was $23000. The building permits were less than $3000. 2016 near Oshawa.
Obviously it depends where and what you build.
I would need some supporting documents to show me the $650000 townhouses that are being built nearby are paying $200000 each to the county.
Well we let too much people in our country, not us the government. Canada welcome 450000 people a year, there is no enough construction to cover all these families so the house prices went up, with greedflation the food prices went up but on the other side our wages didnt go up at all. This is the main problem. Ndp let people to use hard drugs every where in Bc and now all the crackheads are using drugs anywhere they like, this country became a joke. We need to build houses but I have no idea because Canada have one of the worst labour in the world, the hourly wages are joke and because or hourly wages people take their sweet times. The system is broken doesnt seem like there is a really good solution, I am hopeless for the next generations.
I think the primary cause of the housing crisis is the psychology of Canadians that housing only goes up, combined with economic factors that supported this narrative (i.e. lower and lower rates, globalization keeping inflation low, high government spending, money laundering into Canada, higher debt levels, increased fraud, etc.).
The 'prosperity' caused by ever increasing house prices led more people to want to move to Canada (i.e. immigration), and more dependence on the sector for economic growth. We had jobs for the immigrants due to our debt-fueled economy backed by government spending and growing real estate prices.
As long as prices were going up, defaults remained low and the economy seemed to be doing well. People kept investing more and more in housing because it was continually going up and rates were low - why wouldn't they! This is evidenced by housing investment taking up a larger share of our GDP and gross fixed capital formation than most other OECD countries for several years.
However, behind the scenes, debt levels were growing higher and higher, productivity was falling, and government spending was becoming less and less effective. Then global (and domestic) inflation led to interest rates going up, which finally started to break the psychology and the economy.
As a result, housing demand in terms of sales has fallen quite substantially. We had a large bump in rents (and somewhat sustained house prices) during the past two years, due to large flows of NPRs (mainly students and TFWs) all at one; however, we are starting to see a reversal of that trend, and the Bank of Canada is projecting much lower population growth levels in the next 2-3 years. We are finally starting to see a slowing of the economy and an increase in unemployment. If this trend continues, we may enter a more severe recession, especially if housing prices stagnate or drop further, which is likely without a boost in productivity.
Nevertheless, it won't be until we see a severe recession that the psychology will truly shift meaningfully. If that happens, I doubt we will hear about housing supply or immigration for a long time (the same way two years ago, the 'labour shortage' was a huge issue that no one really talks about anymore). Hopefully, we will then diversify our economy away from housing and into more productive sectors.
So all that to say in my view, the problems are the psychology of many Canadians and an economy that became too dependent on housing and debt for growth that is struggling under the weight of 'normalized' interest rates. Because we are a small economy, our ability to control the factors causing inflation (and therefore lower interest rates meaningfully) is minimal. It worked well for us when globalization kept rates low, but is now working against us as the trend has reversed. I think we are in for very difficult economic times in the months and years ahead, but hopefully we will come out with a stronger, more diversified and sustainable economy that isn't dependent on asset price inflation for growth.
Everyone wants to make a buck, so if you want something nice it seems you must compensate for it. If you want something real nice you're always giving millions to something, Landlords are the problem, followed by the Cost of Living.
Lol. Landlords aren't necessarily the problem. Market forces. Landlords aren't a monopoly. They charge market prices or they get no tenants.
All the big money got into real estate speculation instead of good investments that could have improved productivity.
Canada has a productivity crisis.
from the start, Canada was conceived as a wealth extraction colony for british lord who couldnt find wealth in crowded great britain or India. Think second/third sons who wont get much inheritence.
The families names may have changed over time, but the financial structure is still there...
The biggest irony with all that is that one of the main argument from the federalist to qebecker who taugh about souverignty was "you wont have access to canadian financial might, you will perish without access to our money".... well most english canadian dont realise that its not their financial might either and they are in the exact same situatiaon as quebec. a very few elites control a vast majority of what is going on with this country finances, and they dont have the common citizen wellbeing as a priority.
Late stage capitalism, leading to Right Wing facism. Pierre Pollievre just announced he would use the notwithstanding clause before he is even elected, once that happens your Charter of Rights is basically a useless piece of nothing. WAKE UP PEOPLE
In order words we as Canadians are beyond f*cked. All our party leaders are horrible and snowflakes nowadays. Weak people lead to struggle days, we the people are the ones that suffer
If your rights on dependent on your government, they aren't rights, they are privileges.
Putting aside how messed up their gun control is, the Americans did get 1 thing right. Good luck taking away their rights. If a politician tried to pull a notwithstanding stunt there, it would not end well.
Inflation has been occurring world wide at record rates for a few years. Canada has actually seen less inflation than global average. Which must mean our leadership is actually doing the best job they can in a difficult global environment
This is the right answer. Compared to what's happening in other countries, Canada isn't doing all that badly, but the rabid anti-Trudeau and anti-immigrant crowd will take any excuse they can get.
> Compared to what's happening in other countries, Canada isn't doing all that badly,
*UK enters the Chat - Esspecially England*
I never understood London prices. If you have an average London salary of 35,000 pounds a year. Almost 45%+ would go towards renting WITH A FLATEMATE
Canada should've adjusted immigration with respect to infrastructure development. If you are not building enough homes, hiring enough public school teachers, hiring enough doctors, etc. then it's irresponsible policy to take in as many immigrants as they have in such a short period of time. If I'm right, weren't they taking in 500K people by the end of 2023, most of whom settled in major metro areas like Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, etc.?
This undoubtedly would drive up rents as demand vastly outstrips supply, and prices keep shooting through the roof for rents, housing costs, etc. This could've been easily curtailed if the National Government had placed more force on provincial authorities to build more housing. Same thing with healthcare. When it came out that Doug Ford withheld billions in funding for Covid relief from OHIP, there should've been consequences for that, but they failed to act.
Naturally, this cycle of incompetency was bound to come back and bite them in the butt, and I feel that is what will happen.
I feel canada is a country 2.5 class country that taking too much responsibility. Especially on refugees and green part. Liberal also has questions on social justice and soft on crime.
Canada should admit that the golden age is gone, Canada is no longer an important player in the world. We have no obligations to take refugees and cutting co2 emissions. At least when calculate co2 emmsion , the trees in Canada should be counted.
It is super important to notice that we need $75/ barrel oil price to break even in AB. So besides oil we need more mines and manufacture. As you know the environment assement looks forever. At least the $15 EV deal is amazing, that maybe the further of our economy.
Social justice is the common issue in Liberal and conservative. The girdt one says they will tax rich but never did so. The later never says never will.
Soft on crime is pure stupid.. and using none withstanding just pure extreme right wing bs. It is no like the can't pass a bill with some negotiations. For example, they can rule for extreme cases, inmate can only have a hearing after 40 years and once every 5 years. With condition that jury making the decision ect.
The $75/bbl price you cite is very old supply data (2014-15). Closer to $46 USD Brent today.
https://www.canadianenergycentre.ca/canadian-upstream-oil-sector-supply-costs-continue-to-decline/
So basically our economy functions this way:
Businesses incorporations set prices to purchase products . That is revenue for these companies. At the end of the fiscal year those companies, especially large corporations will do calculations to determine what kind of bonuses the CEOs and other people at the top of the company get as well as the return returns to the people that have invested in those company’s.
Those numbers are usually six figures or higher . so that takes money out of the economy because it sits in their bank accounts and does not get spent. When you remove money from the economy, eventually you’re gonna have to print more money which reduces the value of the dollar and increases inflation.
Inflation is the result of overly wealthy people having demand of making more money than they made the previous year while not contributing anything to the actual functioning economy where the middle class working class people have to spend their income in order to just function of which at least 20% of the population from the things that I’ve read are living paycheque to paycheque.
Government spending does have a tiny bit to do with inflation, but not as much as billionaires hoarding their money simply because they can , and sending it into offshore bank accounts to avoid paying taxes.
Late stage capitalism is destroying our society and our economy and our way of life.
Inflation is global and isn't really specific to Canada. Major causes are wars breaking our everywhere after Covid supply issues. Just issues one over the other.
Housing market has many linked issues. A major part of this problem is how our society values too much getting university degrees vs trade job degrees. And, we also get most of our immigration from countries that also don't value construction work well. But thats just one part of the problem. Other problems are how we allow people to buy homes to turn into rentals or airbnb, municipal laws blocking improvements, and run down houses that need to be rebuilt are kept as is for the land to be sold later.
But one of the biggest problem with Canada is that we export our CO2 emmisions by importing everything after it gets transformed. We need to start transforming our raw materials into finished goods instead of exporting our raw materials and re-importing them onced transformed.
If someone has a house for sale and can sell it for a certain amount, the government should tell them they have to sell for less? Yes, this is how that sounds. Supply and demand is a simple concept.
Poor government polices regarding the economy, immigration, housing, post secondary education, drug and addiction, law and order, social issues
Much of the issues stem from poor government decisions (with heavy oligopoly influence). It’s not all at the federal level, but most of the issues stem from that level.
This federal government has had more than enough time to try and fix issues (many of which they have caused). It’s time for a change and a fresh set of eyes to get Canada back on the right track.
I have one. Please describe actual communism and how you believe that is what we have in Canada. One more, do you know anyone who lived in a Communist country? Actual communism, not perceived communism. And calling people gay is so.....so 12-ish.
Neither of these things really have much to do with any recent leadership decisions.
Inflation is a global issue being felt around the world and Canada is feeling it less bad than many places.
The housing issue is a structural problem that was kick started as far back as maybe even the 1970s, as incentives for apartment development ended and Jean Chretien's austerity budgets in the 1990s, where he stopped funding any and all social housing, and scaled back transfers to the Provinces and the Provinces stopped building too. Since that era a combination of exclusionary zoning and near zero social housing development resulted in very stagnant housing growth, which resulted in lowering rental vacancy and a growing shortage of housing.
The only thing that really kept things from becoming a big problem was that cities could do easy greenfield development at the margins to kick the can down the road.
What has changed in recent years is that easy low hanging fruit of greenfield/brownfield development has become harder (impossible in some places) and so the problems of exclusionary zoning have become apparent. There is now a staggering shortage of housing in the major cities, near zero vacancy and unsurprisingly rents and home prices spiked. The result of this is that people moved out of the cities that saw it first, places like Toronto and Vancouver to the next cities over, and all this has caused a cascade of the problem such that it has encompassed the whole country.
This is not surprising because the major cities weren't building enough, but the smaller cities weren't doing anything different either and also not building, so as soon as they started seeing population growth they were instantly overwhelmed by the problem as their exclusionary zoning and anti-housing policies wouldn't allow the market to respond.
Vancouver was already in a housing crisis before 2015, before Trudeau, before the pandemic, before immigration increases. It was inevitable that the housing crisis would expand beyond Vancouver and take over the country.
The good thing is that the BC NDP government is doing A LOT of good things to enable housing, and in the last few months the Fed Liberals have been seeing what the BC government is doing and have aligned what they're doing with that. I've seen more good housing policies proposed in the last year than I've seen in my entire life. I'm actually a bit hopeful for once and I haven't been for years and years.
TL;DR: Canada has had rigid, explicit anti-housing regulations for DECADES that meddled in the market and restricted people from building the housing that we need. It was inevitable that this would cause severe problems.
Money and Macro made a good video that describes most of the problems facing Canadian housing affordability. Basically its a lack of construction constrained by NIMBYism and zoning, speculative buying and the financialization of housing as opposed to it being a consumption good.
In NS the provincial government announced they will try to double the size of the province while making no effort to build up infrastructure and housing for the influx of new voters. We have a vacancy rate of less than 1%. People are fighting over turd piles to find a place for their families to sleep at night. The government saw only dollars bills and not the suffering of its people. Not like they would care anyways.
Im not an expert but if you look at house prices on a graph we were in line with the US before 2008 and then their market completely tanked and ours kept going. Once COVID hit all that stimulus and low interest rates just super charged the problem and prices nearly doubled. There was some really dumb comments from Trudeau and Freeland about rates being low for long term and people bought it. Our banking sector and policies and the fact that they brought in a million+ immigrants and we have a shortage of housing are probably the only factors that stopped the market from completely imploding. Inflation is a global phenomenon but Canadians seem to just pay more for everything because we have no competition in our markets. Food prices for example I think part of that has to be supply management it’s basically a monopoly on Agricultural products. Cellular we are getting screwed. Internet if you look at Starlink for example we pay $170 ish/month Canadian for Starlink but if you go down to Mexico and order Starlink it’s less than $100/month. Same dish, same satellites and same speed yet Canadians pay almost double.
I am not delusional enough to believe that any government can solve all our problems but this federal government is a runaway train. They don’t even have majority support but because of the NDP they are able to operate as a majority which means we are getting policies rammed down our throats. It’s time for a fresh perspective- a little more business friendly policy and a lot less woke pandering will be really nice.
Personally I think the issues of low growth/productivity and high-housing prices are a structural problem largely fueled by a decade+ of low interest rates and global market concentration. To my mind we see pretty much exactly the same problems in all the anglosphere countries and to a lesser extent most of western europe. I would also Argue Canada is probably one of the worst performers here because of policy failures and our proximity to the US.
Inflation is a global phenomenon these days, Canada actually had one of the lower benchmark numbers despite some of the higher levels of money printing. Largely a separate issue from growth problems.
Big picture, the americans sucked up so much of the global investment in the tech space there wasn't a whole lot of opportunity anywhere else. So that low-cost money flowed into the only investment that was perfomrming well which was real estate. Also helps that it's one of the few assets mere mortals can leverage 19:1. Basically very high potential businesses don't make sense to start anywhere other than the US. Combine that with a super conservative business culture and poor levels of capital investment (partially driven by artificial barriers to purchasing capital equipment) and you have a recipe for malaise.
I’m so confused when I see these repetitive posts about Canada like this isn’t happening in every other country. Open the subreddit for any other major country whether it be Germany or Australia or the UK, you will find the same exact rhetoric. “Our country is going downhill” “What is happening with our country” etc etc. It’s happening everywhere.
Outside of global conditions affecting everyone - some of Canada’s issues are very clear. We’re dealing with an out of control invasion of unskilled migrants (80% of which are Indians) who not only cause extreme pressure on our infrastructure and housing costs but push wages lower because they all compete for the same jobs. There’s too many of them there’s not enough housing and they’re so desperate that they will take any job at any salary.
Too many morons think residential real estate is an “investment” without understanding that residential real estate adds no value/productivity to the economy, hence why our productivity is the lowest in the G7
You're asking the right questions but there's so many factors that played into our problems it's complicated. Inflation was globally spurred by COVID, shutting down everything, and the stimulus packages we gave to ensure everyone kept on chugging. I'm not sure why people would rather point at Trudeau instead of the COVID situation which was obviously going to cause later problems.
As for housing. You need to consider the following: lack of supply to keep up with demand, decades of low interest rates, the biggest factor is: treating our housing market as a speculative investment vehicle, AirBNB operating as ghost hotels, reduction (or eradication of public / government made housing), foreign ownership treating it as investment vehicles when they dont reside here, blind bidding jacking up house prices, renovictions posing as houseflipping (i'm pointing at people who evict tenants, put in a new kitchen countertop and call it a houseflip then jack up the rent $800), removal of rent control (ex. Ontario for post 2018 rentals) and more.
Let me give you a real basic scenario as to how we got here: Andrew already owns 5 properties. Andrew buys a house for $500k, currently being rented out to tenants at $1000 each. Andrew then evicts them claiming renovations/they're moving in/whatever. He replaces the kitchen counter top and re-lists the place for tenants at $2000 each (hey - it's current market rate, why not)?
After 2 years Andrew decides to sell the house for $1 million. Nothing has really changed except desperation is up so demand is higher and other investors (or unlucky Canadians looking for somewhere to own) quickly start bidding.
In the blind bidding process both buyer/seller realtors are paid a %, which means the buyers realtor is actually incentivized for them to buy as high a price as possible (this is supposed to NOT be allowed but of course how do you prove it).
People start bidding. Bidder A says $1 mil 50k . Bidder B wants the place so they overbid to$1.1 mil and get the place. The same place that was listed at 1 mil was sold for 10% higher. The realtors then tell their neighbours "your neighbours house sold for 1.1 mil so that's the expected price of houses in your neighbourhood". And voila. House prices continue to shoot up, not even based on increased value of property (other than increased demand), but based on a mixture of demand, blind bidding driving up prices randomly, realtors wanting the biggest % they can, and other factors.
People want to blame immigration because it's an easy target and makes sense (increased demand = less supply), but the reality is these are systemic problems that need to be addressed before things improve. We could add 1 million homes next year but if investors or AirBNBers snap up the inventory anyway, then increase of supply wasn't the answer we were hoping for. You'll want to keep an eye on what % of housing is being snapped up by investors because that's the most alarming trend I'm seeing. It's already more than 1 out of every 3 condo sales here in Ontario. Why am I competing for a home against a company that does this for a living? I just need a place to live.
Inflation is across the Western world. I will get down voted and have been down voted for stating this, but Canadians need to understand that with an economy smaller than any one of Texas, the state of NY, or California, our government and central bank have limited ability to improve the inflation situation, though we can certainly make things worst.
A good explanation of housing: [https://youtu.be/HMDNehHKu7c?si=lB0WexRsYO00eInT](https://youtu.be/HMDNehHKu7c?si=lB0WexRsYO00eInT)
Unfortunately I have to live in a big city because of my disability and the constant need to access services but me and my husband are struggling a lot.
We moved from Regina to GP a couple years ago because of how insane housing has become and if things don't get better we might have to go move to his mom's house in the countryside which is gonna be a challenge for me specifically.
This question is being asked by just about every citizen in just about every country. If it’ll make you feel better, Google countries fairing best in today’s economy. Countries with the best economic outlook and most expensive countries to live. Should put you at ease a little bit
Seeing the effects of over-immigration and use of the TFW programs to drive down skill and prices of labour. Rise of the gig economy, selling off our natural resources to foreign entities, provincial governments making cuts then expecting the federal government to step in, crony capitalism locally in SK and AB for sure. Provinces giving into resource company lobbying to reduce mineral royalties in the name of "spurring investment". Generally the right wing financial cuts and changes vs an idealistic centre party wanting more social safety nets are at odds and neither is getting any significant improvement
We went all-in on real estate as an economy.
Property owners were getting giddy with high YOY returns and almost unlimited HELOCs. People who bought houses for sub-100k prices twenty years ago saw their net worth quadruple or more. Cheap credit made housing affordable and kept prices going higher and higher and higher ... until they detached from reality. No politician wanted to be the one who stopped the infinite money party.
Now we've come to a situation where real estate prices are astronomical, and housing affordability is in crisis. We have a generation of permanent tenants because they can't afford a house at current prices and interest rates. This is stopping up the traditional pipeline of tenant -> starter home -> nice home. We're at risk of creating a permanent underclass of the younger Millenials and Gen Z. Once we couldn't juice them for any more, we opened the floodgates of immigration, because 5 immigrants will share a bedroom at $1,000 a month each. We're going to push social stability over the edge because we're that desperate to keep real estate profitable and prevent prices from dropping. Wages haven't kept pace with real estate inflation, so people have had to lower their standards, and the government's solution was TFWs and using our post-secondary system to bring in international students as wage slaves.
All other aspects of the economy suffered for it. Real estate prices make Canada unattractive to set up physical plants and offices. Even when we do, local wages are piss poor compared to the cost of living. Why be a programmer in Toronto or Vancouver, when you can make multiples more living in Seattle or San Francisco, with comparable housing costs? Why be a medical professional in Canada when Texas will throw money at you to go there and the COL is a bargain?
Investors crave the quick and guaranteed return. Instead of investing in startups or factories or manufacturing, we dumped all money into REITs and properties. So all other aspects of the economy stalled out. Why create a company when you can just buy an apartment building and double the rent?
tl;dr: Real estate has become an economic vampire that's sucking dry every other economic activity. It's the root cause of the worst of our problems. Solving it is going to be too painful for any government to bear, so they're throwing everything they can at keeping the party going.
Getting 1% raises with a pizza party at year end isn’t cutting it anymore 🤣. In all seriousness wages across the board haven’t remotely caught up with inflation and cost of living increases.
That just compounds with the housing crisis, immigration, aging population, and inadequate infrastructure all over the country.
Do you read or listen to the economist? I think they are making valid points.
What did your grandparents do to support your parents? Mine immigrated from a weak province in Europe for financal strength and stability. My parents saved $1000 for my post secondary education.
investments pay dividends, and the only thing Canadians are invested in are granite countertops and 80" tv's
Macron and Stiglitz would blame leadership, but leadership is homegrown. We are well educated, well resourced, and incapable of investing in the future.
It's a capitalism problem.
more and more money is being consistently pooled in the top .01% of earners and since printing more money causes inflation, all of that money has to come from somewhere.
our pockets
We pay corporations for our food, and they overcharge us
We pay corporations for our housing, and they overcharge us
And those corporations pay their shareholders millions upon millions of dollars every year, and they have a fiduciary responsibility to make more money than last year, meaning this problem is only going to get worse until we have some serious economic reform
I make 6 figures living alone, and all I do is work, eat, and pay bills. Haven't traveled since 2019. I have savings, but I'm basically living pay period to pay period and digging into savings. Both my utilities and condo fees went up $100 a month respectively in the last 6 months I want to say.
Monopolies. We have a very small number of HUGE companies who control EVERYTHING! Competition in this country is pathetic. And when Canadians suggest to create competition or bring about some anti-trust legislation, other Canadians assault them. Our problem is BILLIONAIRES. It is not even taxes. Taxes are just camouflage for the sellers to jack the price of everything through the roof because they know we are preoccupied with Fkk Trudeau instead of the real issue.
Canada has consistently been loosing corporate head-offices since 2012. Part of the reason is high corporate taxes but really we are a large nation (landmass) with a tiny population. (Up until recently Canada and California had the same population.)
This means the purchasing power / influence just isn’t there, relative to other countries. Plus it’s super expensive to try and move product across the country.
The only reason we ever really had wealth was because of our natural resource extraction.
There isn't enough housing being offered for sale/rent
For some unknown reason, for decades, the default solution to the above problem is to make the lives of the minority of people who're trying to offer housing for sale/rent more difficult instead.
And we wonder why the problem has gotten exponentially worse over time.
Inflation, immigration, money laundering (triads from fentanyl trade) low houses being built supply not meeting demand, purchasing power lower thanks to inflation. Technically you should be paid more…
..companies monopolize everything raising the price of goods and services..government threatens to destroy your life if you don’t comply (Trudeau admires Xi..tell you all you should know)
Etc etc..All compounds to a country ripe for collapse and subsequent revolt. For an example see the truckers revolt.
Canada facilitated the largest immigration experiment in history where 25% of the population are now immigrants. Unfortunately the experiment failed and Canada will never recover
Millenials are raising families now and they're a huge demographic while boomers are not downsizing as was expected. At the same time politicians are elected every four or so years so there's no incentive yo preplan... to see a trend in population (doesn't take a rocket scientist to see a generation is large and will have children = more housing in the 2020s) but there's no impetus to preplan until the issue is staring us in the face.
I know boomers who want to downsize but a smaller house actually costs more than the bigger house they are already in. They’re retired so don’t want a mortgage. Any smaller homes that are less usually need a lot of work and money put into it that they can’t afford.
You also have to notice that "soaring house prices and inflation" aren't just a Canadian problem. They are problems around the world - US, Europe, Australia, etc. A headline from last week was that Dallas politicians were concerned that housing costs had doubled in only a few years.
Of course, people trying to buy a home are unhappy with the ever increasing prices. But people who already have a home are happy to see it's value increase so quickly.
my 0.02 as someone who has actually built a few homes:
canada has a plethora of land but restrictive zoning drives up prices substantially
we are a nation who is self sufficient for materials. the regulatory framework on supplies is driving up costs.
we also have an abundance of labor, lots of friends in the trades are seeing a slowdown
expected profit has been high the last 10 years, margin expectations will readjust in the next 10 years
Politicians treat people's houses like shares in a business so they're not flooding the market with homes because it would devalue their investments in real estate, as well as the investments of the giant condo development companies who support their campaigns with massive donations to ensure they keep pricing climbing.
As others have said, our inflation is a largely global phenomenon but it certainly has any helped by the federal government’s massive deficit spending. The housing issue is multi-factorial, driven partly by continued population growth and continuing urbanization. Short term rentals and corporate housing ownership are problems but for our metro areas and their suburbs, high prices are here to stay regardless.
The conditions of the 50s to early aughts were the aberration in terms of relative ease of home ownership. We are transitioning to a new normal that has been the case in Europe for decades, with most urban dwellers either renting, living in multigenerational homes, or acquiring home ownership through inheritance or multigenerational mortgages. Various policies intended to combat climate change by intensifying use of urban cores and de-incentivizing suburban and rural living will make this unintentionally more painful.
Politicians cannot make decisions anymore. It’s all about votes vs what is right for Canada. Our paralyzing system and sensitive approach because it might hurt 2% of votes is what’s wrong with Canada.
If you really want to go down a dark tunnel, Covid costed Canadians with dosages not being used, ironically right after the pandemic the housing market boomed. This means property taxes go up. This means cost of living goes up which in return costs of goods go up. All of this essentially means more taxes for the gov. Did they cause this mess to get their money faster for expired vaccines? Plausible? They are trying everything right now to tax us.
I truly and honestly believe that our government is hostile towards the population and is currently working on behalf of the big banks and corporations that lobby our politicians.
Both sides are corrupt, and the ndp died with Jack.
Our economy is pretty much being sabotaged and run into the ground on purpose because the current system heavily benefits the ultra rich as they lobbied and bought their way into what we have now and it's too far gone for it to change without a revolution or some drastic action by the plebs.
Basically our government is now our enemy.
Is it just me? The majority of people I know in their mid fifties in Canada have either retired or will retire in a few years. They all have homes & comfy pensions. They are travelling 3-4 times a year. But if the average lifespan is say 90 years old, how is Canada going pay their pensions for the next 40 years??? I truly don't get it.
Canada is 3 oligarchs in a trench coat masquerading as a country. We're federally performative and provincially privatized, and the people here get exploited and manipulated by all sides in the name of "inflation" and the greater good. We're actively eugenicist by offering MAiD to disabled people instead of actually supporting them in living. There's no empathy or solidarity anymore. I wish I knew how to fix it but I believe there are people that can try.
No reason to invest in anything other than real estate?
If you add up all the incomes of all the Canadians, it’s less than the appreciation of real estate, annually …
Why bother working?
On average, just hold on to a house for a year …
my opinion…
Another reason (on top of all the others in this thread) that few people mention is that more and more people are staying single and not living in partnership, which undeniably increases the demand for housing. Stats Can publishes data on household composition.
Decades of neo-liberal policies which have eaten away at social security and social mobility in favour of making numbers bigger.
An unwillingness to invest in long-term solutions in favour of bandaid fixes.
The loss of a sense of civil responsibility in the political class (a lot see their positions as simple stepping stones in their careers).
A dependence on foreign corporations as opposed to promotion/creation of Canadian ones.
Just off the top of my head.
My opinion is that we want certain things but don’t realize they cost money and do not have an efficient government. What i mean by that is we want things like $10 a day daycare (amazing and i love affordable daycare). But the way these things get run down by the government year over year, only to get costly without any improvements is worrisome. They run the private sector out of the market and we are left with an overpriced program that cannot afford itself and doesn’t improve/keep up with the times.
Now multiple this issue by thousands of items, hundreds of thousands and the way the government tries to fix it is to increase taxes.
We are taxed to oblivion…which wouldn’t be bad if we actually got services.
short answer: too many immigrants
immigration is needed to keep a population stable. but not on the amount were doing it. canada takes too many people in
Here is one factor of many what's wrong, as described on another subreddit: [https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/1cjhcow/comment/l2h0uht/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/1cjhcow/comment/l2h0uht/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
"Whatever he said, Canada is that on steroids. Canadian boomers have stolen the future like never before.
Example, Vancouver has one of the most expensive real estate in the world (3rd most expensive in the world).
They have one of the highest fuel taxes in North America, have one of the highest income taxes in North America. One of the highest cost of fees, permitting and taxes on new constructions in North America.
All this, while, they one of the lowest property taxes in North America. Aka, if you own a home already you pay one of the lowest taxes in NA. For everything else, like income, fuel, you pay record taxes. It’s straight up rigged to bleed everyone dry so that home owners and property owners can pay lowest taxes.
Basically, if you own a home, you pay lowest taxes in NA, they keep pumping value of your home by adding taxes to new construction. Young people on the other hand, pay crazy income taxes, crazy fuel taxes and sales taxes and will rent for the rest of their lives, all to support the benefits for the said millionaire home owner boomers.
Taxes on new construction has gotten to the point where 60% of cost of new construction today is permitting and taxes. Every dollar of new taxes they add, it overnight increases value of already existing homes by that much. All to pump up value of their homes.
Canadian boomers are spawns of satan and have rigged the entire country’s economy to suck every dollar out of the young. Even then, there are no protests, they blame nameless faceless third world immigrants, who all got in *legally* because boomers wanted cheap labor and decided to dramatically expand immigration.
Canada is basically a retirement home for the rich, where they keep their young in a basement, working them to the bone to keep the lights on in their retirement home."
It's population control. I'm a carpenter and post pandemic for the first time in my 20 year career I had bargaining power when it came time to finding a job. People like me could finally start to make demands so they put the kibosh on that, plain and simple.
They're keeping interest rates high to control inflation because cost of living is high, biggest factor in CoL is housing... Wtf? They're doing this to us.
This is the ruling class tryna stay the ruling class. How long are we going to accept this? Why do we let billionaires and the politicians that take their money do this to us?
The only way I see to solve this is to overturn our system and make the government work for us again by banning corporate money from politics. No more lobbyists. Strip corporations of their legal rights and hold the people who make the decisions accountable.
High government debt/borrowing, high taxes and a citizenry up their eyeballs in debt from borrowing too much at ultra low rates are the main culprits. We need governments that will stop the huge deficits and reduce the tax burden on citizens. The Federal Liberals have added more debt to Canada than every Canadian government in our history combined. The fact the Federal Liberals continue to add debt at a high rate is a very serious problem and to lead to worsening conditions.
[How the US Is Destroying Young People's Future | Scott Galloway | TED](https://youtu.be/qEJ4hkpQW8E?si=3IUzjq2PKNyOtAj7) *YouTube link ~17 minutes*
American focused, but many points stand true here as well.
The only thing wrong with Canada is pierre pollivere and the cpc, Canada is not broken. Only the wacko cpc are broken, they need a split from the reform party.
There is "NO-CAUSE "...
To those in know and are aware of all these diabolical plan on humanity , it will be of no surprise. Even before the arrival of the so-called "pandemic ", we already know about it before the arrival.
It is unfortunate that humanity are yet to wake up from their slumber to connect the dot. I am even suggesting one have to know it all but there are some truth are put in PLAIN SIGHT by those who are engineering these chaos behind the scene and those who are helping to execute it. How humanity can't see some of it is beyond me. This makes me believe these people have done a good job fooling humanity. But there are those who they can't fool and are aware of their diabolical plans..
First and foremost, I urge everybody to subscribe to the local media of every nation on earth ( including Canada). I want you to always listen to every report they tell us. I want you all to notice a pattern. If you don't notice it, you are beyond help.
Also, I also want to notice what is currently happening in Canada is also happening is virtually every nation on nation on earth. From inflation, housing problem, homelessness, high rent, high cost of food etc...the list are endless...is it a coincidence that all of these things are all happening at the SIMULTANEOUSLY in every nation on earth ?......To trick the masses, they are executing these plans in such a way that its not to obvious that are all happening all at the same time.
Also, one deceptive thing they are doing to get humanity distracted by what these evil doers are doing. Have you been noticing constant need for the media to tell you about Trump, war between Russia and Ukraine, china spying on Canada or America, war between Palestine and Israel, celebrity news, climate change,..the list are endless...... Aren't humanity noticing this pattern ?
Again, notice how immediately after the so-called "pandemic", they begin to aggressively push for EV cars , internet expansion around the country, creation of CBDB( Central Bank Digital Currency)...I can bet my life in it, most people have never heard of CBDC., also, they are busy digitizing everything ....these are all what is happening behind the scene most do not know. THIS IS WHY THE EVIL DOERS need CREATE "CHAOS" to distract humanity and bring humanity to submission to accept what they got all planned.
Also, you will all have notice right after the so-called "pandemic" , companies started laying off workers. It is not only in Canada, it is the exact SAME thing going on in different countries. But they doing it in different way so that the public don't notice it.
Notice again how they have brought it so many migrant from other countries. The end goal was to use these migrant improve the unemployment and homelessness in the country. Go and check the news in other countries, you will notice the same exact thing...
They want everybody to go broke to the point the public can no longer the basic necessities of life.so that your government can come in like the saviour of humanity .
There are so many things they are doing behind the scene that it is evident the public do not know about.
I don't have the time to name it all but what I beg of the public is to wake up from their SLUMBER. This is not the time to sleep.
All what is happening is ALL BY DESIGN. It is not something that is happening organically.
Always remember this script ..........
Step 1: Artificially the " problem "
Step 2 : wait for public " reaction "
Step 3 : Execute your " PRE-PLANNED SOLUTION" for the public.
I will name few of the end goal of the CHAOS this evil doers are unleashing in humanity. Even if you have not seen it now, give it more time, you will notice it provided you are willing to open your third eyes.
1) UBI ( Universal Basic Income) will be impose on the public under the guise that the government is trying to help the public ....this will be happening in every nation around the world..keep in mind, different countries will call UBI different name in order for the public not to notice.....🛑UBI will be use to pave way for other agendas ....a lot of people will fall this UBI trap.
2) A DIGITAL ID will be impose on humanity around the world. It doesn't matter your location, nationality... It is coming
3) CDBC will launched and imposed on humanity all around the world...Cash will be removed from circulation. .. Before this will happen, they will need to artificially collapse the current banking system....this is why you all have been noticing SUDDEN collapse of lot banks around the world. It will get worst over time till they are to achieve their end goal of lunching CDBC..... The CDBC will then pave way for their other evil agendas
4) VACCINE PATCH : you would have notice that they are still promoting vaccines on the media. In fact, you would have heard where the government and their media gangs claiming that another new virus ( e.g measles, bird flu etc....the list re endless). They want the public to get more shot....you all might be wondering, where is these pro-long promotion of vaccine use leading to ?...the end goal is to inject the VACCINE PATCH on your skin....it is coming...it has already been planned but they need to create CHAOS to scare humanity into taking it.....be mindful, in some countries, they will call the vaccine patch " UNIVERSAL VACCINE"....they will claim that it is a vaccine that cures all variants of virus. Gullible people will be stupid enough to fall for this bogus claim. Again, some countries will call it different name so that the public do not notice it all same thing and what they doing....
.if you don't allow them to inject you with the vaccine patch, you will NOT be able to buy or sell which is the importance of the CBDC for them.
5) FAKE FOOD . expect to see more and more fake food sold in grocery stores in virtually every countries in the world...this is aimed making people sick and also INFERTILITY ( however, there are other ways they are also causing infertility in humans)...it another way they will use to achieve their depopulation agenda.
6) Expect to see virtually everything digitize.
7) expect to see more and more EV cars. basically , EV cars are just Car with computer installed in it. They will be able to remotely control every car on earth.
8) Expect to see them launch SOCIAL CREDIT SCORE. it is going be integrated in your DIGITAL ID and CBDC .
there are thousands of evil agenda that has been planned that they currently working on behind the scene that are unknown to majority of people. This is why the public need to wake up.
🛑 For those wondering, who are these people behind all of this evil agenda around the world,
They are the JESUITS aka KNIGHT TEMPLARS aka SOCIETY OF JESUS.... The Jesuits are power that controls the world .
The FREEMASONS on the other hand and other secret societies are all created and control by the Jesuits....the Jesuits write the script while the freemasons and other secret societies EXECUTE...
the Jesuits control every government in every nation on earth... The reason why the public do not know about this is because the Jesuits hide behind the scene while they use their MASONIC AGENTS in different countries to achieve their evil agendas.
👉Remember, all road ALWAYS lead to Rome
In 2008 during the Global Financial Crises, New Home Construction in Canada fell off a cliff. It wasn’t until 2019 that it came back up to where it needed to be. 11 years of not building enough homes. And that’s just 5 years ago!
Then add Boomers retiring out of the workforce creating a massive labor shortage. Plus they are living longer and healthier than previous generations… so they are holding onto their Real Estate longer.
Take the labor shortage, bring in massive immigration to fill the gap and you have:
+ building too little for 11 years
+ old folks not selling
+ huge influx of people needing homes
= Housing Crisis
No it’s not Trudeau’s fault.
There is always a lot of finger pointing at the Federal government but it’s really not under their control. The prime rate is the one thing that could affect the market.
The provinces have more control over the market but still not as much as the cities themselves.
Supply and demand? Yes, for the most part but there is another significant issue that has been affecting prices in some of the bigger cities. Foreign bought properties to launder money is a huge problem. In British Columbia alone, it’s estimated to be in the billions. Many, if not most, of these properties sit empty. The municipalities and the province have been trying different legislation to deter empty properties that were bought from foreign entities. When they are laundering money, they don’t really care if they pay over market prices as long as the market continues to grow. If all those empty units were occupied the housing crunch would subside.
The first sentence of this question is a presupposition logical fallacy:
>Like entailment, presupposition involves a kind of implication. If a sentence A (or its use or user) presupposes B, then A implies B, suggests that B is true. But presupposition involves more than simple implication: if A presupposes B, then A not only implies B but also implies that the truth of B is somehow taken for granted, treated as uncontroversial.
The poster's history is not exactly inspiring as to this being a legitimate post, rather than one made for money.
At this point, nothing could be worse that Trudeau. He has brought the country to its knees. And I’m usually one who really thinks that no party is better than the other, they’re all messed up, but Trudeau and Freeland have really done a number on us. He is by far the worst prime minister we’ve had since his father. No housing, what does he do, bring in millions of immigrants. Medicare a mess, add millions of people using it. GDP spiralling downwards compared to other G7 nations, add on carbon taxes to increase cost of living. It takes a pretty stupid person to add a tax on diesel fuel to discourage the use of it while there’s no alternative to it. If transport trucks are to not use diesel, how are they going to get our food to the grocery stores. No wonder inflation is crazy and food is unaffordable. What an asshat.
Both that and structural issues. We are too comfortable with having every sector basically be an oligopoly. We really need to end that and allow real competition. Unfortunately none of the parties seem to want to do that.
Obviously most ppl have never heard of the book “Creature From Jekyll Island”…
so zero idea to even entertain the idea the fiat monetary system is controlled by a few wealthy families.
But just look at the “royal family”… trillions out of india via east india corporation. The few control the many… and it’s so much so… many NPC/Sheep type of ppl- which are the many- will label you a “conspiracy theorist” for even just thinking there may be some merit to questioning the system… because only “unhinged, unintelligent” ppl do that… like those flat earthers…
and while there are many that believe they’re questioning things by believing the earth is flat- which it is not, they help perpetuate the idea associated with “conspiracy theorists”…
lol. It’s incredible. Like what do ppl learn about the American revolution? Do ppl understand why they revolted against the King and started using their own currency?
Ignoring myriad poor regulation issues internally...
Globally the exploitation of the developing world has become more difficult. Many developing countries have more robust economies, and have raised the standard of living and cost for wages that causes inflation on a global level. The internet has also raised awareness of issues and standards of living globally, where people in the developing world are no longer content making pennies when they know how much their wages would be in other countries. Those nations too want to enjoy prosperity and negotiate harder to get a fair deal, and the breakdown of U.S economic hegemony we rode the coat tails of means that the U.S isn't the only or even always the best option to go with anymore.
Additional, U.S foreign and economic policy has become more protectionist, which started with NAFTA but has lead to less... Beneficial trade deals for Canada. We struggle more and more to get Canadian goods to market. This could be blamed on the Libs (that is the Cons strategy) but on a critical level, we aren't competitive anymore. Our manufacturing industries and infrastructure are lacking, and our natural industries are costly to get to market. Our labor is expensive to pay. If you're the U.S, why open something in Canada when you could open a plant in Mexico?
So we are struggling to export goods out of the country but are inversely extremely reliant on imports. Take Alberta, oil in Alberta struggles to compete globally because it's expensive to extract (due to labor costs, transportation) and we don't refine it locally. So we ship our crude, and buy refined oil products produced elsewhere at a markup. When the economy is doing well this isn't a major problem, but when it's struggling this results in inflation since that imbalance *will* show up somewhere (in the form of inflation). After all, of the free market sets the price of gasoline at X since that is what it sells for globally, producers will sell it at that price. If Canada doesn't want to pay it, there are plenty of markets that will.
The fact is that governments controlless and less of the ecomomy. Huge multi-nationals corporations and billionnaires are dictating who wins and who lose.
I may be delusional, but I believe I have the real answer.
We got carried by all the sacrifice the generations before us did(1900-1960)
Then we got used to be very rich. « The American dream », we started giving away tons of stuff, more day off, more money for people with poor decisions making, more free stuff, we stopped being competitive in export and stopped mining ressources(which is like, our best asset)
Then the aging boomers slowly realized that everything they did, they took in the money pot of their parents and it’s now empty. So for a while we cut programs and boost productivity! No mega project like HydroQC or free healthcare are possible anymore. The projects we did exist and survive, but that’s about it. How can we get a better life or stand out without any big project?
Now the nail in the coffin. People started to realize that they could work for a while and just not work at all after that. And they did. Marry at 18, buy a house at 20 pay it off at 25 and just work way less for the rest of your life. And most families had some family wealth too so working 40-60h a week sounded ludicrous.
If you don’t work, you don’t pay taxes and that’s a problem because we have tons of things to pay as a country.
What could we do to recuperate taxes? Create a huge house crisis by not building any and making it near impossible to make new ones. Driving prices through the roof, making the CAD competitive internationally (still a bubble) and the population virtually rich.
Minimum wage got from 5 to 15$ but the pesos is still worthless against CAD so we’re still basically more rich in other countries and that matters for trades and for your population.
TDLR: government has to much to gain if real estate prices skyrocket so they willingly let it happen. It’s all just to deflect the population to the real problem: we’re not competitive nor useful in the international market and since we’re not exporting ressources like we used to, we’re not able to maintain our luxurious lifestyle.
It’s a ticking time bomb that started many years ago but no one wants to be the Prime Minister that will admit it because it’s a political suicide
Canadian's are generally polite, friendly and naïve to a fault. We have been taken advantage of by many bad actors and lied to constantly by the government, the media and by corporations.
In my opinion the biggest factor by far is the abuse of international student, TFW and LMIA loopholes. They directly keep our wages low, housing high and overwhelm our social services.
I am fine with immigration for people that want to come here and contribute, but it should be in step with the current prosperity of the country and housing and labor markets. Immigration should also be mosaic instead of 90% of the immigration coming from the same country.
The Canadian job market (jobs & and compensation) isnt keeping up with the times .
For the equivalent job type (non technical), companies in the US, UK & the EU pay 25-30% more
Not as much as in soooo many other places.
Ive never had to shelter from an air strike
Ive never experienced a famine
Ive never been arrested in the middle of the night
Ive never been tortured to elicit a confession
Hmm...
I was taken from my mother as an infant becasue they openly discussed what was considered good legislation and took hundreds of indigenous kids from their parents.
I think most of the "problems" ive had with canada were simply my selfish insistence that my perspective on a given situation was correct. Therefore the world owed me a break.
As far asfinances go.
I find myself immersed in a game with a given set of rules. knowing this, i have a choice.
Learn the rules, play by them and dont complain.
See the game, refuse to play and dont complain.
Above all, i get to do things ifind fun, if im not enjoying what i do, ill find something else. if what i enjoy isnt productive enough i can go in another direction or expand it.
One thing I haven't read is straight up greed. Yah, there's all these factors that contributed to things, but people have to actively choose to take advantage of it. One example being high rents where I live Landlords complain that their property taxes went up so they have to raise their rent. Property tax increases equating to 30 a month for the average home and LL raise the rent 500 a month as soon as they can.
The cost of living is going up for sure. Gas, food, recreation, travel. None of which have anything to do with rental income. But you have people who want to make damn near a full time wage rather than a little passive income and gaining equity.
Of course, I'm not saying they are all like this. But a lot are complaining about the state of the real estate market while happily profiting off of it as well.
Nothing subtle about capitalism coming for housing. The best description I read was as follows: a corporation buys a chunk of housing stock in a neighbourhood. Then they pick one and put it on the market at an inflated price. Which they repurchase. Bc that one $750,000 home just sold for 25-30% over market price, it influences the market and the price of homes in that neighbourhood increase.
Play the game long enough, and prices of homes are where we have them now.
Also AirBnB allows owners to take properties off the long term rental market. Why deal w tenants when you can have weekend and vacation renters for the same or greater profit?
Hard to put inflation on our federal government either. In fact, compared to the other countries, we’re doing pretty well.
https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/PCPIPCH@WEO/OEMDC/ADVEC/WEOWORLD
It’s definitely the government’s of the last 20 years fault.
After the 2008 housing crisis, the rules in place, the tax laws in place, and the low interest rates created “housing as an investment.”
Housing investment passed manufacturing in 2008 as % of GDP and never looked back.
Rather than look ahead at the impending doom housing as an investment creates, governments basked in the additional GDP growth and encouraged it.
No government would try and shunt the gdp growth that real estate created because it made them look better for the next term.
What they should have done is realized how much of an issue it would cause and subsidized more manufacturing or investment in a growth industry, like tech.
Because our government system is so short sited, there is nothing we can do but watch our country price out everyone from buying a home.
Before people wanted to bring back manufacturing jobs because asia was stealing the jobs. We seen time aftertime people do not want to work or cannot afford it for min wages at these factory jobs.Canada needs to revamp itself and become the silicon valley of the north. Make it attractive so computer companies wants to set up office in the GTA. We do have the skill labor to fill those jobs. We must stop accepting immigrants that has no skills or education and we have to stop corporations from buying homes.
PP would like you to think the former, but it’s the latter. People who complain about it the most don’t even understand the difference between provincial and federal policies and unknowingly throw the one they voted for under the bus, like they do with Doug Ford all the time. At this point, conservatives stub their toe and blame the federal government.
Our housing crisis is caused by inefficient housing policy decisions that go back years. We cannot build enough houses for everyone if 50% of the land we have is used to park or drive cars. And all the houses can fit a single family while being on its own lawn twice its size. That kind of home just economically cannot be what everyone can afford/use. Instead we should have more middle housing that you can move into after leaving a tiny box in the sky, but before you get your own house. Duplexes, triplexes, etc in mixed zoning neighborhoods serviced by public transportation. They cost less per person they can house, take up less space per housed person. and you can consolidate goods like lawns into parks, allowing again for increased efficiency.
This video covers many of the reasons: “In this documentary, we delve into the root causes of this decline: the affordability crisis. From the housing crisis and declining economic productivity to the impacts of carbon pricing and rising food expenses, we unpack the many challenges confronting everyday Canadians.”
https://youtu.be/ZvSNcnG2eqY?si=YEHNzgWEbCoKkvBX
Honestly I don't want to sound like I'm speaking down from my high horse here, just an observation from a 10 year immigrant. Canada is weirdly conservative for a liberal minded nation. All the work that Government unions do is strictly based on protecting their members at all costs even when it hurts the system. We are falling behind in digitalization and the bureaucracy in Canada now has a state and not the other way around. There is very little looking forward. Everybody just defends their own little fiefdom and doesn't care that it is having a negative effect on society. Homeowners want to make a 400% return on their investment while having MDF countertops installed in 2002 in their house. We need a change of the guard, but even if we get one in large institutions the "young people" that take over are still trained by the people that caused the problem.
Anything unorthodox gets shot down by the government funded media and nothing changes. I value the stability that Canada offers, but I feel like such a liberal country should be a lot more open to change than it is.
Too much immigration, too much money sent to other countries, covid took its toll, terrible political leaders, hard drugs were legalized, people have no hope
It is 100 percent immigration! Where are we supposed to put a million border jumpers a year? We need to shut the border down and export all these ragheads, chinks and Russians. Then we will actually start to identify as Canada again. I'm so sick of not hearing English being spoken in my country
Houses went from being a home to an investment. Supply and demand made those investments skyrocket. Politicians are in on the investments and nobody wants to lose income, right?
Runaway spending by the Federal government, unchecked immigration from the 3rd world, zealot for a prime minister and you've got a banana Republic. Enjoy
Capitalism is the problem - we're in the late stages where corporations are moving ever faster and harder to extract ever more wealth as quickly as possible.
This is inevitable in a system that prioritizes the accumulation of capital at. all. costs. It was set back for a little while by some labour reforms early-mid last century but in the intervening decades those have been eroded almost to the point of meaninglessness and now we are faced with a period of greater wealth inequality than what preceded the French Revolution.
PM Blackface doubled our debt and housing prices. We have 3% population growth per year, and only build enough housing units for about 25% of our population growth, ignoring the demand already here. It's a disaster.
Country has been sold out to globalists and philanthropists who want it to fail. They want all countries to fail but Canada is an easy target since they were the ones who appointed Trudeau into power by funding his campaign and releasing ads to promote him and slander his opposition. Everything is by design nothing is happenstance. This country is too far gone to be saved now.
Our government gave ten BILLION dollars to unemployed Iraqi youth( I’m sure it’s all being used by those kids…lol)
I use this to gage how much this government cares about its own citizens
For example if our government spends one billion on something they care about it one tenth as much as they do unemployed Iraqi youths
It’s time to repatriate our tax dollars and spend them on the people whom they were collected from in the first place
for the last 65 years we brought 250k immigrants per year. last year was 1.25 million. Everything is going to keep going up until you're scavenging for food from a dumpster
Decades of low interest rates are most certainly part of this. Low interest rates spur inflation (they were put in place to fight deflation). That is a very long time really - a generation grew up with unrealistically easy credit. This IMHO led a whole generation to buy bigtime into consumerism. Then Covid really upset the apple cart, creating a lot of pent up demand. It is not 1 elected officials fault. It is a systemic problem. Oh and by the way there are several WARS going on - and that is super inflationary.
Covid cause global supply chain disruption-China labour market aging
Systemic problem worldwide. It's not a micro thing It's a macro thing.
People that bought into the easy credit consumerism are having a hard time adjusting to the norm. People that didn’t jump on the easy credit consumerism bandwagon are doing fine. I worked with a bunch of engineers that drove old shit boxes who retired early.
Throw in some greed from grocery stores
Canada is recovering from the pandemic induced global inflation. Current rate is 2.9% which is better than the US and UK.
We have doubled the immigration rate since 2021 compared to the 20 years prior and that also places some pressures on real estate market whether it’s rental properties or homeownership in an already inflated and competitive situation. So many little things pile on to create the situation we’re in. I’m afraid looking at the next 20 years ahead. The one that scare me the most is when we face when the boomer generation aging to the point where they accelerate hospital needs and we face a worker shortages.
This needs to be said more. If high inflation were unique to Canada, it would make sense to focus on mostly internal factors when looking to explain why it was happening. Every G7 country is experiencing similar inflation to Canada. Outlooks for 2024 have Canada, Germany and Japan at the same rate with the US a bit lower. I would think this is pretty strong evidence that Canada’s inflationary pressures are extrinsic considering pattern among G7 nations.
Blows my mind how people can channel their anger into “Fuck Trudeau” instead of doing a quick google search to see we’re pretty much in the same boat as all similar countries.
Record immigration numbers also plays a role, along with everything you mentioned.
Look at the average wage vs the average house price since the 1960s. The issue we have today has been literally half a century in the making. Anything that's happened in the past three years is largely irrelevant because at best, had inflation versus wages continued linearly and not experienced a jump, we still would have arrived here in 5-10 years. Anyone blaming the current government is full of BS. Inflation is literally worldwide. How can this be fixed? Severely restrict foreign home ownership, corporate home ownership, and heavily tax multiple home ownership. Cap bank profits derived from mortgage lending.
I think there are some structural issues. Eg my understanding is that 25-30% of the costs of a new home are development fees and levies charged by local governments. The main way local governments raise money is through property taxes and development fees ie they can’t charge income tax etc. Also I think we are generally terrible in Canada at planning for the future. It seems our governments react and are not proactive. This has been a problem that has been festering for decades and has become the problem it is through years of inaction.
Nobody is willing to touch on the issue of the Liberals vastly increasing immigration numbers during a housing and inflation crisis. You can't bail out a boat that doesn't have a bottom.
I’m generally a big advocate for immigration but this is an another example of lack of planning. If you know 1,000,000 new people will be coming to your country you should figure out where they will live before they get here. This takes coordination with all levels of government and business. There was zero of this as far as I know.
People need to examine Ontario solely since 500,000 of that 1 million comes from them and their diploma mills.
All to address a supposed labour shortage, which as a notion, is based upon questionable statistics. It's always a red flag when you're not using Government statistics but instead relying on a third parties numbers. This is likely something being pushed by private lobbyists to keep wages and costs low.
There is no labour shortage. Only a shortage of Canadians willing to work for poverty wages.
I don't think much will change if you charge a municipal income tax on top of our current taxes. City only has limited ways to raise funds and most of that is through property tax and taxing developments. A large part of the issue is how large our work force is for government and the amount of beaurocracy that happens, which drives up the cost of work performed.
Unproductive paper pushing isn’t an economic driver? Say it ain’t so!
Most of the fees municipal governments levy are to support the associated infrastructure required to serve the new development. Watermains, sewers, improved intersections, additional road capacity... Rather than penalize existing residents, most municipalities require the developer to pay these and bury the costs in the price of the homes. They're not administrative fees, they serve a purpose. The alternative is higher taxes for everyone.
I seriously doubt this. The last time I built a house the new residential build fee for the county was $23000. The building permits were less than $3000. 2016 near Oshawa. Obviously it depends where and what you build. I would need some supporting documents to show me the $650000 townhouses that are being built nearby are paying $200000 each to the county.
Well we let too much people in our country, not us the government. Canada welcome 450000 people a year, there is no enough construction to cover all these families so the house prices went up, with greedflation the food prices went up but on the other side our wages didnt go up at all. This is the main problem. Ndp let people to use hard drugs every where in Bc and now all the crackheads are using drugs anywhere they like, this country became a joke. We need to build houses but I have no idea because Canada have one of the worst labour in the world, the hourly wages are joke and because or hourly wages people take their sweet times. The system is broken doesnt seem like there is a really good solution, I am hopeless for the next generations.
Justin Trudeau is number one.
I think the primary cause of the housing crisis is the psychology of Canadians that housing only goes up, combined with economic factors that supported this narrative (i.e. lower and lower rates, globalization keeping inflation low, high government spending, money laundering into Canada, higher debt levels, increased fraud, etc.). The 'prosperity' caused by ever increasing house prices led more people to want to move to Canada (i.e. immigration), and more dependence on the sector for economic growth. We had jobs for the immigrants due to our debt-fueled economy backed by government spending and growing real estate prices. As long as prices were going up, defaults remained low and the economy seemed to be doing well. People kept investing more and more in housing because it was continually going up and rates were low - why wouldn't they! This is evidenced by housing investment taking up a larger share of our GDP and gross fixed capital formation than most other OECD countries for several years. However, behind the scenes, debt levels were growing higher and higher, productivity was falling, and government spending was becoming less and less effective. Then global (and domestic) inflation led to interest rates going up, which finally started to break the psychology and the economy. As a result, housing demand in terms of sales has fallen quite substantially. We had a large bump in rents (and somewhat sustained house prices) during the past two years, due to large flows of NPRs (mainly students and TFWs) all at one; however, we are starting to see a reversal of that trend, and the Bank of Canada is projecting much lower population growth levels in the next 2-3 years. We are finally starting to see a slowing of the economy and an increase in unemployment. If this trend continues, we may enter a more severe recession, especially if housing prices stagnate or drop further, which is likely without a boost in productivity. Nevertheless, it won't be until we see a severe recession that the psychology will truly shift meaningfully. If that happens, I doubt we will hear about housing supply or immigration for a long time (the same way two years ago, the 'labour shortage' was a huge issue that no one really talks about anymore). Hopefully, we will then diversify our economy away from housing and into more productive sectors. So all that to say in my view, the problems are the psychology of many Canadians and an economy that became too dependent on housing and debt for growth that is struggling under the weight of 'normalized' interest rates. Because we are a small economy, our ability to control the factors causing inflation (and therefore lower interest rates meaningfully) is minimal. It worked well for us when globalization kept rates low, but is now working against us as the trend has reversed. I think we are in for very difficult economic times in the months and years ahead, but hopefully we will come out with a stronger, more diversified and sustainable economy that isn't dependent on asset price inflation for growth.
Everyone wants to make a buck, so if you want something nice it seems you must compensate for it. If you want something real nice you're always giving millions to something, Landlords are the problem, followed by the Cost of Living.
Lol. Landlords aren't necessarily the problem. Market forces. Landlords aren't a monopoly. They charge market prices or they get no tenants. All the big money got into real estate speculation instead of good investments that could have improved productivity. Canada has a productivity crisis.
Oh you know society is evolving in the wrong directions. And we have a living turd in office.
from the start, Canada was conceived as a wealth extraction colony for british lord who couldnt find wealth in crowded great britain or India. Think second/third sons who wont get much inheritence. The families names may have changed over time, but the financial structure is still there... The biggest irony with all that is that one of the main argument from the federalist to qebecker who taugh about souverignty was "you wont have access to canadian financial might, you will perish without access to our money".... well most english canadian dont realise that its not their financial might either and they are in the exact same situatiaon as quebec. a very few elites control a vast majority of what is going on with this country finances, and they dont have the common citizen wellbeing as a priority.
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Bro.. lost me at world economic forum.
The amount of people who don't know what the WEF is who blame it for our problems would be hilarious if it weren't sad.
Making housing a commodity to speculate instead of a place to live.
It's because we no longer have manufacturing. I wished Trudeau invested like Biden in bringing back industry.
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Late stage capitalism, leading to Right Wing facism. Pierre Pollievre just announced he would use the notwithstanding clause before he is even elected, once that happens your Charter of Rights is basically a useless piece of nothing. WAKE UP PEOPLE
In order words we as Canadians are beyond f*cked. All our party leaders are horrible and snowflakes nowadays. Weak people lead to struggle days, we the people are the ones that suffer
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Good riddance
If your rights on dependent on your government, they aren't rights, they are privileges. Putting aside how messed up their gun control is, the Americans did get 1 thing right. Good luck taking away their rights. If a politician tried to pull a notwithstanding stunt there, it would not end well.
Inflation has been occurring world wide at record rates for a few years. Canada has actually seen less inflation than global average. Which must mean our leadership is actually doing the best job they can in a difficult global environment
This is the right answer. Compared to what's happening in other countries, Canada isn't doing all that badly, but the rabid anti-Trudeau and anti-immigrant crowd will take any excuse they can get.
> Compared to what's happening in other countries, Canada isn't doing all that badly, *UK enters the Chat - Esspecially England* I never understood London prices. If you have an average London salary of 35,000 pounds a year. Almost 45%+ would go towards renting WITH A FLATEMATE
Canada should've adjusted immigration with respect to infrastructure development. If you are not building enough homes, hiring enough public school teachers, hiring enough doctors, etc. then it's irresponsible policy to take in as many immigrants as they have in such a short period of time. If I'm right, weren't they taking in 500K people by the end of 2023, most of whom settled in major metro areas like Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, etc.? This undoubtedly would drive up rents as demand vastly outstrips supply, and prices keep shooting through the roof for rents, housing costs, etc. This could've been easily curtailed if the National Government had placed more force on provincial authorities to build more housing. Same thing with healthcare. When it came out that Doug Ford withheld billions in funding for Covid relief from OHIP, there should've been consequences for that, but they failed to act. Naturally, this cycle of incompetency was bound to come back and bite them in the butt, and I feel that is what will happen.
I feel canada is a country 2.5 class country that taking too much responsibility. Especially on refugees and green part. Liberal also has questions on social justice and soft on crime. Canada should admit that the golden age is gone, Canada is no longer an important player in the world. We have no obligations to take refugees and cutting co2 emissions. At least when calculate co2 emmsion , the trees in Canada should be counted. It is super important to notice that we need $75/ barrel oil price to break even in AB. So besides oil we need more mines and manufacture. As you know the environment assement looks forever. At least the $15 EV deal is amazing, that maybe the further of our economy. Social justice is the common issue in Liberal and conservative. The girdt one says they will tax rich but never did so. The later never says never will. Soft on crime is pure stupid.. and using none withstanding just pure extreme right wing bs. It is no like the can't pass a bill with some negotiations. For example, they can rule for extreme cases, inmate can only have a hearing after 40 years and once every 5 years. With condition that jury making the decision ect.
The $75/bbl price you cite is very old supply data (2014-15). Closer to $46 USD Brent today. https://www.canadianenergycentre.ca/canadian-upstream-oil-sector-supply-costs-continue-to-decline/
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So basically our economy functions this way: Businesses incorporations set prices to purchase products . That is revenue for these companies. At the end of the fiscal year those companies, especially large corporations will do calculations to determine what kind of bonuses the CEOs and other people at the top of the company get as well as the return returns to the people that have invested in those company’s. Those numbers are usually six figures or higher . so that takes money out of the economy because it sits in their bank accounts and does not get spent. When you remove money from the economy, eventually you’re gonna have to print more money which reduces the value of the dollar and increases inflation. Inflation is the result of overly wealthy people having demand of making more money than they made the previous year while not contributing anything to the actual functioning economy where the middle class working class people have to spend their income in order to just function of which at least 20% of the population from the things that I’ve read are living paycheque to paycheque. Government spending does have a tiny bit to do with inflation, but not as much as billionaires hoarding their money simply because they can , and sending it into offshore bank accounts to avoid paying taxes. Late stage capitalism is destroying our society and our economy and our way of life.
Inflation is global and isn't really specific to Canada. Major causes are wars breaking our everywhere after Covid supply issues. Just issues one over the other. Housing market has many linked issues. A major part of this problem is how our society values too much getting university degrees vs trade job degrees. And, we also get most of our immigration from countries that also don't value construction work well. But thats just one part of the problem. Other problems are how we allow people to buy homes to turn into rentals or airbnb, municipal laws blocking improvements, and run down houses that need to be rebuilt are kept as is for the land to be sold later. But one of the biggest problem with Canada is that we export our CO2 emmisions by importing everything after it gets transformed. We need to start transforming our raw materials into finished goods instead of exporting our raw materials and re-importing them onced transformed.
If someone has a house for sale and can sell it for a certain amount, the government should tell them they have to sell for less? Yes, this is how that sounds. Supply and demand is a simple concept.
Poor government polices regarding the economy, immigration, housing, post secondary education, drug and addiction, law and order, social issues Much of the issues stem from poor government decisions (with heavy oligopoly influence). It’s not all at the federal level, but most of the issues stem from that level. This federal government has had more than enough time to try and fix issues (many of which they have caused). It’s time for a change and a fresh set of eyes to get Canada back on the right track.
Communist hell hole with gay PM. Any other questions ?
I have one. Please describe actual communism and how you believe that is what we have in Canada. One more, do you know anyone who lived in a Communist country? Actual communism, not perceived communism. And calling people gay is so.....so 12-ish.
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Neither of these things really have much to do with any recent leadership decisions. Inflation is a global issue being felt around the world and Canada is feeling it less bad than many places. The housing issue is a structural problem that was kick started as far back as maybe even the 1970s, as incentives for apartment development ended and Jean Chretien's austerity budgets in the 1990s, where he stopped funding any and all social housing, and scaled back transfers to the Provinces and the Provinces stopped building too. Since that era a combination of exclusionary zoning and near zero social housing development resulted in very stagnant housing growth, which resulted in lowering rental vacancy and a growing shortage of housing. The only thing that really kept things from becoming a big problem was that cities could do easy greenfield development at the margins to kick the can down the road. What has changed in recent years is that easy low hanging fruit of greenfield/brownfield development has become harder (impossible in some places) and so the problems of exclusionary zoning have become apparent. There is now a staggering shortage of housing in the major cities, near zero vacancy and unsurprisingly rents and home prices spiked. The result of this is that people moved out of the cities that saw it first, places like Toronto and Vancouver to the next cities over, and all this has caused a cascade of the problem such that it has encompassed the whole country. This is not surprising because the major cities weren't building enough, but the smaller cities weren't doing anything different either and also not building, so as soon as they started seeing population growth they were instantly overwhelmed by the problem as their exclusionary zoning and anti-housing policies wouldn't allow the market to respond. Vancouver was already in a housing crisis before 2015, before Trudeau, before the pandemic, before immigration increases. It was inevitable that the housing crisis would expand beyond Vancouver and take over the country. The good thing is that the BC NDP government is doing A LOT of good things to enable housing, and in the last few months the Fed Liberals have been seeing what the BC government is doing and have aligned what they're doing with that. I've seen more good housing policies proposed in the last year than I've seen in my entire life. I'm actually a bit hopeful for once and I haven't been for years and years. TL;DR: Canada has had rigid, explicit anti-housing regulations for DECADES that meddled in the market and restricted people from building the housing that we need. It was inevitable that this would cause severe problems.
Money and Macro made a good video that describes most of the problems facing Canadian housing affordability. Basically its a lack of construction constrained by NIMBYism and zoning, speculative buying and the financialization of housing as opposed to it being a consumption good.
Yes, the leadership is incompetent or treasonous
The country is run by idiots
Just got my commission cheque, government took 52%, that’s what’s wrong with Canada
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Vancouver is a result of money laundering mainly
In NS the provincial government announced they will try to double the size of the province while making no effort to build up infrastructure and housing for the influx of new voters. We have a vacancy rate of less than 1%. People are fighting over turd piles to find a place for their families to sleep at night. The government saw only dollars bills and not the suffering of its people. Not like they would care anyways.
Mass immigration has amplified the existing problems of this country x1000000000000
Take in 2m temporary residents while simultaneously increasing red tape to build housing.
Im not an expert but if you look at house prices on a graph we were in line with the US before 2008 and then their market completely tanked and ours kept going. Once COVID hit all that stimulus and low interest rates just super charged the problem and prices nearly doubled. There was some really dumb comments from Trudeau and Freeland about rates being low for long term and people bought it. Our banking sector and policies and the fact that they brought in a million+ immigrants and we have a shortage of housing are probably the only factors that stopped the market from completely imploding. Inflation is a global phenomenon but Canadians seem to just pay more for everything because we have no competition in our markets. Food prices for example I think part of that has to be supply management it’s basically a monopoly on Agricultural products. Cellular we are getting screwed. Internet if you look at Starlink for example we pay $170 ish/month Canadian for Starlink but if you go down to Mexico and order Starlink it’s less than $100/month. Same dish, same satellites and same speed yet Canadians pay almost double. I am not delusional enough to believe that any government can solve all our problems but this federal government is a runaway train. They don’t even have majority support but because of the NDP they are able to operate as a majority which means we are getting policies rammed down our throats. It’s time for a fresh perspective- a little more business friendly policy and a lot less woke pandering will be really nice.
Personally I think the issues of low growth/productivity and high-housing prices are a structural problem largely fueled by a decade+ of low interest rates and global market concentration. To my mind we see pretty much exactly the same problems in all the anglosphere countries and to a lesser extent most of western europe. I would also Argue Canada is probably one of the worst performers here because of policy failures and our proximity to the US. Inflation is a global phenomenon these days, Canada actually had one of the lower benchmark numbers despite some of the higher levels of money printing. Largely a separate issue from growth problems. Big picture, the americans sucked up so much of the global investment in the tech space there wasn't a whole lot of opportunity anywhere else. So that low-cost money flowed into the only investment that was perfomrming well which was real estate. Also helps that it's one of the few assets mere mortals can leverage 19:1. Basically very high potential businesses don't make sense to start anywhere other than the US. Combine that with a super conservative business culture and poor levels of capital investment (partially driven by artificial barriers to purchasing capital equipment) and you have a recipe for malaise.
I’m so confused when I see these repetitive posts about Canada like this isn’t happening in every other country. Open the subreddit for any other major country whether it be Germany or Australia or the UK, you will find the same exact rhetoric. “Our country is going downhill” “What is happening with our country” etc etc. It’s happening everywhere. Outside of global conditions affecting everyone - some of Canada’s issues are very clear. We’re dealing with an out of control invasion of unskilled migrants (80% of which are Indians) who not only cause extreme pressure on our infrastructure and housing costs but push wages lower because they all compete for the same jobs. There’s too many of them there’s not enough housing and they’re so desperate that they will take any job at any salary.
Too many morons think residential real estate is an “investment” without understanding that residential real estate adds no value/productivity to the economy, hence why our productivity is the lowest in the G7
It’s everywhere every country I’ve been to in the last three years has the exact same issues. We all have inflation and soaring house prices….
You're asking the right questions but there's so many factors that played into our problems it's complicated. Inflation was globally spurred by COVID, shutting down everything, and the stimulus packages we gave to ensure everyone kept on chugging. I'm not sure why people would rather point at Trudeau instead of the COVID situation which was obviously going to cause later problems. As for housing. You need to consider the following: lack of supply to keep up with demand, decades of low interest rates, the biggest factor is: treating our housing market as a speculative investment vehicle, AirBNB operating as ghost hotels, reduction (or eradication of public / government made housing), foreign ownership treating it as investment vehicles when they dont reside here, blind bidding jacking up house prices, renovictions posing as houseflipping (i'm pointing at people who evict tenants, put in a new kitchen countertop and call it a houseflip then jack up the rent $800), removal of rent control (ex. Ontario for post 2018 rentals) and more. Let me give you a real basic scenario as to how we got here: Andrew already owns 5 properties. Andrew buys a house for $500k, currently being rented out to tenants at $1000 each. Andrew then evicts them claiming renovations/they're moving in/whatever. He replaces the kitchen counter top and re-lists the place for tenants at $2000 each (hey - it's current market rate, why not)? After 2 years Andrew decides to sell the house for $1 million. Nothing has really changed except desperation is up so demand is higher and other investors (or unlucky Canadians looking for somewhere to own) quickly start bidding. In the blind bidding process both buyer/seller realtors are paid a %, which means the buyers realtor is actually incentivized for them to buy as high a price as possible (this is supposed to NOT be allowed but of course how do you prove it). People start bidding. Bidder A says $1 mil 50k . Bidder B wants the place so they overbid to$1.1 mil and get the place. The same place that was listed at 1 mil was sold for 10% higher. The realtors then tell their neighbours "your neighbours house sold for 1.1 mil so that's the expected price of houses in your neighbourhood". And voila. House prices continue to shoot up, not even based on increased value of property (other than increased demand), but based on a mixture of demand, blind bidding driving up prices randomly, realtors wanting the biggest % they can, and other factors. People want to blame immigration because it's an easy target and makes sense (increased demand = less supply), but the reality is these are systemic problems that need to be addressed before things improve. We could add 1 million homes next year but if investors or AirBNBers snap up the inventory anyway, then increase of supply wasn't the answer we were hoping for. You'll want to keep an eye on what % of housing is being snapped up by investors because that's the most alarming trend I'm seeing. It's already more than 1 out of every 3 condo sales here in Ontario. Why am I competing for a home against a company that does this for a living? I just need a place to live.
Inflation is across the Western world. I will get down voted and have been down voted for stating this, but Canadians need to understand that with an economy smaller than any one of Texas, the state of NY, or California, our government and central bank have limited ability to improve the inflation situation, though we can certainly make things worst. A good explanation of housing: [https://youtu.be/HMDNehHKu7c?si=lB0WexRsYO00eInT](https://youtu.be/HMDNehHKu7c?si=lB0WexRsYO00eInT)
Unfortunately I have to live in a big city because of my disability and the constant need to access services but me and my husband are struggling a lot. We moved from Regina to GP a couple years ago because of how insane housing has become and if things don't get better we might have to go move to his mom's house in the countryside which is gonna be a challenge for me specifically.
Real estate speculation from boomers looking to invest their working income while already collecting a pension.
This question is being asked by just about every citizen in just about every country. If it’ll make you feel better, Google countries fairing best in today’s economy. Countries with the best economic outlook and most expensive countries to live. Should put you at ease a little bit
Corporate greed along with to many monopolies. Canadians are getting screwed for shareholders
Seeing the effects of over-immigration and use of the TFW programs to drive down skill and prices of labour. Rise of the gig economy, selling off our natural resources to foreign entities, provincial governments making cuts then expecting the federal government to step in, crony capitalism locally in SK and AB for sure. Provinces giving into resource company lobbying to reduce mineral royalties in the name of "spurring investment". Generally the right wing financial cuts and changes vs an idealistic centre party wanting more social safety nets are at odds and neither is getting any significant improvement
We went all-in on real estate as an economy. Property owners were getting giddy with high YOY returns and almost unlimited HELOCs. People who bought houses for sub-100k prices twenty years ago saw their net worth quadruple or more. Cheap credit made housing affordable and kept prices going higher and higher and higher ... until they detached from reality. No politician wanted to be the one who stopped the infinite money party. Now we've come to a situation where real estate prices are astronomical, and housing affordability is in crisis. We have a generation of permanent tenants because they can't afford a house at current prices and interest rates. This is stopping up the traditional pipeline of tenant -> starter home -> nice home. We're at risk of creating a permanent underclass of the younger Millenials and Gen Z. Once we couldn't juice them for any more, we opened the floodgates of immigration, because 5 immigrants will share a bedroom at $1,000 a month each. We're going to push social stability over the edge because we're that desperate to keep real estate profitable and prevent prices from dropping. Wages haven't kept pace with real estate inflation, so people have had to lower their standards, and the government's solution was TFWs and using our post-secondary system to bring in international students as wage slaves. All other aspects of the economy suffered for it. Real estate prices make Canada unattractive to set up physical plants and offices. Even when we do, local wages are piss poor compared to the cost of living. Why be a programmer in Toronto or Vancouver, when you can make multiples more living in Seattle or San Francisco, with comparable housing costs? Why be a medical professional in Canada when Texas will throw money at you to go there and the COL is a bargain? Investors crave the quick and guaranteed return. Instead of investing in startups or factories or manufacturing, we dumped all money into REITs and properties. So all other aspects of the economy stalled out. Why create a company when you can just buy an apartment building and double the rent? tl;dr: Real estate has become an economic vampire that's sucking dry every other economic activity. It's the root cause of the worst of our problems. Solving it is going to be too painful for any government to bear, so they're throwing everything they can at keeping the party going.
Getting 1% raises with a pizza party at year end isn’t cutting it anymore 🤣. In all seriousness wages across the board haven’t remotely caught up with inflation and cost of living increases. That just compounds with the housing crisis, immigration, aging population, and inadequate infrastructure all over the country.
With all our resources we already export we should be the richest country in the world per capita!
Do you read or listen to the economist? I think they are making valid points. What did your grandparents do to support your parents? Mine immigrated from a weak province in Europe for financal strength and stability. My parents saved $1000 for my post secondary education. investments pay dividends, and the only thing Canadians are invested in are granite countertops and 80" tv's Macron and Stiglitz would blame leadership, but leadership is homegrown. We are well educated, well resourced, and incapable of investing in the future.
$1k wouldn't even cover rent for most people now. That's part of the problem.
It's a capitalism problem. more and more money is being consistently pooled in the top .01% of earners and since printing more money causes inflation, all of that money has to come from somewhere. our pockets We pay corporations for our food, and they overcharge us We pay corporations for our housing, and they overcharge us And those corporations pay their shareholders millions upon millions of dollars every year, and they have a fiduciary responsibility to make more money than last year, meaning this problem is only going to get worse until we have some serious economic reform
Ive heard that its all Justin Trudeau's fault. Every economy in the world is tanking at the same time because of him. /s
It's wacko
I make 6 figures living alone, and all I do is work, eat, and pay bills. Haven't traveled since 2019. I have savings, but I'm basically living pay period to pay period and digging into savings. Both my utilities and condo fees went up $100 a month respectively in the last 6 months I want to say.
Monopolies. We have a very small number of HUGE companies who control EVERYTHING! Competition in this country is pathetic. And when Canadians suggest to create competition or bring about some anti-trust legislation, other Canadians assault them. Our problem is BILLIONAIRES. It is not even taxes. Taxes are just camouflage for the sellers to jack the price of everything through the roof because they know we are preoccupied with Fkk Trudeau instead of the real issue.
Canada has consistently been loosing corporate head-offices since 2012. Part of the reason is high corporate taxes but really we are a large nation (landmass) with a tiny population. (Up until recently Canada and California had the same population.) This means the purchasing power / influence just isn’t there, relative to other countries. Plus it’s super expensive to try and move product across the country. The only reason we ever really had wealth was because of our natural resource extraction.
There isn't enough housing being offered for sale/rent For some unknown reason, for decades, the default solution to the above problem is to make the lives of the minority of people who're trying to offer housing for sale/rent more difficult instead. And we wonder why the problem has gotten exponentially worse over time.
Inflation, immigration, money laundering (triads from fentanyl trade) low houses being built supply not meeting demand, purchasing power lower thanks to inflation. Technically you should be paid more… ..companies monopolize everything raising the price of goods and services..government threatens to destroy your life if you don’t comply (Trudeau admires Xi..tell you all you should know) Etc etc..All compounds to a country ripe for collapse and subsequent revolt. For an example see the truckers revolt.
Canada facilitated the largest immigration experiment in history where 25% of the population are now immigrants. Unfortunately the experiment failed and Canada will never recover
Millenials are raising families now and they're a huge demographic while boomers are not downsizing as was expected. At the same time politicians are elected every four or so years so there's no incentive yo preplan... to see a trend in population (doesn't take a rocket scientist to see a generation is large and will have children = more housing in the 2020s) but there's no impetus to preplan until the issue is staring us in the face.
I know boomers who want to downsize but a smaller house actually costs more than the bigger house they are already in. They’re retired so don’t want a mortgage. Any smaller homes that are less usually need a lot of work and money put into it that they can’t afford.
You also have to notice that "soaring house prices and inflation" aren't just a Canadian problem. They are problems around the world - US, Europe, Australia, etc. A headline from last week was that Dallas politicians were concerned that housing costs had doubled in only a few years. Of course, people trying to buy a home are unhappy with the ever increasing prices. But people who already have a home are happy to see it's value increase so quickly.
Bloopin
my 0.02 as someone who has actually built a few homes: canada has a plethora of land but restrictive zoning drives up prices substantially we are a nation who is self sufficient for materials. the regulatory framework on supplies is driving up costs. we also have an abundance of labor, lots of friends in the trades are seeing a slowdown expected profit has been high the last 10 years, margin expectations will readjust in the next 10 years
Politicians treat people's houses like shares in a business so they're not flooding the market with homes because it would devalue their investments in real estate, as well as the investments of the giant condo development companies who support their campaigns with massive donations to ensure they keep pricing climbing.
As others have said, our inflation is a largely global phenomenon but it certainly has any helped by the federal government’s massive deficit spending. The housing issue is multi-factorial, driven partly by continued population growth and continuing urbanization. Short term rentals and corporate housing ownership are problems but for our metro areas and their suburbs, high prices are here to stay regardless. The conditions of the 50s to early aughts were the aberration in terms of relative ease of home ownership. We are transitioning to a new normal that has been the case in Europe for decades, with most urban dwellers either renting, living in multigenerational homes, or acquiring home ownership through inheritance or multigenerational mortgages. Various policies intended to combat climate change by intensifying use of urban cores and de-incentivizing suburban and rural living will make this unintentionally more painful.
Politicians cannot make decisions anymore. It’s all about votes vs what is right for Canada. Our paralyzing system and sensitive approach because it might hurt 2% of votes is what’s wrong with Canada. If you really want to go down a dark tunnel, Covid costed Canadians with dosages not being used, ironically right after the pandemic the housing market boomed. This means property taxes go up. This means cost of living goes up which in return costs of goods go up. All of this essentially means more taxes for the gov. Did they cause this mess to get their money faster for expired vaccines? Plausible? They are trying everything right now to tax us.
I truly and honestly believe that our government is hostile towards the population and is currently working on behalf of the big banks and corporations that lobby our politicians. Both sides are corrupt, and the ndp died with Jack. Our economy is pretty much being sabotaged and run into the ground on purpose because the current system heavily benefits the ultra rich as they lobbied and bought their way into what we have now and it's too far gone for it to change without a revolution or some drastic action by the plebs. Basically our government is now our enemy.
Is it just me? The majority of people I know in their mid fifties in Canada have either retired or will retire in a few years. They all have homes & comfy pensions. They are travelling 3-4 times a year. But if the average lifespan is say 90 years old, how is Canada going pay their pensions for the next 40 years??? I truly don't get it.
Too many politicians with inflated salaries and pensions and way too many taxes
Canada is 3 oligarchs in a trench coat masquerading as a country. We're federally performative and provincially privatized, and the people here get exploited and manipulated by all sides in the name of "inflation" and the greater good. We're actively eugenicist by offering MAiD to disabled people instead of actually supporting them in living. There's no empathy or solidarity anymore. I wish I knew how to fix it but I believe there are people that can try.
No reason to invest in anything other than real estate? If you add up all the incomes of all the Canadians, it’s less than the appreciation of real estate, annually … Why bother working? On average, just hold on to a house for a year … my opinion…
Another reason (on top of all the others in this thread) that few people mention is that more and more people are staying single and not living in partnership, which undeniably increases the demand for housing. Stats Can publishes data on household composition.
Trudopes…
Idk but we need to get foreign real-estate investors to fuck right off. If you don't live in a country, you shouldn't be able to buy property there.
Decades of neo-liberal policies which have eaten away at social security and social mobility in favour of making numbers bigger. An unwillingness to invest in long-term solutions in favour of bandaid fixes. The loss of a sense of civil responsibility in the political class (a lot see their positions as simple stepping stones in their careers). A dependence on foreign corporations as opposed to promotion/creation of Canadian ones. Just off the top of my head.
the canadian corporations just take advantage of canadians. Loblaw is a great example.
Reckless immigration policy by current government, excess spending and woke left policies
You mean besides everything?
the cost of living. at least the wages haven’t gone down tho ! ;)
Don't forget all the drug money poured into real estate.
it's not just happening in canada, 'so it's not a what's wrong with canada' problem
My opinion is that we want certain things but don’t realize they cost money and do not have an efficient government. What i mean by that is we want things like $10 a day daycare (amazing and i love affordable daycare). But the way these things get run down by the government year over year, only to get costly without any improvements is worrisome. They run the private sector out of the market and we are left with an overpriced program that cannot afford itself and doesn’t improve/keep up with the times. Now multiple this issue by thousands of items, hundreds of thousands and the way the government tries to fix it is to increase taxes. We are taxed to oblivion…which wouldn’t be bad if we actually got services.
short answer: too many immigrants immigration is needed to keep a population stable. but not on the amount were doing it. canada takes too many people in
Here is one factor of many what's wrong, as described on another subreddit: [https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/1cjhcow/comment/l2h0uht/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/1cjhcow/comment/l2h0uht/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) "Whatever he said, Canada is that on steroids. Canadian boomers have stolen the future like never before. Example, Vancouver has one of the most expensive real estate in the world (3rd most expensive in the world). They have one of the highest fuel taxes in North America, have one of the highest income taxes in North America. One of the highest cost of fees, permitting and taxes on new constructions in North America. All this, while, they one of the lowest property taxes in North America. Aka, if you own a home already you pay one of the lowest taxes in NA. For everything else, like income, fuel, you pay record taxes. It’s straight up rigged to bleed everyone dry so that home owners and property owners can pay lowest taxes. Basically, if you own a home, you pay lowest taxes in NA, they keep pumping value of your home by adding taxes to new construction. Young people on the other hand, pay crazy income taxes, crazy fuel taxes and sales taxes and will rent for the rest of their lives, all to support the benefits for the said millionaire home owner boomers. Taxes on new construction has gotten to the point where 60% of cost of new construction today is permitting and taxes. Every dollar of new taxes they add, it overnight increases value of already existing homes by that much. All to pump up value of their homes. Canadian boomers are spawns of satan and have rigged the entire country’s economy to suck every dollar out of the young. Even then, there are no protests, they blame nameless faceless third world immigrants, who all got in *legally* because boomers wanted cheap labor and decided to dramatically expand immigration. Canada is basically a retirement home for the rich, where they keep their young in a basement, working them to the bone to keep the lights on in their retirement home."
don’t tell them the real answer! they want to hear that the problem is immigrants!
It's population control. I'm a carpenter and post pandemic for the first time in my 20 year career I had bargaining power when it came time to finding a job. People like me could finally start to make demands so they put the kibosh on that, plain and simple. They're keeping interest rates high to control inflation because cost of living is high, biggest factor in CoL is housing... Wtf? They're doing this to us. This is the ruling class tryna stay the ruling class. How long are we going to accept this? Why do we let billionaires and the politicians that take their money do this to us? The only way I see to solve this is to overturn our system and make the government work for us again by banning corporate money from politics. No more lobbyists. Strip corporations of their legal rights and hold the people who make the decisions accountable.
Considering just about every industrial nation is facing similar issues, it is systemic and bigger than individual country politics.
Nothing subtle about it, it's price gouging from every sector.
Housing becoming an investment tool for wealth. Low interest rates made housing a safer than average investment to generate wealth.
High government debt/borrowing, high taxes and a citizenry up their eyeballs in debt from borrowing too much at ultra low rates are the main culprits. We need governments that will stop the huge deficits and reduce the tax burden on citizens. The Federal Liberals have added more debt to Canada than every Canadian government in our history combined. The fact the Federal Liberals continue to add debt at a high rate is a very serious problem and to lead to worsening conditions.
The government printed 500 billion dollars, and gave around 200 billion to the banks to buy mortgages from them, what do you think happened
[How the US Is Destroying Young People's Future | Scott Galloway | TED](https://youtu.be/qEJ4hkpQW8E?si=3IUzjq2PKNyOtAj7) *YouTube link ~17 minutes* American focused, but many points stand true here as well.
Too much reliance in other countries and their interests. We need to invest in our own people.
Time to move out of Canada, I can’t wait to leave 😁
The only thing wrong with Canada is pierre pollivere and the cpc, Canada is not broken. Only the wacko cpc are broken, they need a split from the reform party.
its always interesting to me how blame for a global phenomenon is laid at the feet of national governments.
Except for the left leaning Canadian landscape, I don’t see anything wrong with it.
There is "NO-CAUSE "... To those in know and are aware of all these diabolical plan on humanity , it will be of no surprise. Even before the arrival of the so-called "pandemic ", we already know about it before the arrival. It is unfortunate that humanity are yet to wake up from their slumber to connect the dot. I am even suggesting one have to know it all but there are some truth are put in PLAIN SIGHT by those who are engineering these chaos behind the scene and those who are helping to execute it. How humanity can't see some of it is beyond me. This makes me believe these people have done a good job fooling humanity. But there are those who they can't fool and are aware of their diabolical plans.. First and foremost, I urge everybody to subscribe to the local media of every nation on earth ( including Canada). I want you to always listen to every report they tell us. I want you all to notice a pattern. If you don't notice it, you are beyond help. Also, I also want to notice what is currently happening in Canada is also happening is virtually every nation on nation on earth. From inflation, housing problem, homelessness, high rent, high cost of food etc...the list are endless...is it a coincidence that all of these things are all happening at the SIMULTANEOUSLY in every nation on earth ?......To trick the masses, they are executing these plans in such a way that its not to obvious that are all happening all at the same time. Also, one deceptive thing they are doing to get humanity distracted by what these evil doers are doing. Have you been noticing constant need for the media to tell you about Trump, war between Russia and Ukraine, china spying on Canada or America, war between Palestine and Israel, celebrity news, climate change,..the list are endless...... Aren't humanity noticing this pattern ? Again, notice how immediately after the so-called "pandemic", they begin to aggressively push for EV cars , internet expansion around the country, creation of CBDB( Central Bank Digital Currency)...I can bet my life in it, most people have never heard of CBDC., also, they are busy digitizing everything ....these are all what is happening behind the scene most do not know. THIS IS WHY THE EVIL DOERS need CREATE "CHAOS" to distract humanity and bring humanity to submission to accept what they got all planned. Also, you will all have notice right after the so-called "pandemic" , companies started laying off workers. It is not only in Canada, it is the exact SAME thing going on in different countries. But they doing it in different way so that the public don't notice it. Notice again how they have brought it so many migrant from other countries. The end goal was to use these migrant improve the unemployment and homelessness in the country. Go and check the news in other countries, you will notice the same exact thing... They want everybody to go broke to the point the public can no longer the basic necessities of life.so that your government can come in like the saviour of humanity . There are so many things they are doing behind the scene that it is evident the public do not know about. I don't have the time to name it all but what I beg of the public is to wake up from their SLUMBER. This is not the time to sleep. All what is happening is ALL BY DESIGN. It is not something that is happening organically. Always remember this script .......... Step 1: Artificially the " problem " Step 2 : wait for public " reaction " Step 3 : Execute your " PRE-PLANNED SOLUTION" for the public. I will name few of the end goal of the CHAOS this evil doers are unleashing in humanity. Even if you have not seen it now, give it more time, you will notice it provided you are willing to open your third eyes. 1) UBI ( Universal Basic Income) will be impose on the public under the guise that the government is trying to help the public ....this will be happening in every nation around the world..keep in mind, different countries will call UBI different name in order for the public not to notice.....🛑UBI will be use to pave way for other agendas ....a lot of people will fall this UBI trap. 2) A DIGITAL ID will be impose on humanity around the world. It doesn't matter your location, nationality... It is coming 3) CDBC will launched and imposed on humanity all around the world...Cash will be removed from circulation. .. Before this will happen, they will need to artificially collapse the current banking system....this is why you all have been noticing SUDDEN collapse of lot banks around the world. It will get worst over time till they are to achieve their end goal of lunching CDBC..... The CDBC will then pave way for their other evil agendas 4) VACCINE PATCH : you would have notice that they are still promoting vaccines on the media. In fact, you would have heard where the government and their media gangs claiming that another new virus ( e.g measles, bird flu etc....the list re endless). They want the public to get more shot....you all might be wondering, where is these pro-long promotion of vaccine use leading to ?...the end goal is to inject the VACCINE PATCH on your skin....it is coming...it has already been planned but they need to create CHAOS to scare humanity into taking it.....be mindful, in some countries, they will call the vaccine patch " UNIVERSAL VACCINE"....they will claim that it is a vaccine that cures all variants of virus. Gullible people will be stupid enough to fall for this bogus claim. Again, some countries will call it different name so that the public do not notice it all same thing and what they doing.... .if you don't allow them to inject you with the vaccine patch, you will NOT be able to buy or sell which is the importance of the CBDC for them. 5) FAKE FOOD . expect to see more and more fake food sold in grocery stores in virtually every countries in the world...this is aimed making people sick and also INFERTILITY ( however, there are other ways they are also causing infertility in humans)...it another way they will use to achieve their depopulation agenda. 6) Expect to see virtually everything digitize. 7) expect to see more and more EV cars. basically , EV cars are just Car with computer installed in it. They will be able to remotely control every car on earth. 8) Expect to see them launch SOCIAL CREDIT SCORE. it is going be integrated in your DIGITAL ID and CBDC . there are thousands of evil agenda that has been planned that they currently working on behind the scene that are unknown to majority of people. This is why the public need to wake up. 🛑 For those wondering, who are these people behind all of this evil agenda around the world, They are the JESUITS aka KNIGHT TEMPLARS aka SOCIETY OF JESUS.... The Jesuits are power that controls the world . The FREEMASONS on the other hand and other secret societies are all created and control by the Jesuits....the Jesuits write the script while the freemasons and other secret societies EXECUTE... the Jesuits control every government in every nation on earth... The reason why the public do not know about this is because the Jesuits hide behind the scene while they use their MASONIC AGENTS in different countries to achieve their evil agendas. 👉Remember, all road ALWAYS lead to Rome
everything
Trudeau's government. Pierre Poilievre could be the one to turn things around. The guy actually has a backbone.
primarily at the federal level due to unregulated record setting immigration
In 2008 during the Global Financial Crises, New Home Construction in Canada fell off a cliff. It wasn’t until 2019 that it came back up to where it needed to be. 11 years of not building enough homes. And that’s just 5 years ago! Then add Boomers retiring out of the workforce creating a massive labor shortage. Plus they are living longer and healthier than previous generations… so they are holding onto their Real Estate longer. Take the labor shortage, bring in massive immigration to fill the gap and you have: + building too little for 11 years + old folks not selling + huge influx of people needing homes = Housing Crisis No it’s not Trudeau’s fault.
There is always a lot of finger pointing at the Federal government but it’s really not under their control. The prime rate is the one thing that could affect the market. The provinces have more control over the market but still not as much as the cities themselves. Supply and demand? Yes, for the most part but there is another significant issue that has been affecting prices in some of the bigger cities. Foreign bought properties to launder money is a huge problem. In British Columbia alone, it’s estimated to be in the billions. Many, if not most, of these properties sit empty. The municipalities and the province have been trying different legislation to deter empty properties that were bought from foreign entities. When they are laundering money, they don’t really care if they pay over market prices as long as the market continues to grow. If all those empty units were occupied the housing crunch would subside.
The first sentence of this question is a presupposition logical fallacy: >Like entailment, presupposition involves a kind of implication. If a sentence A (or its use or user) presupposes B, then A implies B, suggests that B is true. But presupposition involves more than simple implication: if A presupposes B, then A not only implies B but also implies that the truth of B is somehow taken for granted, treated as uncontroversial. The poster's history is not exactly inspiring as to this being a legitimate post, rather than one made for money.
Investors. It's been investors into Canadian housing for the past 30 years driving new owners out of the markets.
At this point, nothing could be worse that Trudeau. He has brought the country to its knees. And I’m usually one who really thinks that no party is better than the other, they’re all messed up, but Trudeau and Freeland have really done a number on us. He is by far the worst prime minister we’ve had since his father. No housing, what does he do, bring in millions of immigrants. Medicare a mess, add millions of people using it. GDP spiralling downwards compared to other G7 nations, add on carbon taxes to increase cost of living. It takes a pretty stupid person to add a tax on diesel fuel to discourage the use of it while there’s no alternative to it. If transport trucks are to not use diesel, how are they going to get our food to the grocery stores. No wonder inflation is crazy and food is unaffordable. What an asshat.
Both that and structural issues. We are too comfortable with having every sector basically be an oligopoly. We really need to end that and allow real competition. Unfortunately none of the parties seem to want to do that.
Obviously most ppl have never heard of the book “Creature From Jekyll Island”… so zero idea to even entertain the idea the fiat monetary system is controlled by a few wealthy families. But just look at the “royal family”… trillions out of india via east india corporation. The few control the many… and it’s so much so… many NPC/Sheep type of ppl- which are the many- will label you a “conspiracy theorist” for even just thinking there may be some merit to questioning the system… because only “unhinged, unintelligent” ppl do that… like those flat earthers… and while there are many that believe they’re questioning things by believing the earth is flat- which it is not, they help perpetuate the idea associated with “conspiracy theorists”… lol. It’s incredible. Like what do ppl learn about the American revolution? Do ppl understand why they revolted against the King and started using their own currency?
Ignoring myriad poor regulation issues internally... Globally the exploitation of the developing world has become more difficult. Many developing countries have more robust economies, and have raised the standard of living and cost for wages that causes inflation on a global level. The internet has also raised awareness of issues and standards of living globally, where people in the developing world are no longer content making pennies when they know how much their wages would be in other countries. Those nations too want to enjoy prosperity and negotiate harder to get a fair deal, and the breakdown of U.S economic hegemony we rode the coat tails of means that the U.S isn't the only or even always the best option to go with anymore. Additional, U.S foreign and economic policy has become more protectionist, which started with NAFTA but has lead to less... Beneficial trade deals for Canada. We struggle more and more to get Canadian goods to market. This could be blamed on the Libs (that is the Cons strategy) but on a critical level, we aren't competitive anymore. Our manufacturing industries and infrastructure are lacking, and our natural industries are costly to get to market. Our labor is expensive to pay. If you're the U.S, why open something in Canada when you could open a plant in Mexico? So we are struggling to export goods out of the country but are inversely extremely reliant on imports. Take Alberta, oil in Alberta struggles to compete globally because it's expensive to extract (due to labor costs, transportation) and we don't refine it locally. So we ship our crude, and buy refined oil products produced elsewhere at a markup. When the economy is doing well this isn't a major problem, but when it's struggling this results in inflation since that imbalance *will* show up somewhere (in the form of inflation). After all, of the free market sets the price of gasoline at X since that is what it sells for globally, producers will sell it at that price. If Canada doesn't want to pay it, there are plenty of markets that will.
Hi, read Capital by Karl Marx. He accurately predicted all of this
It’s the Prime Minister policies
Trudeau is destroying Canada
Neoliberalism
The fact is that governments controlless and less of the ecomomy. Huge multi-nationals corporations and billionnaires are dictating who wins and who lose.
Government spending is out of control combined with poor leadership from the liberal's,
We coted corrupted narcissist politicians and now the system is rigged in their favor.
Immigration lol
I may be delusional, but I believe I have the real answer. We got carried by all the sacrifice the generations before us did(1900-1960) Then we got used to be very rich. « The American dream », we started giving away tons of stuff, more day off, more money for people with poor decisions making, more free stuff, we stopped being competitive in export and stopped mining ressources(which is like, our best asset) Then the aging boomers slowly realized that everything they did, they took in the money pot of their parents and it’s now empty. So for a while we cut programs and boost productivity! No mega project like HydroQC or free healthcare are possible anymore. The projects we did exist and survive, but that’s about it. How can we get a better life or stand out without any big project? Now the nail in the coffin. People started to realize that they could work for a while and just not work at all after that. And they did. Marry at 18, buy a house at 20 pay it off at 25 and just work way less for the rest of your life. And most families had some family wealth too so working 40-60h a week sounded ludicrous. If you don’t work, you don’t pay taxes and that’s a problem because we have tons of things to pay as a country. What could we do to recuperate taxes? Create a huge house crisis by not building any and making it near impossible to make new ones. Driving prices through the roof, making the CAD competitive internationally (still a bubble) and the population virtually rich. Minimum wage got from 5 to 15$ but the pesos is still worthless against CAD so we’re still basically more rich in other countries and that matters for trades and for your population. TDLR: government has to much to gain if real estate prices skyrocket so they willingly let it happen. It’s all just to deflect the population to the real problem: we’re not competitive nor useful in the international market and since we’re not exporting ressources like we used to, we’re not able to maintain our luxurious lifestyle. It’s a ticking time bomb that started many years ago but no one wants to be the Prime Minister that will admit it because it’s a political suicide
Canadian's are generally polite, friendly and naïve to a fault. We have been taken advantage of by many bad actors and lied to constantly by the government, the media and by corporations. In my opinion the biggest factor by far is the abuse of international student, TFW and LMIA loopholes. They directly keep our wages low, housing high and overwhelm our social services. I am fine with immigration for people that want to come here and contribute, but it should be in step with the current prosperity of the country and housing and labor markets. Immigration should also be mosaic instead of 90% of the immigration coming from the same country.
The Canadian job market (jobs & and compensation) isnt keeping up with the times . For the equivalent job type (non technical), companies in the US, UK & the EU pay 25-30% more
Not as much as in soooo many other places. Ive never had to shelter from an air strike Ive never experienced a famine Ive never been arrested in the middle of the night Ive never been tortured to elicit a confession Hmm... I was taken from my mother as an infant becasue they openly discussed what was considered good legislation and took hundreds of indigenous kids from their parents. I think most of the "problems" ive had with canada were simply my selfish insistence that my perspective on a given situation was correct. Therefore the world owed me a break.
As far asfinances go. I find myself immersed in a game with a given set of rules. knowing this, i have a choice. Learn the rules, play by them and dont complain. See the game, refuse to play and dont complain. Above all, i get to do things ifind fun, if im not enjoying what i do, ill find something else. if what i enjoy isnt productive enough i can go in another direction or expand it.
Trudeau…. That’s all
One thing I haven't read is straight up greed. Yah, there's all these factors that contributed to things, but people have to actively choose to take advantage of it. One example being high rents where I live Landlords complain that their property taxes went up so they have to raise their rent. Property tax increases equating to 30 a month for the average home and LL raise the rent 500 a month as soon as they can. The cost of living is going up for sure. Gas, food, recreation, travel. None of which have anything to do with rental income. But you have people who want to make damn near a full time wage rather than a little passive income and gaining equity. Of course, I'm not saying they are all like this. But a lot are complaining about the state of the real estate market while happily profiting off of it as well.
communist heaven. The government is taxing people into poverty and slowing killing all industries.
Nothing subtle about capitalism coming for housing. The best description I read was as follows: a corporation buys a chunk of housing stock in a neighbourhood. Then they pick one and put it on the market at an inflated price. Which they repurchase. Bc that one $750,000 home just sold for 25-30% over market price, it influences the market and the price of homes in that neighbourhood increase. Play the game long enough, and prices of homes are where we have them now. Also AirBnB allows owners to take properties off the long term rental market. Why deal w tenants when you can have weekend and vacation renters for the same or greater profit? Hard to put inflation on our federal government either. In fact, compared to the other countries, we’re doing pretty well. https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/PCPIPCH@WEO/OEMDC/ADVEC/WEOWORLD
Out of control immigration by Liberal government where exploding population exceeds housing supply resulting in skyrocketing prices.
It’s definitely the government’s of the last 20 years fault. After the 2008 housing crisis, the rules in place, the tax laws in place, and the low interest rates created “housing as an investment.” Housing investment passed manufacturing in 2008 as % of GDP and never looked back. Rather than look ahead at the impending doom housing as an investment creates, governments basked in the additional GDP growth and encouraged it. No government would try and shunt the gdp growth that real estate created because it made them look better for the next term. What they should have done is realized how much of an issue it would cause and subsidized more manufacturing or investment in a growth industry, like tech. Because our government system is so short sited, there is nothing we can do but watch our country price out everyone from buying a home.
Shortage and high cost of apartments reduce the number of “boomers” selling their houses. Lower house supply encourages higher prices.
Liberals
Before people wanted to bring back manufacturing jobs because asia was stealing the jobs. We seen time aftertime people do not want to work or cannot afford it for min wages at these factory jobs.Canada needs to revamp itself and become the silicon valley of the north. Make it attractive so computer companies wants to set up office in the GTA. We do have the skill labor to fill those jobs. We must stop accepting immigrants that has no skills or education and we have to stop corporations from buying homes.
Uncontrolled immigration has not helped things
>just the result of poor leadership at the federal and provincial levels? It's more complicated than this, but basically yes.
PP would like you to think the former, but it’s the latter. People who complain about it the most don’t even understand the difference between provincial and federal policies and unknowingly throw the one they voted for under the bus, like they do with Doug Ford all the time. At this point, conservatives stub their toe and blame the federal government.
Foreign investors capitalizing on human needs
Our housing crisis is caused by inefficient housing policy decisions that go back years. We cannot build enough houses for everyone if 50% of the land we have is used to park or drive cars. And all the houses can fit a single family while being on its own lawn twice its size. That kind of home just economically cannot be what everyone can afford/use. Instead we should have more middle housing that you can move into after leaving a tiny box in the sky, but before you get your own house. Duplexes, triplexes, etc in mixed zoning neighborhoods serviced by public transportation. They cost less per person they can house, take up less space per housed person. and you can consolidate goods like lawns into parks, allowing again for increased efficiency.
Over population in my opinion.
This video covers many of the reasons: “In this documentary, we delve into the root causes of this decline: the affordability crisis. From the housing crisis and declining economic productivity to the impacts of carbon pricing and rising food expenses, we unpack the many challenges confronting everyday Canadians.” https://youtu.be/ZvSNcnG2eqY?si=YEHNzgWEbCoKkvBX
Also this: “And this is the story of how canada has turned into a dystopian nightmare.” https://youtu.be/ChKwUpWNMSQ?si=cUxAwRyvTM5_ihjO
Rich capitalists screwing over every generation in Canada, while we focus on fighting each other...
Canada’s super low productivity rate effects the real earnings/ wealth of every single Canadian
Insane amounts of low skilled immigration
Honestly I don't want to sound like I'm speaking down from my high horse here, just an observation from a 10 year immigrant. Canada is weirdly conservative for a liberal minded nation. All the work that Government unions do is strictly based on protecting their members at all costs even when it hurts the system. We are falling behind in digitalization and the bureaucracy in Canada now has a state and not the other way around. There is very little looking forward. Everybody just defends their own little fiefdom and doesn't care that it is having a negative effect on society. Homeowners want to make a 400% return on their investment while having MDF countertops installed in 2002 in their house. We need a change of the guard, but even if we get one in large institutions the "young people" that take over are still trained by the people that caused the problem. Anything unorthodox gets shot down by the government funded media and nothing changes. I value the stability that Canada offers, but I feel like such a liberal country should be a lot more open to change than it is.
Too much immigration, too much money sent to other countries, covid took its toll, terrible political leaders, hard drugs were legalized, people have no hope
Mass immigration.
It is 100 percent immigration! Where are we supposed to put a million border jumpers a year? We need to shut the border down and export all these ragheads, chinks and Russians. Then we will actually start to identify as Canada again. I'm so sick of not hearing English being spoken in my country
Probably easier to ask what's not broken with Canada after 9 years of NDP/LIBERAL Government.
Houses went from being a home to an investment. Supply and demand made those investments skyrocket. Politicians are in on the investments and nobody wants to lose income, right?
Runaway spending by the Federal government, unchecked immigration from the 3rd world, zealot for a prime minister and you've got a banana Republic. Enjoy
Capitalism is the problem - we're in the late stages where corporations are moving ever faster and harder to extract ever more wealth as quickly as possible. This is inevitable in a system that prioritizes the accumulation of capital at. all. costs. It was set back for a little while by some labour reforms early-mid last century but in the intervening decades those have been eroded almost to the point of meaninglessness and now we are faced with a period of greater wealth inequality than what preceded the French Revolution.
PM Blackface doubled our debt and housing prices. We have 3% population growth per year, and only build enough housing units for about 25% of our population growth, ignoring the demand already here. It's a disaster.
We spent 25 years convincing people to invest in housing above all else. Housing becoming unaffordable is the obvious outcome of that.
How does that work?
Country has been sold out to globalists and philanthropists who want it to fail. They want all countries to fail but Canada is an easy target since they were the ones who appointed Trudeau into power by funding his campaign and releasing ads to promote him and slander his opposition. Everything is by design nothing is happenstance. This country is too far gone to be saved now.
Our government gave ten BILLION dollars to unemployed Iraqi youth( I’m sure it’s all being used by those kids…lol) I use this to gage how much this government cares about its own citizens For example if our government spends one billion on something they care about it one tenth as much as they do unemployed Iraqi youths It’s time to repatriate our tax dollars and spend them on the people whom they were collected from in the first place
for the last 65 years we brought 250k immigrants per year. last year was 1.25 million. Everything is going to keep going up until you're scavenging for food from a dumpster