Canada’s Housing Market Is Out of Control
House prices and rents in Canada are skyrocketing. There’s only one solution to the social crisis this has caused: a massive expansion of public housing, releasing people from dependence on a rigged market.
Vancouver has been ranked the world’s second-least affordable city. (Julius Reque / Getty)
The Canadian housing market is out of control. Over the past two years, total sales have increased by an incredible 76 percent. Statistics from April show that property prices went up by 42 percent when compared with the same period last year. This trend of property inflation has continued despite the financial turmoil caused by the pandemic.
The rapid increase of Canada’s house prices has meant that the cost of rents has dramatically outpaced wages. Across the country, tenants have fought back against this rigged system with a broad campaign of rent strikes, occupations, and protests. In order to win these struggles and put an end to Canada’s broken housing market, we need to confront the economic interests behind it.
“Safer Than Gold”
Real estate makes up a disproportionately large part of the Canadian economy. Prices in the sector began to balloon in the early 2000s, but it was only in the last decade that the pace of growth really started to ramp up. This speculative property market is the result of a combination of factors. These range from lax regulation, favorable mortgage policies, and decades of low interest rates, to a lack of investment in public housing stock and weak public pensions.
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