For a country that looks so big on the map, it’s awfully hard to get houses built in Canada these days. But this is all by design: in “Canada’s Million-Dollar Housing Crisis, homes are treated as an investment vehicle rather than a place to live. Dealing with one of the worst shortages in the developed world, Canada’s voters in the recent election were not concerned just about Trump but about who could save the middle-class dream.
As Canadians greeted the announcement of Mark Carney’s cabinet, the expectation was that of far-reaching change. But a day after being sworn in, Canada’s new housing minister, Gregor Robertson, put an end to those hopes. Robertson, the ex-mayor of Vancouver — which saw one of the most severe localised housing crises — said home prices should not go down. Has his boss’s campaign pledge already been turned to dust?
