Canadian Housing Crisis

The Canadian Housing Evidence Collaborative  (CHEC) is an independent, university-based research and knowledge mobilization organization that shares evidence, stimulates new research and advises on strategic evidence-informed action. CHEC brings together a network of more than 30 academics from across Canada and beyond who are engaged in independent, in-depth research exploring the connections between income, housing and health.

The pie chart below represents an unscientific allocation of a possible per cent contribution of each bullet point.

CHEC Causes of Housing Crisis (unscientific percents)

 CHEC explains that the rapid escalation in the cost of both home ownership and rental accommodation in Canada and around the world has a multitude of causes, some more important than others.

Fifteen bold bullet points from the web post “What caused the housing crisis?” are summarized below:

1. Low interest rates:

2. Increased money supply: 

3. Financialization of housing:

4. Failure to prepare for population increase:

5. Exit of government from affordable housing: 

6. Failure to protect existing affordable housing: 

7. Slow municipal approval process:

8. Bad forecasting housing inflation and student increases.

9. Cohort of wealthy homeowners who bid up prices.

10. Grow condos over rentals: 

11. Exclusive single-family Nimbyism: 

12. Failure to build new student housing: 

13. Money laundering illegal money: 

14. Foreign investors buying properties in Canada

15. Failure to develop approved properties 

(Canadian Housing Evidence Collaborative, n.d.)

The pie chart represents an unscientific allocation of a possible per cent contribution of each bullet point. Consider how you would change the allocation of percentage to causes that would more accurately reflect the situation in your area based on your experience.

References

Canadian Housing Evidence Collaborative. (n.d.). What caused the housing crisis. CHEC. Retrieved October 31, 2025, from https://chec-ccrl.ca/what-caused-the-housing-crisis/ 

Ponder People Power and Profit

Two of the transitions that Nova Scotia must make in the near future involve action to reduce the GHG in power generation and provide affordable housing for many of our citizens. Recent media coverage points to market forces that are apparently acting against these transitions.

 

Transition needed in Energy Generation

 

The Canadian Renewable Energy Association calls on the Nova Scotia Government to restore consumer confidence by challenging recent actions taken by Nova Scotia Power Inc. in proposing a significant system access fee for solar energy installations.

Solar Energy Installation

 

“We are calling on the Government of Nova Scotia to intervene to ensure that Nova Scotians can continue to pursue rooftop solar installations and make significant climate-friendly investments in the province,” said Brandy Giannetta, CanREA’s Vice-President of Policy, Regulatory and Government Affairs. NSPI’s proposed system access charge, of $8 per kilowatt of solar PV capacity per month, or nearly $800 per year for the average solar home in Nova Scotia, would erase approximately 60% of the economic value of solar net-metering.1

A Media Release from the Sierra Club of Canada declares it is time to break up with Nova Scotia Power. NSPI’s announcement that it wants to charge a premium on homeowners with solar panel installations is a huge step backward for renewable energy in the province.

“The company is gaslighting homeowners who want to be part of the climate solution,” says National Program Director Gretchen Fitzgerald.. “It’s giving the public the false impression that homeowners with solar panels are cashing in on low electricity at the expense of other customers. That’s simply not true. It takes most solar customers at least ten years just to pay off the loans for their solar panel installation.”2

The Sierra Club suggests NSPI’s proposed 10 percent rate hike over three years, while maintaining its 9 percent guaranteed profit rate underscores the problem of a private energy monopoly.

“Nova Scotians are waking up to the reality that there is no way forward with Nova Scotia Power. If we want affordable, reliable, and clean renewable energy in this province, it can’t be controlled by a private multinational and a rubber stamp review board,” says Deveaux. “We need to recognize that electricity is an essential service. We shouldn’t have to tell Nova Scotia Power that reducing greenhouse gas emissions isn’t a luxury; it’s essential too.”2

Taryn Grant, of CBC News, reports that investors make a fifth of home purchases in Halifax where real estate prices continue to soar.

CBC and Bank Of Canada Chart

 

The report provides context, although it does not directly answer the question of how much investors are responsible for driving up real estate prices.

In Halifax, the average home sale was 26 per cent higher in 2021 than the year before, and 14 per cent higher in 2020 than the year before that, according to statistics reported by the Nova Scotia Real Estate Association. Most major Canadian cities have seen investor activity grow in recent years, but Halifax has seen one of the biggest jumps. Since 2014, investor purchases rose more than four per cent in Halifax, second only to Ottawa's five per cent growth.3 

Providing power to Nova Scotia through publicly owned, community or province wide utilities would recognize the public interest in providing a high standard of electrical service while at the same time leading the transition to reduce the GHG emissions without the need to maintain shareholder dividends. Social action groups are increasingly making the case that in the often severe and constantly changing climate of Nova Scotia, adequate housing is a right and a necessity for health and welfare. When housing is bought and sold as a commodity, the cost of shelter becomes subject to the laws of supply and demand. Unfortunately, demand drives the price up and investors seem to have little interest in increasing the supply of affordable accommodations.

 

References

1	(2022, January 28). Nova Scotia Power's proposed “system access charge” would .... Retrieved January 29, 2022, from https://renewablesassociation.ca/nspi-proposal-would-devastate/
2	(2022, January 28). Media Release: Time to Break Up With Nova Scotia Power. Retrieved January 29, 2022, from https://www.sierraclub.ca/en/media/2022-01-28/media-release-time-break-nova-scotia-power
3	(2022, January 29). Investors make a fifth of home purchases in Halifax, where real .... Retrieved January 29, 2022, from https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/nova-scotia-real-estate-home-prices-investors-bank-of-canada-1.6330903

 

Affordable Housing Crisis and the Election

The need for affordable housing in Canada has reached a crisis level. The plans of the political parties seeking election in September contain incentives, regulations and restrictions to hopefully increase the supply of affordable and deeply affordable housing.

Balance to create affordable housing

 

CBC The Current asks two nonpartisan experts what the parties are promising on affordable housing ahead of election day. Leilani Farha, former U.N. Special Rapporteur on the right to housing, now the global director of the Shift, an organisation that's focussed on that issue, speaking on CBC the Current, thinks the parties need to get their head around addressing homelessness. It has to be urgent and a priority. These are life and death situations.

 

These are situations that are desperate and need to be addressed. She thinks we definitely need more supply in the country. That's a given, but it's what kind of supply. It is necessary to encourage supply, but encourage affordable and deeply affordable supply. She thinks that has to be a priority. Housing is understood as a human right, and there are a lot of people who are not at all enjoying that right in any way in this country.1

 Murtaza Haider, professor of data science and real estate management at Ryerson University and research director of the Urban Analytics Institute, thinks homelessness is a thing that he was expecting a little more on because he saw some mention of it in each platform. 

Conservatives and NDP call it a crisis. They have put forward plans to increase the supply of new housing or new construction. They have to put measures to help new home buyers, especially First-Time Homebuyers or the Millennials, to purchase more homes. There's some programmes to increase the construction of new rental housing. But if you put all of these together, these programmes are not aggressive enough to address the almost five decades of under-construction that we have built fewer homes than we were building in the 70s on a per capita basis in Canada, which has created this state where housing is unaffordable for many people, both renting and buying.1

Natasha Bulowski comments that the sad truth is, Canada’s housing affordability crisis has been 30 years in the making. In a nation where housing needs drastically outstrip availability in most cities, and where the private sector is unwilling or unable to build more truly affordable units, could the COVID-19 pandemic offer a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to embrace new policies and new partnerships with the non-profit housing sector? Could we not use this moment to fix Canada’s housing crisis for good times and bad?

“The private sector is not going to get us out of our housing emergency,” said Ottawa-Centre Councilor Catherine McKenney when I spoke to her in March. “When we talk about affordable housing, supportive housing, social housing, we can’t look at a profit margin. We have to look at a health, social service margin. We have to make sure people are well taken care of and once you put profit into that you will lose that.” Not only must cities figure out ways to prevent the erosion of existing housing stock—“so that we aren’t losing that affordable stock as property owners and landlords renovate and push out tenants,” said McKenney—but also how to drastically increase the construction of new affordable rental units, preferably by public or non-profit actors and in combination with provincial and federal rental assistance programs, so that people can afford to pay for their homes.2

John Rapley, a political economist at the University of Cambridge, speaking on CBC Cross Country Checkup, notes that Canadians value the gains they've made from a soaring housing market. While he welcomes plans to create more housing stock, Rapley warns that new developments will likely face opposition. Communities may push back against plans to increase a neighbourhood's density, which could cause projects to move to lower-income areas or the outskirts of cities, adding to urban sprawl. He believes it won't be up to governments to decide how to move forward, but rather what Canadian homeowners will allow them to do.

"You can't actually just say we'll build cheap houses here and [have] all the other houses keep their same value. Once you add supply to the market, the price and everything comes down, and that's not popular."3

Canada's major federal parties have shared their visions for making housing accessible, offering up ideas from restrictions on foreign buyers to building more housing.3

With many prospective homebuyers feeling squeezed out of the market, and others struggling to find reasonably priced rent in cities across the country, housing affordability has emerged as a key issue for voters ahead of the Sept. 20 election.

 

References

1	(n.d.). The Current with Matt Galloway | Live Radio | CBC Listen. Retrieved August 31, 2021, from https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-63-the-current/clip/15863238-what-parties-promising-affordable-housing-ahead-election-day
2	(2020, May 1). Our opportunity to end housing poverty - | Canadian Centre for .... Retrieved August 31, 2021, from https://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/monitor/our-opportunity-end-housing-poverty
3	(2021, August 29). Measures to make housing more affordable wouldn't be popular with .... Retrieved August 31, 2021, from https://www.cbc.ca/radio/checkup/how-affordable-is-your-housing-situation-right-now-1.6155647/measures-to-make-housing-more-affordable-wouldn-t-be-popular-with-voters-economist-1.6155683