Housing news & insights

Owning a cottage or investment property is no longer a middle-class reality. It’s a sign of affluence in a country where rent and home ownership are so much more expensive for younger residents today than when baby boomers were young. More, not less, taxation of second properties is required to protect younger Canadians in the housing market, fill the revenue hole left by governments that did not plan adequately for boomers’ retirement, and spur productivity.

“There’s a generational divide right now in this country between people who got into the housing market at a time when that was a reasonable thing to do regardless of how much money your parents had in their bank account.” You might think that Gen Squeeze wrote that line. But we’re happy to report it’s from another important voice: Federal Housing Minister Sean Fraser.

Deficits generally are no longer partisan or ideological. They reflect a structural problem in government budgets. Unfortunately, the vitriol that often accompanies talk of taxation impedes the genuine dialogue required to fix this problem, inclining politicians to shy away from speaking hard truths about the fiscal reckoning we now face. Older affluent voters, we need your help to address this problem.

My home has increased in value by $1.5-million. This windfall came from “doing absolutely nothing,” as Mr. Poilievre rightly observed. My gain is a loss for those who enter the housing system after me, because they must pay higher rents and larger mortgages. This “colossal wealth transfer” leads to important questions about how we adapt.

Older Canadians worked and lived in an era when blue-collar jobs could pay enough to purchase a home. With the wealth they have since acquired from rising home values, many have ascended to the ranks of the affluent. The financial industry recognizes this. Public opinion does too. It’s time for governments to catch up, by revisiting social-spending priorities and revenue plans to pay for the investments that citizens want.

The deficits announced in Ottawa’s fall economic statement remind us that previous governments never worked out how to pay for the healthy retirement of baby boomers. The personal finances of younger Canadians are collateral damage.

Federal parties have misdiagnosed the biggest changes in 2023 Fall Economic Statement. Canada needs a federal task force on generational fairness to correct these misperceptions of federal finances.

Nobody likes to be challenged about whether they earned all that they have. Some get defensive when I talk about winning the “lottery of timing” by becoming a homeowner years ago, or when I raise concerns that younger Canadians inherit unaffordability and climate problems in which I’m partly implicated. Breaking through this defensiveness is necessary if Canada is to work once again for young and old alike.

Today, November 16, 2023, is the first global Intergenerational Fairness Day. The urgent need to reverse the deteriorating well-being of younger and future generations stretches beyond Canada. Voices from the US, Germany, UK, Netherlands, Japan, Nigeria, and Australia as well as United Nations Foundation Next Generation Fellows have joined together to call on governments to preserve what is sacred – a healthy childhood, home, and planet – so that we can all be proud of the legacy we leave for those who follow. 

We’ll never be able to fix today’s affordability, housing, medical care, and climate crises without understanding and resolving the intergenerational tensions at their core. Here are five impacts a federal Generational Fairness Task Force will have on key decisions made at Cabinet and Treasury tables.