This article supplied by Troy Media.

By Lee Harding

Canada’s housing affordability crisis is no mystery. It’s the result of deliberate planning decisions that limit suburban growth and inflate home prices

If it feels like housing is getting more unaffordable, it’s because it is.

The Frontier Centre for Public Policy and Chapman University’s Center for Demographics and Policy have released the 2025 edition of the Demographia International Housing Affordability report, authored by Wendell Cox. It confirms what many homebuyers already suspect: affordability is in decline.

The report examines 95 major housing markets across eight countries, using data from the third quarter of 2024. Now in its 21st year, the study reveals a troubling trend: affordability continues to erode, especially in jurisdictions with strict land-use regulations.

Generally, the cost of living is highest where municipal governments impose the greatest restrictions on suburban growth. These “urban containment
strategies”—including greenbelts, zoning rules and growth boundaries—are often introduced to curb urban sprawl and promote sustainability. But by limiting the land available for development, they drive up the cost of land and, by extension, housing.

The effects are especially stark in places like the United Kingdom, California, Washington, Oregon, Colorado, New Zealand, Australia and much of Canada—jurisdictions where these growth-limiting policies dominate urban planning.

Joel Kotkin, director of the Chapman University centre and a long-time California resident, calls the consequences “feudalizing.” In the feudal system, peasants owed their fortunes, including housing, to the graces of their overlords.

“[T]he primary victims are young people, minorities and immigrants,” Kotkin writes in the report. “Restrictive housing policies may be packaged as
progressive, but in social terms their impact could better be characterized as regressive.”

The same pattern applies to Canada. Even after the economic disruption of the COVID-19 lockdowns, housing affordability remained critically strained. In fact, most major Canadian markets saw a slight worsening.

Demographia measures affordability using the “median multiple”—the ratio of median house price to median household income. This ratio shows how many years of income are needed to buy a home, offering a simple comparison across regions. Around 1990, a home typically cost three times the  average income—a ratio still considered affordable. Anything above that lands on a scale of unaffordability, with scores of nine or more deemed “impossibly unaffordable.”

Canada’s national median multiple is 5.4, placing it in the “severely unaffordable” category. That’s worse than the United States at 4.8 (“seriously unaffordable”), and slightly better than the United Kingdom’s 5.6. Canada also trails Ireland at 5.1 and Singapore at 4.2. New Zealand stands at 7.7, Australia at 9.7 and Hong Kong at an extreme 14.4.

Among Canadian cities, only Edmonton, at 3.7, lands in the “moderately unaffordable” range, ranking fifth-best globally. Calgary sits at 4.8, followed by Ottawa-Gatineau (5.0), Montreal (5.8), Toronto (8.4) and Vancouver (11.8), which ranks as the fourth-least affordable city in the world. This marks a sharp change for Toronto, where affordability remained relatively stable with a median multiple below four from 1971 to 2004.

Though designed to increase sustainability, these planning models have significantly reduced land availability and driven home prices out of reach for
many. As urbanist Jane Jacobs once said, “If planning helps people, they ought to be better off as a result, not worse off.” The data makes it clear—they aren’t.

Yet despite growing evidence, federal and provincial leaders continue to sidestep the core issue.

“In Canada, policy makers are scrambling to ‘magic wand’ more housing,” writes Frontier Centre president David Leis in the report. “But they continue to mostly ignore the main reason for our dysfunctional, costly housing markets—suburban land use restrictions.”

New planning concepts such as the “15-minute city” may make matters worse. This approach aims to create communities where residents can access work, shops and services within a short walk or bike ride. While appealing in theory, it can further restrict development and intensify affordability pressures.

Another key factor—not addressed in the report—is the role of dual-income households. In competitive markets, housing prices are driven not just by what people earn, but by what they can borrow. As more households rely on two fulltime incomes to qualify for mortgages, the market adjusts accordingly, pushing prices higher. This places added pressure on families, especially as governments expand daycare programs and increase taxes to support them, effectively requiring both parents to work just to keep up.

There is, however, a sliver of optimism. The shift toward remote work may ease pressure in high-cost urban centres as more Canadians choose to live in areas with lower housing costs.

Whether governments address the root causes or not, people are already making choices that reflect affordability realities. Increasingly, the heart of a major city is no longer the preferred destination for middle-class Canadians. For many, housing affordability isn’t just an economic issue: it’s about opportunity, stability and the ability to build a future.

Lee Harding is a research fellow with the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

Troy Media empowers Canadian community news outlets by providing independent, insightful analysis and commentary. Our mission is to support local media in helping Canadians stay informed and engaged by delivering reliable content that strengthens community connections and deepens understanding across the country.

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Wallace White

U.S. Navy Secretary John Phelan took aim at the rampant waste in the Navy during a Wednesday posture hearing with the House Appropriations Committee.

Phelan and acting Chief of Naval Operations Adm. James Kilby laid out the Navy’s bloated acquisitions contracting system and inefficient workforce, which employs 56,000 people but only processes two contracts a month per employee on average. Phelan, a former Wall Street executive, stressed his mission is to cut waste and utilize his unorthodox background to promote efficiency in keeping America’s Navy ready to fight and win wars.

Phelan said the Navy processed a total of 217,000 contracts in 2024, with an average employee processing 34 in total.

“I’ll also be honest, when I look at our contracting, it’s poor,” Phelan said during the hearing. “We don’t control our [intellectual property]. We can’t repair stuff. We don’t have very good penalties built in for lack of performance. These are all things we are going to really try to change.”

Phelan already slashed a slew of Navy programs in April in the name of cost savings, worth a grand total of $568 million, according to DefenseScoop. In the hearing, he expressed interest in shrinking the overall workforce while maintaining vital employees.

The secretary also pledged to have the Navy pass a financial audit, even as the Pentagon failed its seventh consecutive audit in 2024. The Defense Department’s budget is set to balloon to over $1 trillion in 2026 as the various branches of the armed forces jockey for funding.

“Accountability is not just a regulatory requirement. It is the bedrock upon which we will build a stronger, more efficient Navy and Marine Corps,” Phelan said in the hearing. “Under my leadership, the Department of the Navy will achieve a clean audit, following the example set by the Marine Corps, which has completed two consecutive unmodified audits.”

While the Navy struggles with overspending and a bloated contract system, it is also struggling to put ships in the water at a time when China is being aggressive in the Pacific Ocean.

The Navy has struggled to maintain its existing ships, while new ships have been plagued by massive delays, with some contractors extending their deadlines for ship delivery by up to three years. China maintains the upper hand in military shipbuilding, surpassing the U.S. Navy’s total ship count in 2020 with 360 ships compared to just 296 in the U.S. fleets, according to a January Congressional Research Service (CRS) report.

Phelan and Kilby aim to shift the Navy’s focus towards shipbuilding to fulfill President Donald Trump’s executive order calling for increased ship production.

“I will lead this department with three focus areas that will guide our Navy and Marine Corps: strengthen shipbuilding and the maritime industrial base, foster an adaptive, accountable, and innovative warfighter culture, improve the health, welfare, and training of our people,” Phelan said during the briefing.