The proof is in. Housing is more unaffordable than ever

This article supplied by Troy Media.

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.

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Canada Caves: Carney ditches digital services tax after criticism from Trump

Published on June 30, 2025

Todayville

From The Center Square

By Brett Rowland

Canada caved to President Donald Trump demands by pulling its digital services tax hours before it was to go into effect on Monday.

Trump said Friday that he was ending all trade talks with Canada over the digital services tax, which he called a direct attack on the U.S. and American tech firms. The DST required foreign and domestic businesses to pay taxes on some revenue earned from engaging with online users in Canada.

“Based on this egregious Tax, we are hereby terminating ALL discussions on Trade with Canada, effective immediately,” the president said. “We will let Canada know the Tariff that they will be paying to do business with the United States of America within the next seven day period.”

By Sunday, Canada relented in an effort to resume trade talks with the U.S., it’s largest trading partner.

“To support those negotiations, the Minister of Finance and National Revenue, the Honourable François-Philippe Champagne, announced today that Canada would rescind the Digital Services Tax (DST) in anticipation of a mutually beneficial comprehensive trade arrangement with the United States,” according to a statement from Canada’s Department of Finance.

Canada’s Department of Finance said that Prime Minister Mark Carney and Trump agreed to resume negotiations, aiming to reach a deal by July 21.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Monday that the digital services tax would hurt the U.S.

“Thank you Canada for removing your Digital Services Tax which was intended to stifle American innovation and would have been a deal breaker for any trade deal with America,” he wrote on X.

Earlier this month, the two nations seemed close to striking a deal.

Trump said he and Carney had different concepts for trade between the two neighboring countries during a meeting at the G7 Summit in Kananaskis, in the Canadian Rockies.

Asked what was holding up a trade deal between the two nations at that time, Trump said they had different concepts for what that would look like.

“It’s not so much holding up, I think we have different concepts, I have a tariff concept, Mark has a different concept, which is something that some people like, but we’re going to see if we can get to the bottom of it today.”

Shortly after taking office in January, Trump hit Canada and Mexico with 25% tariffs for allowing fentanyl and migrants to cross their borders into the U.S. Trump later applied those 25% tariffs only to goods that fall outside the free-trade agreement between the three nations, called the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.

Trump put a 10% tariff on non-USMCA compliant potash and energy products. A 50% tariff on aluminum and steel imports from all countries into the U.S. has been in effect since June 4. Trump also put a 25% tariff on all cars and trucks not built in the U.S.

Economists, businesses and some publicly traded companies have warned that tariffs could raise prices on a wide range of consumer products.

Trump has said he wants to use tariffs to restore manufacturing jobs lost to lower-wage countries in decades past, shift the tax burden away from U.S. families, and pay down the national debt.

A tariff is a tax on imported goods paid by the person or company that imports them. The importer can absorb the cost of the tariffs or try to pass the cost on to consumers through higher prices.

Trump’s tariffs give U.S.-produced goods a price advantage over imported goods, generating revenue for the federal government.

Brett Rowland

Investigative Reporter

Business

Trump on Canada tariff deadline: ‘We can do whatever we want’

Published on June 29, 2025

Todayville

From The Center Square

By Brett Rowland

President Donald Trump appears unconcerned about an upcoming tariff deal deadline after abruptly ending all trade talks with Canada as his bid to overhaul world trade continues.

Trump is nearing the end of a self-imposed 90-day deadline to strike deals with nearly every U.S. trading partner as he works to reorder global trade by giving America a competitive advantage through tariffs on foreign goods.

Trump now says that the deadline could be extended past July 9 or even accelerated.

“We can do whatever we want. We could extend it, we could make it shorter. I’d like to make it shorter,” Trump said Friday at the Oval Office. “I’d like to just send letters out to everyone ‘Congratulations, you’re paying 25%.'”

On April 2, Trump announced reciprocal tariffs on nearly every nation that trades with the U.S. Seven days later, he paused those higher tariff rates for 90 days to give his trade team time to cut deals with key trading partners. That 90-day deadline ends July 9 and thus far Trump has brought home two deals: A limited trade pact with the United Kingdom and a trade truce with China.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told Bloomberg that new deals are on the way, and those could serve as models for others.

“We’re going to do top 10 deals, put them in the right category, and then these other countries will fit behind,” Lutnick said.

He said the U.S. was “close to the finish line” with India. Lutnick also said he had made an offer to the European Union.

Trump’s decision to suspend trade talks with Canada with just days left before the deadline underscored the flexibility of the president’s trade deadline.

“These are very complex negotiations and we are going to continue them in the best interests of Canadians,” Candian Prime Minister Mark Carney said Friday while leaving his office, according to local reports.

Canada has invariably been one of the top two trading partners for the United States for years. In 2024, Canada was the top destination for U.S. exports and the third-largest source of U.S. imports. On the other side, Canada exported 75% of its goods to the United States and imported almost half of its goods from the United States.

U.S. total goods trade with Canada was an estimated $762.1 billion in 2024, according to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. U.S. goods exports to Canada in 2024 were $349.4 billion. U.S. imports from Canada in 2024 totaled $412.7 billion. The U.S. goods trade deficit with Canada was $63.3 billion in 2024.

Services trade with Canada, exports and imports, totaled an estimated $140.3 billion in 2023. Services exports were $86.0 billion, and services imports were $54.3 billion. The U.S. services trade surplus with Canada was $31.7 billion in 2023, according to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.

Trump put a stop to the talks on Friday.

“We have just been informed that Canada, a very difficult Country to TRADE with, including the fact that they have charged our Farmers as much as 400% Tariffs, for years, on Dairy Products, has just announced that they are putting a Digital Services Tax on our American Technology Companies, which is a direct and blatant attack on our Country,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Trump said the digital services tax was a copy of a European Union proposal.

Earlier this month, the two nations seemed close to striking a deal.

Trump said he and Canada Prime Minister Mark Carney had different trade concepts between the two neighboring countries during a meeting at the G7 Summit in Kananaskis, in the Canadian Rockies.

Asked what was holding up a trade deal between the two nations at that time, Trump said they had different concepts for what that would look like.

The tariffs have frustrated Canadian leaders and residents. Tensions between the two neighboring countries have been high. And cities on both sides of the U.S.-Canada border have been affected.

Trump has repeatedly suggested that Canada join the U.S. as its 51st state. He previously called former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau “governor” regularly.