Canada had long provided subsidized housing for people who couldn’t afford to pay market value: for workers and returning veterans after the Second World War, for example, and in the 1970s and early 80s as pressure mounted for Ottawa to intervene during a series of recessions.

In the early to mid-1990s, back-to-back governments of different political stripes — first the Conservative government under Brian Mulroney and then Jean Chretien’s Liberals — began pulling back from the business of affordable housing.

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    1 year ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:

    It depends on who you ask, but for many housing experts, affordability advocates and municipal officials, the answer lies in part with a policy shift consecutive federal governments joined decades ago.

    Canada had long provided subsidized housing for people who couldn’t afford to pay market value: for workers and returning veterans after the Second World War, for example, and in the 1970s and early 80s as pressure mounted for Ottawa to intervene during a series of recessions.

    We now have a 30 year deficit in non-market housing, said Andy Yan, director of the city program at Simon Fraser University.

    Over a number of years in the late 90s and early 2000s, the Conservative government in Ontario, under Mike Harris, passed the file to municipalities to manage.

    “Devolving responsibility in itself is not a problem,” said Murtaza Haider, professor of data science and real estate management at Toronto Metropolitan University.

    In the absence of government leadership, it’s clear who has taken charge, says Leilani Farha, global director with the human rights organization, The Shift.

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