1er July is fast approaching and, frankly, I don’t know what else there is left to say about the housing crisis.
Should we once again explain how stupid it is to blame newcomers for the housing crisis when the problem has been brewing and getting worse for decades? The shortcut has already been denounced in several media.
Let’s summarize the matter, if the need still exists: our leaders have a responsibility in urban planning. Whether the population increases through the birth rate or through immigration, it is the role of the federal, provincial and municipal governments to ensure that society is prepared accordingly. When the population increases through immigration, it is with the approval of these governments, most often with a view to meeting very specific economic needs.
When it comes to the housing shortage, it is no smarter to blame it on workers who obtain permits (from Quebec or Ottawa) at the request of employers struggling with a labor shortage. work that it would be wise to attribute it to young families producing “too many babies”. During the baby boom of the 1950s, governments in both Canada and the United States began building neighborhoods, and even practically entire cities. Now that North America’s population is growing primarily through immigration, the state acts as if housing families is barely within its purview.
At the beginning of the 1990s, Brian Mulroney’s government imported “best practices” inspired by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, and rethought the role of the state. In 1992, he abolished the federal social housing program, hopeful that the “magic hand” of the private market would naturally provide many so-called “affordable” housing units. It has been more than 30 years since Ottawa has assumed the same responsibility as before in the construction of so-called non-market housing. And the provinces have never assumed their part to meet the needs of the population.
We are still in this paradigm of poorly defined “affordable” housing that private developers are encouraged to provide. The problem with this vague idea of “affordable” housing is that the price can increase according to speculation specific to the private market and no longer be affordable at all for an entire generation. Reducing the bureaucracy that weighs on private developers appears to be the magic solution: this is Pierre Poilievre’s main speech. While municipal regulations and, above all, permit processing times can actually harm urban densification in some cases, a large part of the problem remains elsewhere.
The idea that the magic hand of the market will get us out of the crisis is so ingrained in our leaders that even Projet Montréal, a progressive party, fell into the trap with its “20-20-20” regulation. The obligation to include “affordable” or “family” social housing in construction projects, since 2021, is simply not profitable, say the developers. They therefore almost all preferred to pay the fines rather than make themselves responsible “corporate citizens”.
Because even with the fines, there is still more money to be made with more luxurious properties, without social diversity. Since failure was recognized, attempts have been made in Montreal to correct the situation, notably by increasing the amount of penalties. But have we, as a society, properly assimilated the broader notion that the private sector is motivated by profit and not by the right of the individual who wants everyone to have a roof over their heads? In a just society, public housing must also exist — and not just survive.
The turning point, or even the historical catch-up, that the country needs in terms of investment in non-market real estate, at all levels of government, is still awaited. There have certainly been various interesting political announcements in recent months — particularly in the federal budget. But nothing that looks like a departure from the paradigm.
It can be inherently exhausting for housing rights advocates to have to repeat themselves over and over again. Every year, around the 1er July, we show the extent of the anguish of families who find themselves without a roof over their heads. We’re told how apartment hunting lands ordinary people in mental health crises and increases their risk of addiction. At this point, we need to talk about the housing crisis as a public health crisis.
But we are partly shouting into the void because some of the actors concerned have an interest in not understanding. On the one hand, there are private players whose profits are doing very well. On the other, there is a social class or, let’s say better, an electoral class of people who are already owners and whose retirement plans are precisely ensured by the meteoric rise in real estate prices. We will never be able to convince these segments of the population to go against their personal interests, no matter how good the argument. What we can do, however, is change the balance of power.
The SEIZE coalition, which brings together different community rights defense actors, launched an interesting report on Wednesday on the state of mobilizations against the housing crisis in Canada. We are talking about taking inspiration from Sweden, where there is a national union for tenants, which has collective bargaining means similar to those that exist in the world of work. In the Canadian or Quebec context, that would completely change the situation.
I fail to see how we can overcome the housing crisis unless we find original ways to inject a good dose of muscle into the standoff between the most vulnerable and the defenders of the status quo. Demonstrating the problem will never be enough: too many players are taking advantage of it.
Anthropologist, Emilie Nicolas is a columnist at Duty and to Release. She hosts the podcast Detours For Canadaland.