Posts Tagged ‘housing’
The 2026 Ontario budget neglects core provincial responsibilities
Monday, March 30th, 2026
The 2026 budget—much like previous budgets—fails to address the underfunding of health care, K-12 education, post-secondary education, community and social services, and rental and social housing—the core responsibilities of provincial governments. Despite reports showing that Ontario lags behind most provinces in most of these areas, this year’s budget makes no attempt to close those gaps.
Tags: budget, Education, featured, Health, housing, ideology, jurisdiction, tax
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Doug Ford could help solve Ontario’s homelessness crisis in one simple, low-cost step
Monday, March 23rd, 2026
The province’s social-assistance programs — Ontario Works and the Ontario Disability Support Program — include monthly allowances for basic needs and shelter, but recipients with no fixed address are ineligible for the shelter portion, which totals $390 for OW and $599 for ODSP per single adult. That can make saving for first and last months’ rent nearly impossible. The result is a costly and avoidable cycle: people without homes remain in shelters or unsafe situations because they cannot access the supports they need to help them secure housing.
Tags: budget, homelessness, housing, jurisdiction
Posted in Social Security Policy Context | No Comments »
I’m a doctor. Here are five overlooked ways the Ontario government is making our ERs more crowded, not less
Wednesday, March 18th, 2026
When Doug Ford was elected premier in 2018, he promised to “end hallway medicine.” But by 2024, the problem had doubled to some 2,000 Ontarians lying on stretchers in hospital hallways… Good health is impossible without stable housing… Shutting down all supervised consumption sites… Underfunded nursing… Expanding for‑profit medicine… [and] Neglecting home care and keeping people in hospital beds
Tags: economy, featured, Health, Home Care, housing, privatization
Posted in Health Delivery System | No Comments »
I’ve studied housing for over 15 years. These Canadian towns are showing us how to fix the crisis
Tuesday, November 25th, 2025
Too often we frame housing simply as a question of how much we need and defer to the market to build it. Instead, we need to focus on what kind of housing and for whom… The crux of the problem is that housing currently serves two conflicting goals: as shelter and a human right for all; and a commodity from which to make money for some.
Tags: featured, homelessness, housing, ideology, jurisdiction
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
We’ve arrived at arguably the best moment to invest in affordable housing in over a generation. Will we seize it?
Wednesday, October 1st, 2025
… while we’re going to spend over $100 billion a year on defence outlays to meet our Trump-dictated NATO obligations, Canadians continue to place housing at the top of the list of their worst cost-of-living headaches. Those steep monthly rents, it’s worth saying, represent dollars not spent on all sorts of goods and services provided by Canadians, from food to entertainment to travel to education.
Tags: economy, housing, standard of living
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
A solution to Canada’s housing crisis has already been built — we just need to use it
Thursday, September 25th, 2025
While some new construction will be necessary why not use Canada’s vast and underutilized existing building stock? The scale of this untapped resource is staggering. According to a 2021 study, 8.7 per cent of homes — 1.34 million units — sit vacant across the country… Beyond these empty homes… over 100,000 short-term rental units could become long-term dwellings with proper regulation. This would not just address supply, it would make things more affordable…
Tags: budget, economy, housing, jurisdiction
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
When mental-health diagnoses become brands, the real drivers of our psychic pain are hidden
Monday, September 15th, 2025
The mental-illness health epidemic is growing alongside a crisis of economy and political legitimacy in Western societies. The distress and insecurity produced becomes another source of profiteering in the marketized economy where personhood is socially produced through individualized consumption… this enables distraction from social causes of distress such as poverty, inadequate housing, social injustice, discrimination, exclusion, and chronic financial insecurity; alongside militarism, and appalling levels of violence inflicted by governments on global citizens they control (or try to control).
Tags: featured, housing, mental Health, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Equality Debates | No Comments »
A shrinking population is hardly what this country needs right now
Tuesday, July 22nd, 2025
Are wages stagnant? Are houses overpriced? Is the health care system overburdened? It must be because of all those pesky people: the “overpopulation” and “crowding”… [But] Population growth has already slowed to a trickle… The problem… is not that we have too many people: it is that we have too little capital, and too little incentive to make efficient use of the capital we have. Fixing those ought to be our priority
Tags: economy, Health, housing, ideology, standard of living
Posted in Policy Context | No Comments »
Eliminating interprovincial trade barriers would add 30K annual housing starts: CMHC
Thursday, July 17th, 2025
A new analysis by the national housing agency estimates Canada could add 30,000 more housing starts annually by eliminating interprovincial trade barriers… that prevent the movement of either resources or labour in the residential construction industry… The Canadian Federation of Independent Business has estimated that existing internal trade hurdles cost the economy some $200 billion a year.
Tags: economy, housing, jurisdiction, standard of living
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
How governments can get back to building affordable housing
Wednesday, June 4th, 2025
… the financialization of housing is undermining our ability to build homes people can afford. We saw it clearly when the Ford government scrapped affordable housing rules in Toronto after pressure from corporate landlords… a new approach… means: Rapidly scale non-market and deeply affordable housing. Unlock and mobilize public land for housing construction. Ensure investments create good union jobs and build industrial capacity. Streamline timelines, remove barriers and build the infrastructure our communities need.
Tags: housing, ideology, jurisdiction, standard of living
Posted in Governance Policy Context | No Comments »
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