As always, here is the TL;DR: TL; DR New data from Statistics Canada shows what we all suspected was true — Ontarians are leaving the province in record numbers in search of housing they can afford and meets the needs of their families. Yesterday was a big day for number…

Thank you for having me here today — my name is Mike Moffatt. I am the Senior Director of the Smart Prosperity Institute, a clean economy think-tank housed at the University of Ottawa. Over the past five years, home prices have doubled in Halifax, Kitchener-Waterloo, and on Vancouver Island. They…

As always, here is the TL;DR: TL; DR The Ontario NDP, Liberals, and Tories are proposing Ontario Disability Support Program payment levels that are well below the poverty line, as well as below those under Mike Harris, adjusted for inflation. The Ontario Green Party, on the other hand, is proposing…

As always, here is the TL;DR. TL; DR Starting in 2016, Southern Ontario’s real-estate market caught fire, as population growth skyrocketed, but we saw only modest growth in new home construction, mostly in small-town Ontario. Then the pandemic happened, interest rates collapsed and white-collar savings exploded, causing money to be…

TL; DR The federal government has set a target to double the number of housing units built over the next decade — an increase from 1.9 to 3.8 million. This recognizes the scale of our supply shortages, however, a simple number of units target is far too coarse to be…

As always, here’s the TL;DR TL;DR: During the pandemic we have seen more deaths, fewer babies, and a drastic drop in international migration. Statistics Canada Table 17–10–0008–01 provides estimates on the components of population growth on an annual basis — how many babies were born, how many people immigrated to…

The more things change, the more they stay the same From President Harry S. Truman’s January 1946 State of the Union address. Early in the speech, the President addresses the economic outlook, which involves both inflation and housing speculation. (Sound familiar?) I. THE ECONOMIC OUTLOOK Prophets of doom predicted that…

On a subject that will not die. Consider this a follow-up to the piece Debunking the “homes outpace households” argument. As always, here’s the TL;DR TL;DR: Despite media stories and discourse on Twitter, the number of new homes is not rising faster than the number of new households. The discrepancy…

Fourth in (what I hope) will be a series on population growth, migration, and what’s going on with Ontario’s housing market. TL;DR: Although housing completions did not keep up with population growth from 2015–19, they did increase. However, despite the GTA being the prime destination for international talent, the housing…