Canada's housing villains? Look in the mirror - with Max Fawcett

Generation Squeeze's Hard Truths

Max Fawcett from Canada's National Observer joins Gen Squeeze founder Paul Kershaw for a wide-ranging look at intergenerational injustice in Canada. They tackle:

• The complicity of home owners in our housing affordability crisis
• Why building more supply is not a silver bullet
• How baby boomers are at risk of being remembered for leaving young people in an impossible situation
• Pension plan politics in Alberta
• Pollution pricing

Memorable quotes from Max:

"If there's going to be a meaningful response to this issue that makes housing affordable, it's going to affect all of us probably a little bit negatively. And that's okay because it's been affecting those of us who own homes very disproportionately in the positive sense. And that comes at a cost. It's not like that just sort of falls out of the sky. That money, that is sort of building up in the walls of our houses, is in some sense being taken out of the pockets of young people. And that's not fair."

"We need a new platonic ideal if we're going to make this country accessible to young people again, to immigrants, to strivers, to entrepreneurs, to people who want to do more than just spend 60% of their income on housing. You know, shelter should not be the thing that defines how we exist and the choices we make… I’d love to get back to a place where we didn't talk about housing like it was some sort of national obsession. But it's going to require some hard conversations. And it's going to require electing people who are willing to kind of stick their necks out a little further than we've seen so far."

Max's columns mentioned in this episode:

• Homeowners are the true gatekeepers in our housing debate
• Pierre Poilievre’s housing prescription doesn’t add up
• Danielle Smith’s pension plan politics could backfire
• To solve Canada’s housing crisis, make renting great again