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Eloise Alanna/BBCBefore Donald Trump imposes tariffs on Canada and threatens his sovereignty, the Canadian psyche is consumed with another major problem: accessibility of housing. With the horizon election, voters wonder if a party has a plan to correct what has become a generation of problem.
Willow Yamauchi says she was just a “regular” person when she and her husband bought their family home in Vancouver 25 years ago for a modest sum of $ 275,000 – about C $ 435,000 ($ 312,000; 236,400 British pounds) in today's dollars.
The same property now costs a few million.
In the city in the Pacific northwest in Canada, the history of G -Jama Yamauchi is as common as the rainy weather. The average price of a separate home in Vancouver in 2000 was about C 350,000 dollars. It's more than C $ 2m now.
“My husband and I were very privileged to be able to buy a house when we did it,” the 52-year-old writer told the BBC. As a member of generation X, the time was on her side.
The same, according to her, cannot be said about the younger people who – without “Mom and Dad Bank” – is effectively appreciated by the city they grew up in.
Vancouver, a cultural and economic center with a population of less than one million, is often regarded as an epicenter of the Canadian residential crisis. Report from Chapman University in California last year listed it among the best “impossible” cities in the world.
But this is not the only Canadian city where the price of homes is inaccessible to many. Canada as a whole has one of the highest ratios between home and income among developed countries.
In 2021, the average household income after taxes in Canada was about $ 88,000, according to national data. The same year, the average price of the home reached $ 713,500 – more than eight times higher. The gap is even more in big cities like Toronto and Vancouver.
For many Canadians, homes is One of the main problems in the federal electionIt was only recently darkened by US President Donald Trump and his tariffs for Canada. Before Trump's fears of home accessibility have strengthened the Conservative Party that has been consistently Considered as best equipped to fix the crisisS His success on pocket books as a whole had threatened to collapse the ruling liberal partyWhich only recently catapulted at the top of the urns after a trade war with the United States.
Even with Trump's factor, the topic appeared in a prominent place in the debate of the two federal leaders this week. During the French debate, moderator and journalist Patrice Roy showed data showing how many housing prices have increased in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver in the last decade.
“I'm sure this will not be a surprise,” G -N Roy told federal leaders before asking for their plans how they would correct the crisis.
Eloise Alanna/BBCThe polls show that young people are particularly worried about the housing crisis and what it means to their future.
Speaking with students at the University of British Colombia (UBC) in Vancouver, it has quickly become clear that the issue ranks first for many.
Many said they either chose to live at home during their studies to save costs, or pay from $ 1.100 to $ 1,500 per room near the campus, often in a home shared with five or six others.
Emily Chu, a 24-year-old, who is in her last semester at UBC, says she has to slow down her studies at one point to work as he is struggling to allow themselves to pay both training and rent.
Now she shares an apartment with her older brother, who works full-time and pays most of the rent. D -Ju heard considers himself one of the lucky ones.
As for the property of the home in the future, she says that “this is not even possible” for most people her age. “Every species suggests that we can never own housing.”
Young professionals with well -paid jobs, such as Margaret Dovogal, are also priced. The 28-year-old director of Vancouver-based non-profit work told the BBC that she was considering moving to the neighboring Alberta province because of her lower costs, although she is a lifelong and “engaged Vancuret”.
Still, Calgary, the largest city in Alberta, saw Housing prices increased by 15% in 2024 compared to the previous year As the city is experiencing The highest rate of population growth Since 2001
The main reasons for the accessibility crisis of homes in Canada are complex. One of the main problems is delivery, which is not up to date with the growing population, which has increased costs for both buyers and tenants.
Canada Mortgage and Residential Corporations (CMHC), the National Housing Agency, estimates that over 3.8 million dwellings must be built over the next six years to deal with shortage.
However, build new homes, however, is well below this purposeraising questions whether Canada will achieve this goal. Experts say the barriers to the construction of a ramp include the high cost and shortage of land in urban areas where most Canadians tend to live and work.
There are also regional barriers, such as the laws of the city zoning that prevent the construction of more affordable homes of greater density – including residential buildings or multiplexes – in some neighborhoods.
Daniel Olexik, the co -founder of the advocacy group, an abundant home Vancouver, says that his city is an example where more than half of the earth has historically been zoned for single -family homes.
“We have kept almost all the land preserved,” G -n Oleksiuk told the BBC. “There are entire neighborhoods where everything you have is three to five million dollars of homes.”
Eloise Alanna/BBCAlong the path of the campaign, every major federal party set out a plan to eliminate the crisis, all with the purpose of building as many homes as possible.
The liberals, led by Mark Carney, said their goal is to build 500,000 new homes a year with the help of a new government agency called Build Canada Homes, which will monitor and finance the construction of affordable housing in Canada – a plan similar to the one implemented after the Second World War to settle veterans.
Critics have questioned whether Carney's purpose is viable, as this will require Canada more than doubling their current speed of construction.
Meanwhile, conservatives led by Pierre Polyver have vowed to bind the federal funding with the housing, starting with the reward of cities that build more homes and sanction those who block the construction of carrot and sticks.
Poiliev also promised to remove federal taxes on newly built homes in an attempt to reduce the cost of future home buyers. However, critics say this policy can have a minimal effect, as most homes purchased in Canada are resold, not brand new.
Voters who have talked to the BBC say they welcome any plan to increase housing in Canada.
While most of the homes are governed by provinces and cities, Davgal notes that the federal government has the ability to “lead” convincingly “and to implement measures that make it more cheap and easier to build throughout the country.
But others who are watching the issue carefully protect that the proposed steps may not be sufficient.
Paul Kershaw, a Professor of Public Policy at the UBC and founder of Think Tank Generation Squeeze, claims that politicians have not been able to turn to the elephant in the room: the older homeowners have generated the housing crisis.
“The political deal has asked the young Canadians to undergo higher rents and mortgages to protect these higher values of housing,” Kersew notes.
“None of the parties really indicate this tension of generations,” he says, adding that politicians may feel that there is a political risk of trying to turn or stop that wealth is increasing for older Canadians – or even saying it aloud.
Prof. Kershow calls this “cultural problem” and says that the parties should also focus on reducing the cost of more young people as a way to relieve this weight of generations.
Correcting the housing crisis, he claims, is as inseparable as the upholding of sovereignty and prosperity in the face of the threats caused by Trump's tariffs.
“The dysfunction that has entered our home market is destructive to the well -being of the country,” he says.
Until a correction is found, the possibility of housing ownership still seems gloomy to many.
Ms. Dovogal claims that, in addition to moving elsewhere, “you have to win the lottery or get married for a multimillionaire. These are the kind of options.”