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Mark A's avatar

Great post and comment on Reddit. It's beyond belief. It's fair to say the social contract is broken for young people, at least in the GTA and southern Ontario, BC, and a few other parts of Canada.

It's not fair that older folks who bought in the 80s, 90s, 00s, and even early 10s are sitting on effective lottery tickets of 500k or more and that this is how boomer retirements will be funded.

It was bad enough when homes became grossly unaffordable but now that rents are crushingly high, there’s no escape. We either fund the windfall to homeowners through purchase of their homes or by renting their properties. The wealth transfer from the young to the elderly and home owning is grossly unfair. Stagnant wages, lower employment security, and weaker economic growth exacerbate these issues.

I'm not a populist, but when Pierre Poilievre speaks about this issue, it connects, so I can't imagine how it feels for others. Not that he will solve the problem, but its certainly hitting my buttons as an otherwise progressive, wonky, liberal person.

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Russil Wvong's avatar

I think this is a huge political factor in Ontario especially. In BC, we're more accustomed to housing being crazy expensive, but in Ontario, average house prices went up 40% in a single year when Covid hit. When people are angry, populism is very appealing.

In Vancouver, the ironic thing is that the losses to renters aren't really offset by gains to homeowners, because people really like where they live: they don't want to sell and move somewhere far away. So nobody really wins!

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