Misery and the housing shortage
The Anglosphere is increasingly miserable. The Economist.
Canada ranks 25th out of 147 countries in the 2026 World Happiness Report. Erin Anderssen, Globe and Mail.
Oxford releases a World Happiness Report every year. John Ivison observes that the latest report has some alarming results:
Canada was ranked the 25th happiest of 140 countries, down from sixth in 2013.
More worryingly, 15-24 year-old Canadians were ranked the 71st happiest in the world - which suggests an alarming rise in fear, anxiety and anger from previous years.
An Abacus Data poll from 2024 suggested between one quarter and one third of 18-35 year-old Canadians have postponed buying a home, buying a car, going on holiday, changing jobs, pursuing higher education or having children because of the high cost of living and housing. They’re not the only cohort in trouble but they are more likely than older Canadians to struggle to save or pay bills.
This is not a recipe for the political status quo. All parties are aware of the danger of being swept away by a storm surge but it is far from clear that federal government policies can restore hope to Generation Unattainable - an entire crop of young people who don’t truly believe they will enjoy the same levels of home ownership, stable employment and financial security that their parents did.
Someone on r/canadahousing made a post on this subject titled “Canada: the country that ate its young.” Unfortunately it appears to have been deleted.
Before Covid, the housing shortage mostly seemed to be confined to Vancouver and Toronto. You could escape the housing shortage by moving further out.
But then when Covid hit, there was a sudden massive surge in people working from home, needing more space, and willing to move. It’s like the housing shortage spilled over across the entire country. The gradient in prices and rents is much less steep than it used to be. Nanaimo and Nelson are now like suburbs of Vancouver, with prices and rents to match.
What’s most maddening is that Vancouver and Toronto - the twin epicentres of the housing shortage that’s now nation-wide - are so reluctant to make significant changes.
There’s two bottlenecks, the approval bottleneck and the cost bottleneck. Without provincial intervention, municipalities in Metro Vancouver and the GTA are moving in exactly the wrong direction on the cost bottleneck, trying to increase development charges on new housing as much as they can, and thus sticking renters and first-time homebuyers with as much of the bill as they can. They’re making things worse.
On the approval bottleneck, I think municipalities are moving in the right direction, but it’s agonizingly slow. It’s like there’s a train being chased by a monster. The people driving the train are reluctant to go any faster. Meanwhile, at the back of the train, people are being eaten alive.
A terrible story: https://morehousing.substack.com/p/pushed-out
On Vancouver: Justin McElroy comments on a couple projects that Vancouver city council voted to postpone last week. Vancouver city council’s rejection of 2 big developments about policy — but also politics.
On Toronto: Damien Moule posted this comment to BlueSky.
"Maybe the city's full" says the man living in a 2.7 million dollar house on Palmerston, while sipping $170 scotch after defeating a multiplex proposal across the street.
Just saw an article today about how massive the Dutch housing shortage is - doubled prices in a decade or so - and how determined they are to get building. But now I see they're hanging in there at 7th. Because of their good transport? Trust that solutions are on the way? Better drugs?
As a Canadian who lived for a number of years in the Costa Rica jungle, near a small & not wealthy village, I find myself wondering if the relative unhappiness of younger Canadians is simply because of having had it too good growing up. If your parents don't have much, as was the case with most of the villagers I knew, chances are you *will* have it as good or better than them. An old adage springs to mind: "comparison is the thief of joy".