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Housing Affordability: Is Supply the Only Story?
A major challenge in creating effective housing affordability policies is the lack of consensus on the root causes or the solutions. In Canada, the policy response has largely focused on addressing the shortage of housing supply. However, a recent paper from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, Housing Affordability and Housing Demand, challenges the…
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Rising U.S. Treasury Yields Spill Over into Canada
Three forces dominated U.S. fixed income markets this week: a March employment report that looked strong at first glance, an energy shock from the Iran conflict, and a meaningful repricing of Federal Reserve expectations. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported 178,000 non-farm payrolls in March, well above the market expectation of 59,000. However, the…
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The Hidden Tax Killing Housing Affordability
When a builder constructs a new home, the price tag on the front door reflects far more than lumber, labour, and land. Buried within it is a government levy most Canadians have never heard of — a development charge — and it is quietly making homeownership unaffordable for an entire generation. Development charges (DCs) are…
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Canadian Commodity Sectors and the Iran War
Thirty days into the U.S.-Israel air campaign against Iran, the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has triggered the largest oil supply disruption in market history, collapsing flows from roughly 20 million barrels per day to a trickle. For Canada, the sectoral impacts are asymmetric: the prospect of significant near-term opportunities tempered by structural bottlenecks…
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Oil Price Shock, Bond Market Volatility, and Canadian Housing Affordability
The recent global oil price shock has introduced a complex set of variables for Canadian monetary policy with direct implications for housing affordability. As oil prices surged above US$100 per barrel in early 2026, the Bank of Canada (BoC) maintained its policy interest rate at 2.25 per cent during its March 18 meeting. While Governor…
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Examining Canada’s Population Contraction
The population estimates released by Statistics Canada on March 19 highlight a dramatic shift in population dynamics. Following years of record expansion, the total population decreased by approximately 103,500 people in the fourth quarter of 2025. This 0.2 per cent contraction marks the first such decline in decades and signals the end of the hyper-growth…
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Canada’s CPI Dips in February with Volatility on the Horizon
Canadian consumer prices rose 0.5 per cent in February, or 0.1 per cent on a seasonally-adjusted basis, pulling the headline inflation rate down five basis points to 1.8 per cent from January’s 2.3 per cent. However, this data predates the onset of the Iran conflict on February 28. Gasoline prices, down 14 per cent year-over-year…
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