NOURNEWS- Canada is in deep crisis. The country is literally on fire and facing extraordinary and growing threats from climate change, recession and so on. It is staring down rising extremism, creeping toxic polarization, and low trust. Wealth inequality is on the rise. Its federal system is showing cracks, particularly when it comes to the relationship between Alberta and the national government. Oligopolies and monopolies run wild, exploiting consumers, and its government has no one to blame but itself.
There are plenty of other problems too. But of the lot, the confluence of a few major challenges scream, Canada’s House of cards is crashing! Those are the country’s housing crisis, consumer debt, and high and rising interest rates. Taken together, they paint a picture of working people staring down lives they can’t afford in the day-to-day. This hellish scenario persists, no matter how hard people work, and no matter how rigidly they follow the rules of the game, the same rules which they were told are fair and just.
Increasingly since the COVID-19 pandemic, in cities across Canada, more and more people are choosing to live in a tent, often out of necessity, because they feel unsafe in overcrowded shelters, or they’re turned away because shelters are at their max capacity. Encampments have become a regular fixture in parks and sometimes on city streets, as more and more people face rapidly increasing rents and fewer and fewer options. The police and the community sector admitted to being overwhelmed by the crisis. Unfortunately, the situation has been getting worse and worse in the last few months.
An escalating national crisis:
In 2021 about 235,000 Canadians experienced homelessness, Statistics Canada estimates — a number that experts say is likely to grow due to increasing pressures of rising inflation, massive rent increases, stagnant wages, and a growing influx of refugees seeking asylum from climate disasters and conflict. A 2023 study from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives found that the hourly wage for a 40-hour work week that is needed to afford rent in every province far exceeds the minimum wage. The CCPA also found that almost half of all Canadians are “less than $200” away from bankruptcy.
To put it more bluntly; Housing in Canada is utterly unaffordable. The average home price is somewhere in the ballpark of CAD$700,000 while a one-bedroom rental goes for nearly $1,900 a month. A recent report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives found the hourly wage required to rent a one-bedroom unit is higher than the minimum wage in every province. The study found only three urban areas — all in Quebec — where the minimum wage was higher than the one-bedroom rental wage.
Those who are fortunate enough to own a home are facing their own pressures. High interest rates, which may rise again in the fall, are facing rising mortgage costs. Now 40 percent of mortgage holders are borrowing to meet day-to-day expenses and nearly 20 percent are falling behind on bills. As Robert McLister writes for The Globe and Mail, that’s based on data from December, and since then things have probably gotten worse.
None of this is new. In 2007 the U.N.’s human rights council sent a special rapporteur to Canada to examine housing and homelessness. It was called a national crisis that has led to “a large number of deaths.” And, as Crowe points out, experts even declared the crisis a “state of emergency,” and “a man-made social welfare disaster,” in 1998.
Once unhoused, people often face multiple social and economic barriers to return to stable housing. People who receive income assistance and disability payments may have trouble getting their money without a fixed address, and the payments may not be enough for them to afford the rising cost of rent in their area. Living unhoused can also make life more difficult for those working to hold down or secure a job, particularly due to the stigma it can carry.
The consequences of Canada’s housing crisis in international arena:
The explosion of homelessness and drug addiction on the streets of Ottawa does not spare foreign diplomats. The situation, “worse and worse”, is denounced by the Chinese embassy, which complains of “serious security problems”.
In a letter, dated July 25, the Chinese embassy in Canada writes to Global Affairs Canada to demand more protection for one of its buildings located at 401 avenue King Edward.
According to the letter, everyday homeless and drug addicts climb the fence and reside on the roof of the garage. The human excrement were also thrown from the top of the garage into the yard. Homeless people have set up camp on the roof of the diplomatic building’s garage. According to the embassy, part of the roof of the garage was damaged, which caused water leaks. The electric door motor was also broken. This situation poses a serious threat to the security of diplomatic premises and embassy staff. Garbage and syringes are regularly found in the parking lot in front of the building. Writes the diplomatic mission in its letter, not hesitating to say that it feels harassed and invades.
The Vienna Convention signed in 1961 on diplomatic relations obliges host countries to protect foreign embassies and diplomats. The host country must therefore take all appropriate measures to prevent the premises of the mission from being invaded or damaged, the peace of the mission disturbed or its dignity diminished. In its letter, China reminds the Trudeau liberal government of its international obligations.
Furthermore; Canada’s Housing Minister Sean Fraser is now considering a cap on the number of international students welcomed to the country in order to take pressure off housing prices. This comes as Canada recently revised its immigration target upwards, aiming for 500,000 admissions in 2025.
To put it more simply, Canada isn’t building enough housing to keep up with demand, including purpose-built rentals and non-market options. The Canada Mortgage Housing Corporation says the country must build over 800,000 units a year. In 2022, it built 260,000. On-campus housing options are also inadequate, lagging behind growing demand, but, according to one former deputy prime minister, Canada’s housing crunch is the result of decades of poor policy stemming from the federal government leaving the issue to the provinces in the 1980s.
The solution:
Canada’s government must be prepared to assist those who face economic hardship and will be crushed if and when the country’s house of cards falls. These are people who work and who aim for what they’ve been told to aim for: a home, a car, an education, and a few decent consumer goods. Yet they now find themselves abandoned due to a blend of economic structures, pandemic impacts, suboptimal government decisions, and uncontrollable global geopolitical dynamics. These workers, who ensure that the buses run on time and grocery shelves are stocked, comprise 40 percent of the country’s earners but hold only 2.7 percent of its net wealth. Conversely, the top 20 percent of earners hold almost 70 percent.
This wealth gap is obscene at the best of times, but it’s particularly odious in the wake of the last few years, when so much lip service was paid to workers as “frontline” and “essential” by the powers that be. They must not now be left to the wilds as the country struggles to get its economic affairs in order.
BY: Homayoun Barkhor
NOURNEWS