Stop… and read my comments below on “Why house pricing is so high”.

If you are reading this and you are a younger Canadian frustrated with how older generations have sold off your future for their own gain… do something!

The youth from the sixties and seventies changed the world by taking to the streets to protest previous generations rules that no longer made sense and eventually Government listened.

It’s 2022. You no longer have to take to the streets, you can use Social Media platforms

We have a both a Provincial and Federal election coming in two years and young Voters can literally make the difference between a party winning or loosing by coordinating your vote for the party that will make the needed changes.

Others have tried this before and completely failed because like most revolutions of thought, they get sidetracked on issues that most times cannot be changed.

Canadian youth need a leader or a group of leaders to form what I call the YCVA - Young Canadians Voter Alliance to focus on “one issue” in the coming election that will actually change the demand of housing.

You will notice I said “demand” not supply. All current Government policies are about increasing “supply” which is totally insane as every single agency and building associating is telling the Government that it is not possible to build enough housing for a million people a year.

I have taken the first step for you by buying the ycva.ca domain. I am busy right now running for council in Maple Ridge and working full-time, but in the coming weeks I will setup this site so you can take it over and you can start the revolution.

Hey… when I say you. I mean all of you younger voters in Canada. I will volunteer my time to mentor and share my thoughts, but it will be up to you to carry the torch.

Supply and Demand affects everything. The first big increase in the cost of housing was due to the increased demand for housing for baby boomers born after 1950. We then had another surge in pricing as the children of the baby boomers looked for housing. Since then, our natural population growth rate has been almost flat (births verus deaths).

Then we had a Great Recession in North America starting in 2009. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Recession_in_the_Americas#Canada .

While the American and Mexican governments fought the recession with interest rate cuts and other fiscal policies, Canada invented Economic Immigration. It was a brilliant plan to attract the wealthy from other countries to live in Canada and bring their millions with them. Yahoo… what a success. These new Canadians came to the country, bought houses, lawn mowers, furniture, clothing, and everything else needed to start a new life.

This activity created jobs and brought Canada out of recession long before anyone else. It also had a side affect of making current homeowners much wealthier because it was at this point in time that the amount of new people arriving from outside the country was far greater than our ability to build new housing.

The only reason that this shortage of shelter/housing was not a huge issue at the time was because the Federal and Provincial Governments found a solution by asking cities to start allowing legal Secondary Suites in popular destination cities for new Canadians.

In a short period of time many neighborhoods were transformed as older smaller houses were knocked down and replaced with much larger “far more expensive” homes that had mortgage helper suites or multiple suites. While at the same time suburban cities started to build entire sub-divisions with this large new type of housing.

Basically… the Government asked the residents of these popular destination cities to double up with shared accommodation.

Unfortunately, many cities have reached their capacity to create secondary suites which is why in 2020 housing has suddenly become the #1 issue all young Canadian face.

Co-operative housing was very popular when I was young and still is in many parts of the world. There is very little downside for our Governments and Cities not to support this form of housing.

While Maple Ridge focused on these issues and approved housing on properties that should been turned into prime commercial sites, our neighbouring cities have been putting aside commercial zones and attracting large commercial companies which bring higher paying jobs to their community and enrich their tax base.

The issue continues to this day as the current Maple Ridge council rezones prime commercial property around the city for small condo buildings with small ground floor business space for new residents that can afford the $500,000 suite.

Although all levels of Government were aware of the declining supply of rental apartments and that we had filled most of the basement suites, they did not act until a couple of years ago as it simply was not a political issue as young voters focused on Climate Change and social issues.

Senior Government has put aside billions to fund housing. They just need to find a way to work with the cities to get housing built.

Current mass transit systems like subways or skytrains are expensive to build and only travel to fixed points.

 Bus transit systems are incredibly expensive to maintain and the slowest form of mass transportation… and the worst for the environment.

 We are just years away from reliable self driving electric vehicles… I call them SD-EV’s. City Councils must start planning now to ensure they do not build over potential routes for SD- EV lanes.

 SD-EV’s have the potential to revolutionize how we look at transportation and greatly reduce the cost of vehicle ownership and insurance costs.