What Broke Housing in Canada, and How to Fix It

In this episode of Futureproofing Canada, host Jennifer Ditchburn speaks with Carolyn Whitzman, one of the country’s leading housing experts, about how decades of policy choices created today’s housing crisis and what it will take to fix it. Drawing on international examples and her own research, Whitzman explains why Canada stopped building enough affordable and non-market housing, how zoning, financing, and regulation now stand in the way of solutions, and why seniors, low-income households, and even middle-income Canadians are increasingly at risk.
The conversation explores practical pathways forward, from co-housing and non-market development to large-scale financing reform and makes the case that solving the housing crisis will require political will, clearer definitions of affordability, and action at a scale Canada has not yet attempted.