For generations, Canada offered something remarkable. It wasn’t guaranteed wealth, instant success, or a perfect life. Instead, it offered something more enduring: the belief that ordinary people, through hard work and personal responsibility, could build a better life than the one they inherited.
That belief became the Canadian dream.
Toronto’s middle class is packing up and moving out at such a rapid pace that the city’s population is dropping. Montreal and Vancouver are also in the midst of a similar outmigration.
It’s not only bad news for those cities; it also harms the country as a whole by slowing economic growth, straining our health care system, and increasing political polarization.
This migration out of cities is not just a Toronto story. While the City of Toronto saw 40,000 more people move out to other parts of the country last year than moved in from elsewhere in Canada, Peel Region lost even more, at 45,000.
But Toronto has so much to offer!
501 Streetcar, TTC @TTCnotices Toronto @cityoftoronto. Canada @Canada seems to have fallen. #itbetterhere pic.twitter.com/lK3jfVb1EL
— Jim Fannon Dominican Real Estate 🇨🇦 🇩🇴 (@jimfannon) July 20, 2026
OTTAWA — The Liberal government has yet to say whether it plans to extend Canada’s ban on foreign homebuyers, even as internal briefing notes warned time is running short to renew the policy through the existing regulatory process before the ban expires.
If the government does nothing, Canada’s ban, which first came into force in 2023, will sunset automatically on Jan. 1, 2027. The ban currently prevents anyone who is not a Canadian citizen or permanent resident from purchasing a home in any urban area in the country.
Canada’s building boom is slowing, but still very much alive–even without population growth. Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) data shows housing starts slipped in June. BMO Capital Markets wrote to investors, explaining volumes of new housing aren’t a concern. However, they note Canada is building a “nation of rentals,” as most new units will be for purpose-built rentals (not homeowners) for the first time ever.
OTTAWA — With Canada’s affordability crisis dashing dreams of home ownership for many, Canadians are now finding that owning a new car is also becoming out of reach.
Released on Tuesday, AutoTrader’s Q2 2026 automotive price index suggests that even though new car prices have eased slightly, one in seven Canadians are abandoning plans to purchase a new car off the lot, opting instead for more affordable used options.
Savings have deteriorated for a majority of Canadians, particularly the bottom 80 per cent of Canadian households, as spending significantly outpace income growth, according to research by Boston Consulting Group.
Consumer spending is up, but that growth isn’t coming from income for those outside the top 20 per cent earners. The report said that for the lowest 20 per cent of earners, spending jumped 27 per cent over the past five years, while disposable income just went up three per cent.
OTTAWA – In 2016, through a citizens’ lawsuit over a City of Vancouver land-swap deal with a private developer, records surfaced pointing to something stranger than fiction.
In Mayor Gregor Robertson’s City Hall, an independent review of the file — commissioned to answer the community’s victory in court — indicated that a Chinese state investment giant had an interest in the file. Reports on the controversial condo development could be provided to China Investment Corp, the sovereign fund managing Beijing’s foreign assets, under a formal clause written into the contract.
Canadians are increasingly financing daily expenses through instalment loans as food prices continue to strain household budgets, according to a new report.
Data from Toronto-based fintech Koho Financial Inc. released Tuesday showed that use of its buy now, pay later financing option surged 109 per cent over the past year, growing from 0.8 per cent of users in May, 2025, to 1.71 per cent in May of this year. For perspective, Koho has more than 2.5 million customers across Canada.
OTTAWA — In a contentious ethics committee, Conservative MP Aaron Gunn moved Tuesday to summon Vancouver condo marketer Bob Rennie, federal Housing Minister Gregor Robertson, and major developers connected to Rennie’s fundraiser for Mark Carney as witnesses in an urgent parliamentary investigation of the Prime Minister’s multibillion-dollar British Columbia condo bailout — before the Liberal majority ended debate on the motion in a five-to-four vote, shelving the probe without allowing it to be decided.
They’re not even trying to hide it.
Well I’ll be… https://t.co/rXf6mkENeU pic.twitter.com/rAfO6iJsYF
— MBrant75 (@MBrant75) July 7, 2026
If you’ve stocked up at a grocery store for a barbecue lately, you’ve probably experienced sticker shock when it comes to the price of beef.
According to Statistics Canada, the price of fresh or frozen beef has gone up almost 13 percent since May of last year. In contrast, fresh or frozen pork and fresh or frozen chicken went up 3 per cent and 1.8 per cent, respectively.
For meat and cattle market analyst Kevin Grier, the ongoing growth defies expectations.
Real estate developers are pushing back against claims that a new federal-provincial program to buy up empty condos is something the industry asked for, with the Urban Development Institute and others saying that it isn’t a bailout and won’t help their sector.
Two weeks ago, Premier David Eby and Prime Minister Mark Carney said they are putting together a plan to buy more than 2,200 unsold local condos and provide them as affordable housing.
VANCOUVER – BC Housing records for March 2026 say that Premier David Eby was briefed for a meeting with Vancouver condo marketer Bob Rennie, the industry leader who hosted a February 2026 fundraiser for Prime Minister Mark Carney — attended by at least 17 leading developers — that has now been cited in Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre’s call for an ethics investigation into the controversial multi-billion-dollar developer bailout that was announced four months after Eby’s planned meeting with Rennie was documented, The Bureau has learned.
According to data collected by Ratehub, the average Toronto condo price in March 2022 was $831,351, requiring a household income of $156,320. As of May 2026, the average condo price has dropped by roughly 19 per cent, to $673,841, requiring a household income of $139,000.
BUT … The Star is omitting pertinent facts about income figures.
The average household income in the City of Toronto is approximately $121,200 to $129,000 before taxes, while the median household income is roughly $84,000 to $97,000. The higher average compared to the median is typically skewed by a larger share of upper-income households.
In Ontario, the average household total income is approximately $116,000 before taxes, and the average after-tax income is about $95,300. For median household income (the midpoint), the figure sits at roughly $81,000 before taxes and $79,500 after taxes
The backlash came fast and furious, and with greater velocity than perhaps at any other moment in Mark Carney‘s tenure as prime minister.
The Liberals’ proposal last week — to put up 10 per cent of roughly $1.45 billion for the acquisition of unsold B.C. condos which in turn would be sold at affordable rates on a rent-to-buy basis — was rapidly condemned by critics as a “bailout” — evidence not only of political perfidy, but also ideological gymnastics on the part of a former central banker who, once upon a time, cautioned against this kind of moral hazard. (Carney himself acknowledged the reveal was a case study in miscommunication)
A growing gap is emerging between financially secure Canadians benefiting from rising asset values and those struggling to keep up with everyday expenses, according to a new Angus Reid Institute survey.
The poll found 70% of Canadians describe their household finances as either “good” or “very good,” but more than one-quarter (27%) say they are in poor or very poor financial condition.
