According to the Canadian Real Estate Association, the national average home price in September 2021 was $686,650 – an increase of 27% from before the pandemic. In Greater Toronto – the average home price is almost $1.1 million. In Greater Vancouver, it’s close to $1.2 million. To say that housing has become unaffordable in most parts of Canada is an understatement.
Two weeks ago, RBC released its latest housing affordability measure. It jumped 2.7% in the last quarter – the biggest quarterly increase in more than three decades.
During the past election, housing affordability was a top issue for millions of Canadians – especially those under 40 who aspire to own a home but feel that dream is becoming harder and harder to achieve.
On this episode of inFocus, I’m joined by Michael Bourque, the Chief Executive Officer of the Canadian Real Estate Association. CREA represents more than 135,000 real estate brokers, agents, and salespeople working through 78 real estate Boards and Associations across Canada.
Michael and I spoke about housing affordability, the politics of the issue, and what is needed from government policy to make the dream of homeownership a reality for more Canadians.
Season 2 of inFocus with David Coletto starts on April 12, with American data scientist David Shor. This podcast is all about the intersection of public opinion, politics, and public policy. I had a lot of great feedback on season 1 and I’m excited for what I have lined up on Season 2. This season, I continue to speak with smart and interesting people who spend much of their days exploring why people do and think what they do. I’ll be speaking with David Shor, an American data scientist who worked on Obama’s 2012 campaign and recently got a lot of attention with his analysis of the 2020 campaign and why he tought Donald Trump was GOOD for the Republican Party. I’ll talk climate change with Seth Klein, author of Good War and how public attitudes about climate change seem to be ahead of political leaders. I recently finished reading a fascinating book called Beyond the Red Wall: Why Labour Lost, How the Conservatives Won and What Will Happen Next? By British pollster Deborah Mattinson. She spent weeks in northern England trying to understand why the once-solid Labour region voted Conservative in the 2019 British General Election. I speak with political scientist Jared Wesley about what’s happening in Alberta and interview former Colombian ambassador to Canada Federico Hoyos about his time in Canada and what it taught him about who we are and how we are different. I am also excited to interview Biden’s lead pollster, John Anzalone about that campaign and what it’s like managing the polling for a billion-dollar election campaign. This is just a taste of what I have planned for season 2. Thanks for all the support so far. Please share the podcast ...
The questions you ask are more important than the answers you get. I think that should be the mantra of every public opinion researcher and consumer of polls. More important, good researchers must be inquisitive, open-minded, and prepared to understand and appreciate the true nature of the human being who is about to be tasked with completing your questionnaire. My guest this week on inFocus knows a thing or two about writing survey questionnaires. She wrote a book about it. Dr. Annie Pettit is a public opinion and market researcher with more than 20 years experience working with some of the leading research agencies in Canada. Dr. Pettit has a PhD in psychology from York University where she specialized in online survey data quality. She currently consults for a range of traditional and technology research suppliers, is a member of the Canadian Research Insights Council Standards Committee, and is chair of the Canadian ISO standards committee. She’s also the author of the book “People Aren’t Robots: A practical guide to the psychology and technique of questionnaire design” published in 2016. She joined me this week to talk about asking questions, writing questionnaires, and why this step in the research process is so important. ...
On this episode of inFocus, I’m joined by my friend Dr. Jared Wesley a political scientist, associate professor, and Director of Master’s programs at the University of Alberta’s Department of Political Science. Full disclosure, Jared and I were graduate students at the University of Calgary together and our chat today mimics the many we had while sharing an office while completing our PhDs. Along with his teaching and administrative duties, Jared is also leading the Common Ground Politics (https://www.commongroundpolitics.ca/) – a research project helping to uncover the values that underpin politics in Western Canada and the American West. On the podcast, we spoke about his research and perspectives on the East/West divide in Canada, the future of federalism, and what’s happening in Alberta. ...
