6 THE CAAR COMMUNICATOR Affordable housing—yes, the bubble has burst from the insane housing price levels seen through the summer of 2022, but housing prices are still high, leaving many wondering how they will ever be able to afford a home or rent—especially for those living in a so-called big city. This writer’s parents bought a house on a large parcel of property in the suburbs of Toronto for $44,000 in 1973. Fifty years later, the going rate is about $1.6 million—which is down from the $2.2 million seen last summer for a neighbour’s “same” house and property. Have employee wages or salaries kept up since 1973 to make the 2023 housing values a viable purchase? No. And neither do they make sense for property taxes, where a neighbour with a newer, larger $3 million house on less land is paying less property tax than the writer’s unchanged 1945 construct. The city is pricing older, more long-term owners out of the housing market with property taxes. And what about food? An October 29, 2023, Canadian Press article headline screamed: “‘Haven’t eaten in days’: Canada’s food banks reporting massive spike in demand”. The article quotes Cynthia Boulter, the Chief Operating Officer of the Great Vancouver Food Banks: “We see parents who are skipping meals so that their children can eat. We see people who haven’t eaten in days. We see seniors who haven’t had produce in months.” In March 2023, food bank usage in Canada was 32 percent higher than it was in 2022 and 78 percent higher when compared with how things were preCovid in March 2019. You may recall that by March of 2020, with the pandemic in full swing, there was an economic shutdown that affected food security for everyone, but especially those who regularly relied on food banks. We may not have thought much about those people because, even as the pandemic made its presence more fully felt in March 2020, one in five Canadians worried about having enough food to meet their household needs. Whether you utilized a “personalized shopper”, a home delivery service, or donned a mask and gloves yourself, you may have been struck by the limited supply of foods and related sundry items. THE COST OF STRIKES When dock workers went on strike at the Port of Vancouver and the St. Lawrence Seaway they wanted a fair shake after helping keep Canada’s economy moving during COVID-19 troubles. Plus, they noted that the ports made lots of money. davit85/iStock/Getty Images Plus photo
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