‘Unreasonable and unrealistic': Alberta finance minister comments on negotiations with AUPE
Alberta Finance Minister Nate Horner presents the Alberta 2025 budget in Edmonton, Thursday, Feb. 27, 2025. Horner says a lack of progress in negotiations with the union representing government workers could result in a strike or lockout. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jason Franson
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CTV News
22 minutes ago
- CTV News
Toronto housing among least affordable on this global index. Here's what experts say needs to change
A new global index suggests Toronto is among the world's worst cities when it comes to housing affordability — as experts blame decades of policy missteps, development delays, and overwhelming population demand for the problem. The 2025 Global Cities Index from Oxford Economics finds that as a result of Toronto's expensive real estate market, residents 'spend more of their income on housing than residents of nearly every other city in the world.' While the federal government recently promised to eliminate the GST on first-time home purchases under $1 million, critics argue that restrictive housing policies, costly development charges and sluggish approvals have created a market that's out of reach for most buyers. The average price of a home in the Toronto area did decline four per cent year-over-year in May but still stood at more than $1.1 million, according to the latest data from the Toronto Region Real Estate Board. 'Over the past 20 years Toronto's population has grown by 35 per cent but affordable housing hasn't kept up. The result? Life is getting too expensive for families,' Mayor Olivia Chow said during a press conference on Friday. 'Young people are giving up on the dream of home ownership.' The City of Toronto has a program where it will defer development fees for some projects so long as at least 20 per cent of its units are affordable. However, demand for the program has far exceeded the city's ability to fund it and as a result Chow says that there are projects totalling 300,000 new units from about 70 different developers that are 'shovel ready' and just 'sitting there in the pipeline' waiting for funding from other levels of government. In Toronto alone, development fees can add more than $100,000 to the cost of a new home and in some areas in the GTA development fees can easily double that, says Frank Clayton, Senior Research Fellow at Toronto Metropolitan University. Prime Minister Mark Carney has previously promised to help municipalities reduce those fees by 50 per cent through additional payments that could be distributed by the provinces though he has not provided a timeline for those investments. 'If a municipality takes $200,000 up front, developers got to increase their prices such that $200,000 is reflected ultimately in the price of the house,' Clayton said. 'Builders won't build, unless they can cover their costs.' Toronto housing A real estate sign is displayed on the front lawn of a house in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, on Thursday, May 11, 2017. Clayton identifies three key culprits behind Toronto's crisis: high fees, restrictive planning rules, and relentless demand — the latter driven in part by immigration. Last year alone, nearly 300,000 newcomers arrived in the region, fuelling further housing pressure. 'You need sites. You need sites that are zoned, and you need sites that are serviced,' Clayton said. 'The planning system is very unresponsive to changes in demand.' 'We have to act now' New home sales in the GTA hit a seventh consecutive month of record all-time lows in April, owing in part to a significant reduction in housing starts. Dave Wilkes, president and CEO of the Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD), says time is running out to fix the system. 'We are seeing real market consequences. 80,000 people leave the GTA,' Wilkes said. 'The longer we wait, the longer that it's going to take to balance supply and demand.' Wilkes is calling for urgent action on housing taxes — especially the harmonized sales tax (HST) formula, which hasn't been revised since 1991. 'Making that change on HST today is the most immediate thing we could do,' Wilkes said. 'It would bring costs down by a dramatic 13 per cent for the first million dollars of a purchase.' He also warned that the federal government's plan to remove GST only for homes under $1 million misses the mark in high-cost cities like Toronto, where the average sale price sits well above that. 'Under a million is just not a product type that is available in the GTA,' he emphasized. Row of houses in Toronto Children ride bikes by a row of houses in Toronto on Tuesday July 12, 2022. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Cole Burston What is the market is lacking? Jason Mercer, Chief Information Officer for the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board, says affordability has technically improved — but warns that too little new construction could reverse that trend. 'Two years ago, a lot of households simply wouldn't have qualified,' Mercer said. 'Today, I would argue that a lot of those households could qualify, because prices have edged lower and interest rates have come down.' Still, Mercer says demand will eventually rebound, and if the city can't match it with supply, prices will climb again. 'We haven't done a good job keeping up with housing supply to meet that population growth,' he said. 'From a public policy perspective, we want to look at ways that we see sort of a sustained pipeline of new housing coming online.' A turning point with urgency Clayton says the roots of the crisis stretch back to the early-2000s when Ontario shifted its land-use focus towards environmental protection, including the establishment of the Greenbelt. He argues the policy limited where housing could be built, and gave too much power to growth management plans that discouraged the types of homes most people want — townhouses and detached units. 'We have to have a competitive supply of land,' Clayton said. 'Because if there's competition, then prices don't go up very much.' Despite efforts from all levels of government to address the issue — including a recent Ontario bill aimed at speeding up construction — most experts agree that housing affordability won't be meaningfully restored unless there's a broad and urgent shift in policy, from zoning and fees to taxes and timelines. 'The time for discussion has concluded. We really need the time for action,' Wilkes said.
CTV News
an hour ago
- CTV News
What to expect from upcoming G7 Summit in Canada?
Watch Senator Peter Bohem speaks about PM Carney's priorities for the upcoming G7 Summit and the impact Trump's presence will have.
CBC
an hour ago
- CBC
White hats, naked protestors and sweaty leaders in the gym: Headlines from the 2002 G8 summit in Kananaskis
Social Sharing As Alberta gears up to host leaders from some of the world's most powerful nations at the upcoming G7 summit, we're looking back at the most newsworthy headlines from the last time the high-profile event was held in Kananaskis, 23 years ago. Former prime minister Jean Chrétien met with world leaders at the 2002 G8 summit, when the group still included Russia. The leaders met to discuss a variety of topics, including the central agenda item of African aid, while also squeezing in beers, golf and souvenir shopping. Despite the recent Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in the U.S. looming over the event, and the recent memory of out-of-control protests at the summit in Italy a year prior, Canada managed to deliver a safe and secluded event in the mountains, said John Kirton, director of the G7 research group at the University of Toronto. The move away from metropolitan host cities marked a return to what the meeting between the leading industrial nations was originally intended to be: a "fireside chat" between world leaders. "At the worst possible times, when the United States was really at its most vulnerable… Jean Chrétien and Canada's Kananaskis summit delivered," said Kirton. "Yes for security, yes against terrorism, but [also] for Africa and the Global South, and for Canadians and its economic agenda and in advancing the Canadian concern for protecting the world's natural environment all at the same time, and [Canada] proved it could all be done in complete peace." Kirton described it as "a mark for subsequent summits to meet." Calgary white hats world leaders Upon arrival in Calgary, then-mayor Dave Bronconnier greeted the world leaders with a white Smithbilt hat, a tradition symbolizing the city's hospitality. U.S. President George W. Bush donned his cowboy hat for a quick moment and then held it to his heart. The Ottawa Citizen reported him saying to Bronconnier, "You don't look old enough to be a mayor." According to the Globe and Mail 's reporting, French President Jacques Chirac refused to put on his hat. Russian President Vladimir Putin also shied away from modelling his gift, but did show curiosity, inspecting it closer. The Globe and Mail also reported few leaders did the ceremonial "yahoo" cheer after receiving their white hat. All eyes on Canada A Calgary Herald story from April 24, 2002 teed up how the G8 summit looked to change the world's perception of Canada with a "high-tech" showcase of non-stereotypical Canadiana in the form of a CD-ROM to be given to international delegates and journalists. "Before they arrive, they'll be thinking of beavers, igloos, red-coated police on horseback and toothless hockey goons," wrote Kerry Williamson of the Herald. "When they leave, they'll be reading Mordecai Richler and Will Ferguson, admiring Robert Bateman's paintings, talking of teepees and listening to David Foster's music." Besides the nation's ambitions for recrafting its image to the world, the very presence of the U.S. president at the summit conveyed a sign of trust in Canada, said Kirton, as there were doubts about whether Bush would make the trip after the events of 9/11. At the Delta Lodge in Kananaskis, chef Jeff O'Neill served up a regional cuisine with food that was "uniquely Canadian," he told the Calgary Herald. "He says it is safest to stay true to what he's best at and he is making sure to steer clear of anything like Borscht for Russian dignitaries," wrote the paper's Maureen DePatie. Later, the Herald confirmed leaders and delegates dined on smoked Bow River trout, Yukon Gold potato and charbroiled High Plains buffalo tenderloin during their stay. Clashing agendas, busy leaders During the two-day summit, leaders stayed busy with a packed agenda tackling issues of nuclear disarmament, the Middle East, terrorism and, most centrally, African aid. With al-Qaeda and other terror threats top of mind, Bush insisted that security be a more prominent subject on the docket, while Chrétien was committed to the agenda that was set at the last summit in Italy, which centred African issues. "Mr. Chrétien said yesterday that he would not let the Middle East discussion sideline his plan for a full-day discussion on Africa tomorrow," the Globe and Mail reported at the time. Bush and Putin had some similar interests according to their profiles in the Ottawa Citizen. Russia seemed in agreement with the U.S. to push for discussions on terrorism in Kananaskis. Four African leaders – Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal and Abdelaziz Bouteflika of Algeria — as well as UN Secretary General Kofi Annan joined the G8 heads, participating in a joint meeting on the Africa Action Plan. The leaders would eventually sign what Chrétien called a "landmark document for Africa," focused on reducing African nations' debt, helping to end regional wars, opening western markets and supporting education. The leaders' launch of the Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction was another major takeaway from the summit. The partnership made a $20 billion US commitment to dismantle aging nuclear weapons in Russia and other countries of the former Soviet Union. WATCH | CBC News coverage of the 2002 G8 Summit: 2002 G8 Summit devises 'landmark document for Africa' 23 years ago Duration 8:33 "Vladimir Putin agreed to let inspectors from his old Cold War rivals – the other G7 countries – enter Russia's most secret nuclear facilities, chemical weapons, biological, radiological ones, to inspect them to see what was there and then to dismantle them so they could not be used," said Kirton. Squeezing many discussions into the two-day summit, Chrétien explained to reporters how busy the leaders were keeping. "You all watch me having a beer with [Jacques] Chirac in front of the hotel for 10 minutes," Chrétien told reporters. "And I didn't have the time to finish the beer." World leaders after hours While leaders were mostly occupied with business during their short foray into K-country, news stories show their agenda wasn't all business. The Calgary Herald reported Chrétien snuck in four holes of golf just hours before the first official G8 meeting got underway. The word was he hit a birdie on the par-4 third hole, wrote Williamson. Chirac was reportedly drawn to buying several souvenir Canada t-shirts, and "in one store purchased a child's sweater with a moose embroidered on the front – worth $23 – and a Kananaskis golf cap." Putin also left with a piece of Canada: a large $150 dreamcatcher made near Vancouver. Bush and U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair "shared 20 sweaty minutes at the gym in what aides dubbed the first ever 'aerobic bilat,'" wrote Reuters. After walking in on Blair's workout, Bush remarked on his "impressive regime." Blair said Bush "looked in pretty good shape" himself. Naked protests and muddy demonstrations While world leaders received white hats on the eve of the summit, earlier that same morning, protestors were baring it all outside a Gap store on Stephen Avenue to protest the company's exploitation of workers. The 2002 G8 summit ushered in a more peaceful protesting format, said Kirton. The previous summit in Italy was marked by clashes between police and protestors that resulted in a demonstrator being shot and killed by police. Designated protest areas in Calgary contained much of the demonstrations, which included anti-globalization protests in the form of more traditional marches, as well as the more unique mud dance and knit-in demonstrations. "Defence in depth," is how Kirton remembered it. "Yes, you did have to have heavy police, right? They looked like imperial stormtroopers… with their masks and their clubs and their shields. But they were kept hidden inside nearby buildings," he said. WATCH | Protests at the 2002 G8 summit: Protesters at the Kananaskis G8 23 years ago Duration 17:14 "On the front lines, they put local Calgary police officers. They were on bikes… not in tanks or police cars." Ultimately, Kirton said, the relatively peaceful 2002 G8 in Kananaskis "certainly put Canada on the world stage, in a way – more centrally, more prominently – than it had ever done before."
