Canada’s politicians are quietly relieved the headlines have moved on from housing. It was never an easy problem to solve—doing so would mean confronting municipal obstruction, reforming provincial systems, and holding governments, including their own, to account. Today, with public concerns shifting towards international trade wars and big-ticket national energy projects, housing—the issue that dominated the national conversation just months ago—is being carefully, silently deprioritized. Our leaders are thrilled.
We saw it in Toronto, where the city council recently failed to legalize sixplexes citywide. This wasn’t a major zoning tweak—it was a small test of whether our political leaders, at every level, are willing to lead the public toward necessary, but uncomfortable, change. City council gutted the proposal. Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow didn’t even speak in support. Premier Doug Ford gave no comment. Some $30 million annually that the federal government tied to the reform through their Housing Accelerator Fund hangs in the balance. The new federal housing minister, former Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson, has shown little sign that any accountability is coming.
This isn’t about sixplexes versus single-family homes. Toronto is not leaping from one to the other. It is simply failing to urbanize sensibly—refusing to let its expensive and depopulating postwar suburban cities evolve into the kinds of modest-density neighbourhoods that millions of Canadian families would live in if they could afford to.
The failure of the sixplex vote reveals something deeper than technical disagreement. It shows that, despite the rhetoric, our leaders still won’t spend political capital on the reforms that matter. Which makes one thing clear: they don’t understand the stakes—generationally, socially, culturally, or economically.
