We are now seven years and tens of billions of dollars into the Trudeau government’s much vaunted National Housing Strategy (NHS) and things are worse than ever. Affordable housing is harder to come by than it was a decade ago, and homelessness is reaching historic highs. The NHS has failed, writes James Hardwick, and we need to understand why.

Voter turnout is an important indicator of a political system’s legitimacy and well-being. For the better part of a century, Saskatchewan had one of the highest levels of voter turnout among the provinces. This pointed to a considerable support for, and engagement in, the political system on the part of Saskatchewan citizens. Those days are now behind us.

To solve the housing crisis we need to turn away from neoliberal doctrines and look towards solutions that actually work. Our own history, as well as the experiences of our contemporaries abroad, teach us that the only way to restore housing affordability is to create non-market housing alternatives that anchor prices and push the investor class out of the housing system.

A world where the wealthy, so-called advanced, capitalist nations can dominate is abhorrent. We need a new world order focused on global solidarity, mutuality, and international cooperation. We need science-based praxis where the needs of humans, animals and nature are prioritized. We do not need a repeat of pandemic profiteering and the shameful “me-first” posture of the rich and powerful.

What if the value of a mortgage could be collected today? What if the bank could sell your debt on the open market? They could use the cash to lend out even more money and collect even more interest on even more mortgages. Thanks to the National Housing Act, they can do exactly that. James Hardwick on how federal housing policy has turned our mortgage system into an engine of inequality.

Capitalism’s profit focus has often held back the distribution of products to drive up their prices. Patents and trademarks of profit-seeking businesses effectively slow the distribution of all sorts of products. We cannot know whether capitalism’s incentive effects outweigh its slowing effects. Claims that capitalism promotes rather than slows progress are pure ideological assertions.

The word mortgage has its origins in medieval French jurisprudence. Roughly translated it means “deal unto death.” In the context of Canada’s housing market this etymological root has special resonance. As James Hardwick writes, our homes have been mortgaged by an aging generation hell-bent on carrying them into the grave.

Let’s be clear: while we might be able to make some improvements here and there through clever initiatives, we almost certainly cannot solve the housing crisis without dealing directly with the land question. The private extraction of land value doesn’t just produce a crisis for housing, but virtually everything across the political spectrum that can be useful.

As government programs like social housing have been dismantled and wages have been suppressed to the point where regular jobs can no longer provide a decent life, Canadians have increasingly turned to rent-seeking behaviour to resolve their financial insecurity. The result is that single-family homes have become a battlefield; the winners get to collect houses and the rent.

Without the foregrounding of root causes, utilitarian piecemeal attempts at improvements to a weakened, degraded system are destined to failure. If decisive action is not taken against the privatizers and their enablers in government, then we are in grave danger of losing a vitally important part of what defines us as a decent society: a system in which one and all have access to quality health care.