> due to its abundance of open land (granted, not all of it is economically valuable) haha yes the latter statement a very important inclusion. Despite being

> due to its abundance of open land (granted, not all of it is economically valuable) haha yes the latter statement a very important inclusion. Despite being the second largest country in the world there's very little viable, good land in Canada and a housing crunch was inevitable. Enormous swathes of Canada are sheer mountain, muskeg, and tundra. Lots of nice flat parts that are dramatically more important for feeding the world purposes than McMansion development. All the good places to build are where the cities currently are, and they're running out of land. The era of razing a forest at the margins and building more suburban strip malls is over. There are a multitude of reasons for high housing, but the strongest one is general anti-housing policies for decades, governments being completely asleep at the wheel and running into the end of easy suburban sprawl which has resulted in a game of musical chairs as people realize the era of the single family home is coming to a close. We're at the inflection point where new development must come through redevelopment and intensification instead of greenfield development. Other places (ie. Europe!) got here decades and centuries ago, but Canada is still in the denial stage.