People lie. Numbers don’t.

I bought my first home in 1997 for $89,000. Adjusted for inflation, that would be roughly $150,000 today. That same house now sells for $400,00 to $500,000, or more here in the Crowsnest Pass. The difference isn’t just a shift in the market, it’s a symptom of a deeper, structural failure.

In the late 1990s, a middle-class income could reasonably afford a modest home. The purchase price was typically two to three times your annual salary. Today? That ratio has ballooned. The average home now costs over seven times the average household income, more than double the affordability of the late 1990s. And that’s the national average, many regions are far worse.

This isn’t just “harder” for today’s young people. It’s near impossible, unless you inherit wealth, get substantial help from family, or take on soul crushing levels of debt. The dream of homeownership, once a pillar of the Canadian promise, is now a fantasy for many under 40.

I don’t feel that we worked harder in 1997. We weren’t more deserving. We were simply born into a window of opportunity that no longer exists. That window has been slammed shut by a combination of short sighted policy, overregulation, and economic decisions that favour speculation over stability.

Since 2015, under the Liberals, the average home price in Canada has surged from about $450,000 to more than $750,000 by 2024. During that time, immigration targets were more than doubled to over 500,000 annually. Meanwhile, interest rates were kept artificially low for years, and foreign buyers entered the market in record numbers. The result? An explosion in demand with no meaningful plan to address supply.

Canada needs to build a half-million new homes each year just to meet demand. We are currently building around half that. This shortfall, year after year, is driving prices higher, fuelling bidding wars, and locking people out of the market. And yet, the governments at all levels continue to cling to policies that add demand while stifling the ability to build.

Zoning delays, bureaucratic red tape, punitive development fees, and NIMBYism have created a perfect storm. Even well meaning programs have been watered down by delays and inconsistencies between provinces and municipalities. What we need is real, aggressive reform, not more announcements, working groups, and half baked plans.

At the same time, the financial strain on households is reaching dangerous levels. Only two years ago, Canada’s debt-to-income ratio hit 187 per cent, up from 110 per cent in the late 1990s. Canadians are deeper in debt than ever before, and they are increasingly borrowing just to stay afloat. Mortgage payments, rent, and the cost of living are all rising faster than incomes.

People lie. Numbers don’t.

This is why I will vote Conservative. Not because of slogans, but because we need a government that is willing to acknowledge the scale of the crisis and take meaningful steps to fix it. We need policies that stop artificially inflating demand while ignoring supply. We need leadership that prioritizes building over bureaucracy, and common sense over optics.

Housing isn’t just about real estate. It’s about fairness, opportunity, and the ability to build a future in the country you call home. It’s about whether Canada still lives up to the promise that if you work hard, you can get ahead. Right now, for an entire generation, that promise has been broken.

We are witnessing a Canada where the dream of homeownerwship has become a luxury, not a right. And the next generation is paying the price, not because they didn’t work hard, but because they were handed a stacked deck.

The numbers tell the story. And if we don’t act now, we risk becoming a country divided by ownership and access, by those who got in and those left behind. It’s time to reopen the door. Not just with words, but with action.