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Development is a big business in Canada. Many of the people reaping benefits from the housing crisis — the controlling shareholders and executives of companies like Mattamy ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½s and Choice Properties — are in fact the wealthiest people in the country, and they flex their power to keep housing un²¹´Ú´Ú´Ç°ù»å²¹²ú±ô±ð.Ìý

Just six weeks ago, The Star reported that two real estate companies told the province to remove requirements for affordable housing on their projects — or they might not build the housing developments at all. 

Ontario, being Ontario, acquiesced. Now, there will be no guarantee of affordable homes at 70 new housing developments across the city despite a desperate need for low-cost units. Cynically, one of the real estate investment trusts (REITs) cited the housing crisis in its argument to eliminate affordable units: “During a housing crisis, this dangerous disincentive acts directly contrary to the provincial and municipal mandate to bring housing to market faster,� lawyers for CT REIT wrote. 

What is happening in housing is illustrative of a broader problem facing Canadians: the disproportionate distribution of power that comes with extreme wealth inequality. If you follow the layers of holding companies, the two companies that axed affordable units are controlled by the superrich. Choice REIT is a : the Westons, of course, are the third richest family in the country, with a net worth of . The other REIT, CT REIT, is by Canadian Tire. Most of that company’s shares are , who may not be a billionaire but is among the in Canada with at least $125 million in assets. 

REITs like those connected to Canadian Tire and Loblaws wouldn’t matter so much if ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½nians could rely on a large stock of publicly built housing, as they could in the . But our federal and provincial governments abandoned their responsibilities for public housing . On this front, Canada wasn’t an outlier. There was a global shift toward privatization: the selling off of public assets and increasing reliance on for-profit companies for necessities like housing.

Privatization gave way to the financialization of housing, helping to create the crisis we are currently in. Investment vehicles like Choice REIT and CT REIT bought up massive amounts of housing during the ‘90s and 2000s. In 1993, in assets. Now, they own more than 900 times that amount, with total assets worth $75 billion.

Alas, that shift is not limited to Canada or its housing market. The current era in which billionaires have proliferated directly succeeded the global era of privatization and financialization. In 1987, there were only 104 billionaires in the world. Today, there are more than , including . Billionaires influence Canadians’ supplies of food (the Westons), housing ( Mattamy ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½s is the ), communications infrastructure (the ), news sources (the ) — even our toilet paper (the ).

That trend looks set to continue. The Liberal party has already paved the way for possible in municipal hydro and water services, transit infrastructure, and airports, and Carney is promising massive cuts to the public service. If this process continues, we could arrive at a dystopian situation in which Canada’s next crop of billionaires could make their fortunes off our drinking water. 

On its surface, Carney’s plan to get the federal government back into housing development appears to be positive. But what remains to be seen is how much influence companies like those two Ontario REITs will wield over the process. If private development is involved in any way, Canadians may be more likely to receive publicly-subsidized unaffordable housing than a true public good.