Dr. Mike P. Moffatt

Jared Zaifman, CEO at The London Home Builders' Association and I were guests on the Matt Brown podcast today, talking about all things housing.

Listen here: https://the-matt-brown-podcast.simplecast.com/episodes/mike-moffatt

In today's episode, we examine "The Collapse of Youth Happiness in Canada". Is social media really to blame? Or is the bigger story about expectations, affordability, and “option freedom”: the ability to make meaningful life choices.

Watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQUyJyf4MJM

I'll be a witness this morning at a House of Commons committee, talking about housing. Here are my opening remarks, titled "Transparency, Targets, and Family Housing: Strengthening Bill C-20"

Read here: https://www.missingmiddleinitiative.ca/p/transparency-targets-and-family-housing

New episode! We look at Canada's lagging productivity; specifically my views on how productivity increases can be driven by either fear or greed, that fear is a better motivator, yet public policy tends to overfocus on greed.

Watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGu_lZVE8gU

Looks like I'll be a witness at the House of Commons #HUMA committee meeting on Thursday morning, talking housing, Build Canada Homes, and Bill C-20. Should be fun!

https://www.ourcommons.ca/DocumentViewer/en/45-1/HUMA/meeting-32/notice

New piece from Cara and me, on how the affordability crisis is shrinking family sizes.

Read: With a record-low 1.25 children per Canadian woman, stop dismissing falling fertility rates as a choice

https://thehub.ca/2026/04/14/with-a-record-low-1-25-children-per-canadian-woman-stop-dismissing-falling-fertility-rates-as-a-choice/

New piece! The root cause of our middle-class housing failures stems from governments enacting policies without a clear goal. Today, we provide a goal for governments to use in policymaking, centred around choice and children.

Read here: https://www.missingmiddleinitiative.ca/p/the-one-question-governments-wont

New piece at the Globe, on how the combination of enhanced HST rebates and 50% development charges will lower the price of new homes by 15-20%, and why the savings will be passed along to buyers.

Read here:

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/investing/personal-finance/article-housing-home-costs-ontario-tax-development/

Given Canada's aging population, it's not surprising that the fastest growing household sizes are 1- and 2-person households.

The 3rd fastest? Households with 6+ people. But when was the last time you heard an urban planner discuss housing options for this group?

Tomorrow should be interesting. Polymarket has 2 of the 3 by-elections being slam-dunks for the Liberals, while giving them a less than 2/3 chance of winning Terrebonne. Not quite a coin flip, but it should be a nailbiter.

I often hear from planners that big homes aren't needed as family sizes are shrinking. Yet the number of families with 3+ kids is rising. Those families are disproportionately made up of people of colour and new Canadians, groups underrepresented in the planning profession.

The Federal Housing Advocate has advised the government to set a target date to resolve the middle-class housing crisis by... 2060. 34 years from now. This means a Grade 10 student will have to wait until they're 50 to afford a home.

https://www.chrc-ccdp.gc.ca/resources/newsroom/new-reports-offer-guidance-strengthening-next-national-housing-strategy

We often hear that falling birth rates are simply a matter of “changing preferences” that modern couples just don’t want as many children as their parents did. Turns out, it's not that simple.

Watch - The Illusion of Choice: Why We’re Having Fewer Kids

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-YqXHJF0WI

Today's episode is on "Bracket Creep" - how large parts of the tax code aren't indexed for inflation, which pushes middle-class taxpayers into higher tax brackets.

Watch: "The Stealth Tax: How Governments Are Secretly Stealing Your Paycheck" here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoHsE_QwoJY

New piece at MMI! We examine the recent Fed-Ont HST and development charge moves, and show how they reduce the price of an entry-level townhome in Oshawa from 730K to 615K, and question why new homes are taxed so heavily in the 1st place.

Read here: https://www.missingmiddleinitiative.ca/p/correcting-a-decade-of-over-taxing

Governments force young middle-class homebuyers to pay 100K+ in HST, DCs, LTTs etc. on an entry-level townhome, because homeownership is a "luxury", while also paying seniors over $80 bilion a year in OAS/GIS, the vast majority of which goes to homeowners. Make it make sense?

Markham just lost $7.36 million of their $58.8M (12.5%) federal Housing Accelerator funding for violating their requirement to legalize fourplexes. Not massive, but honestly, a bigger cut than I thought it would be.

https://www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/media-newsroom/news-releases/2026/update-housing-accelerator-fund-agreements-charlottetown-markham-miramichi

Markham just lost $7.36 million of their $58.8M (12.5%) federal Housing Accelerator funding for violating their requirement to legalize fourplexes. Not massive, but honestly, a bigger cut than I thought it would be.

https://www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/media-newsroom/news-releases/2026/update-housing-accelerator-fund-agreements-charlottetown-markham-miramichi

We live in a country with no sales tax on caviar and foie gras. But if a family with kids wanta to buy a small, entry-level townhome, they pay tens of thousands in HST, and if you suggest lowering these housing taxes, progressives will cry that you're subsidizing the rich.

It's funny how many comments on HST / DC articles are like this one, which call for "a public organization that is focused on optimizing for building affordable homes." This is a thing that already exists, and the feds spend billions on each year.

New episode! We do a victory lap of sorts on the federal-Ontario HST housing rebate announcement and answer questions from Reddit users.

Watch here:

https://youtu.be/6ClYlH0CnK0?si=rOb7Ac5K8Pqlp9rc

New at the Star! The Fed-Ontario development charge deal will make new homes more affordable and help build more of them. We need other provinces to follow suit (looking your way, B.C.), along with permanent, transformative change to DCs.

Read here: https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/doug-ford-and-mark-carney-have-bought-ontario-some-time-but-the-hard-choices-lie-ahead/article_84626ed0-2ac6-4829-828d-b01a167ed90b.html

Around this time last year, I sold all of my US stocks and reinvested 10% in Canada, 90% in non-US/non-Canada.

A year later, up 26%. Given the TSX is up nearly 35% y-o-y, I do wish I had invested more in Canada, but my portfolio was already overweight Canada to begin with.