Everything seems to be getting more expensive. Food, gas and housing prices are on the rise while paycheques are slow to keep pace.
The CBC News series Priced Out explains why you’re paying more at the register and how Canadians are coping with the high cost of everything.
Kevin O’Toole rarely takes his dog, Stella, for a walk without two or three neighbours stopping him to chat.
“I love my neighbours, the community is great, I’ve got everything I want, and at 72, where am I going to go?” he said of his high-rise apartment in Hamilton.
O’Toole pays $825 per month for the two-bedroom rental he’s lived in since 2010.
He worked for 30 years as a waiter. Now he collects his federal pension and works part time at McDonald’s to help keep his head above water.
Watch “Priced out: Canada’s rental crisis” on The Fifth Estate Thursday at 9 p.m. on CBC-TV or stream it on CBC Gem.
With rental rates on the rise, he knows that losing his apartment would be a big financial blow.
“To find an affordable apartment, I’d have to go way the hell out to Sudbury or somewhere,” he told The Fifth Estate. “To find affordable housing, it’s unheard of here in Hamilton now.”
WATCH | A tenant vows to stay in his apartment as long as he can:
‘I’m going out in a box’
16 hours ago
Duration 0:38
Tenant Kevin O’Toole says he likes his community, and will fight to stay in the apartment he’s rented since 2010. 0:38
O’Toole is right. Research shows that in the last decade, Canada has been losing affordable rental units, those available to individuals making $30,000 a year or less, far faster than new ones are being built, and it’s forcing some renters out of the homes and communities they know.
Neither the private market nor the public sector has articulated plans for how to deal with the large number of renters affected by the loss.
A key factor driving up rents in Canada is the shortage of supply, but it’s not just that new units aren’t being built fast enough.
Increases when units turn over
According to research from Steve Pomeroy, a senior research fellow at Carleton University in Ottawa, rentals that were once considered affordable are seeing significant price increases.
He estimates that between 2011 and 2016, the number of rental units that would be affordable for households earning less than $30,000 per year — with rents below $750 — declined by 322,600 in Canada.
Because many provinces control how much rents can be raised on tenants who stay in the same unit, most of these increases occur when the unit turns over.
“If you’re a sitting tenant, then the rental rates only go up by the costs of inflation and so that’s great,” said Douglas Kwan, director of legal services at the Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario. “That’s manageable.”
Douglas Kwan, director of legal services at the Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario, says he is seeing an increase in landlords applying for ‘no fault’ evictions, which make way for a new tenant and new, higher, rents. (Joe Fiorino/CBC)
However, in the current rental environment, “there is a tremendous incentive to remove that sitting tenant,” he said.
The discrepancy in prices is surprising for renters like O’Toole, whose rent has risen from $715 to $825 since he took occupancy more than a decade ago.
“The guy next door,” O’Toole said, “he pays $1,800 a month plus hydro.
“He’s paying $1,000 more rent than me for the same thing.”
1 in 3 Canadians renting
According to 2016 census data, nearly 30 per cent of Canadians, or 4.4 million households, rent their home, and statistics from the Canadian government show they’re under increasing pressure.
Using data from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), which lists average rents for bachelor, two- and three- bedroom apartments in large metropolitan areas, The Fifth Estate calculated that between 2014 and 2019, rents countrywide increased by nearly 20 per cent. At the same time, incomes remained largely unchanged.
When housing costs more than 30 per cent of a person’s income, that housing is unaffordable, according to the federal government.
A recent report from the CMHC said that a two-bedroom apartment rental is beyond the reach of the average person who works full time in many cities, including Vancouver, Victoria, Winnipeg, Peterborough, London, Kingston, Toronto and Halifax.
In Dartmouth, N.S., across the harbour from Halifax, John and Stacey Smith have experienced first-hand what having to move can cost a family. In November, the duplex they were renting was sold to a new owner who wanted to move in.
Even though they both work full time, finding a new place that they felt they could afford and fit their two teenage children was difficult. When they found it, their monthly rent went from $751 to $1,750.
“I’m trying to make it better for my kids and my family,” John Smith said. “I put family first, but I mean, it’s, it’s crazy. It really is.
“I guess that’s life.”
Financialization in housing
As Canada’s real estate market has heated up, large investors have brought industrial standardization and a financial focus to the landlord business.
The Bank of Canada says that one in five people buying a house is doing so as an investment.
Housing experts call this trend “financialization.”
Martine August, an assistant professor in the school of planning at the University of Waterloo in Waterloo, Ont., estimates that 20 to 30 per cent of Canada’s rental apartment market is owned by institutional landlords, and that real estate investment trusts — or REITs — own nearly 200,000 rental units countrywide.
Real estate investment trusts own or invest in income-producing real estate and distribute profits to their shareholders. Many are traded publicly on the stock market.
Some in the industry give similar estimates. REALPAC, the association that represents many of Canada’s largest real estate companies, says the top 21 large real estate owners hold 17.6 per cent of the rental apartment market.
Martine August, an assistant professor in the school of planning at the University of Waterloo in Waterloo, Ont., became interested in the financialization of housing when an investment firm started buying up apartment buildings in her Toronto neighbourhood. (Joe Fiorino/CBC)
“We’re seeing this kind of single-minded orientation towards trying to extract as much value as possible out of those buildings,” August said.
“The important thing to realize is that those buildings are people’s homes. And where that money comes from is basically tenants’ pockets.”
Business model raises the rents
When a landlord does renovations to their property, in some cases they can pass those costs on to tenants in the form of increased rents.
In Ontario, there is a form of rent control for sitting tenants. Generally, landlords can only increase the rent once a year and by a number known as the guideline, set by the province and usually pegged to inflation. When landlords do renovations, they can apply to increase the rent above the guideline, in what is called an above guideline increase (AGI).
“Those above guideline increases are critical for the landlord to be able to get a return on that extra cost that landlords have to spend to upgrade the building,” said Michael Brooks, CEO of REALPAC.
“This is like an old house, it’s the same analogy. At some point in time, you need to do a lot of upgrades to modernize that house. That’s really expensive.”
Michael Brooks, CEO of REALPAC, the association that represents many of Canada’s largest real estate companies, believes that solving the country’s rental affordability issues can’t just be the domain of private industry. (John Badcock/CBC)
August doesn’t see it that way. She believes that above guideline increases are a tool firms use to get around rent controls the government put in place.
“Repairs and renovations actually make money for firms,” August said. “They invest in them because they can extract higher rents afterwards.”
She said that making a profit is not something these companies are struggling with.
“The idea that they need to raise rents in order to do basic maintenance,” she said, “to me, it’s kind of insulting.”
According to annual reports published by the four largest real estate investment trusts in Canada, they disbursed more than $2 billion in profits to their investors between 2015 and 2020.
In 2018, O’Toole’s landlord, a real estate investment trust called InterRent, applied for an above guideline increase hoping to raise rents in the building by nine per cent over two years.
He and his neighbours fought the increase at a hearing before Ontario’s Landlord and Tenant Board in Hamilton and it was reduced by more than half.
WATCH | These Hamilton tenants went on rent strike to fight back against their landlord:
Hamilton tenants go on rent strike
15 hours ago
Duration 0:49
Kevin O’Toole says he shouldn’t have to pay for cosmetic upgrades to his building. 0:49
“If you’re a homeowner you have to pay all these things, but you own a home, I don’t. So don’t pass it onto me,” O’Toole said.
InterRent did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Brooks said that to place housing affordability issues at the feet of large landlords is incorrect.
“Remember, affordable, deeply affordable housing is a public good, and the private sector is not primarily in the business of providing a public good,” he said.
“Without landlords who have access to capital and scale and good management, without that, you’re not going to meet the housing needs of this country.”
Affordability is a problem we all have to address, Brooks said, but “you can’t expect the private sector to solve all social ills.”
“What we really need to solve this unprecedented housing shortage at the bottom end, the affordable end and the deeply affordable end of the markets is an integrated national housing strategy.”
Renters feel abandoned
The federal government announced their newly developed national housing strategy in 2017.
The Fifth Estate made multiple requests over several weeks to speak with federal Housing Minister Ahmed Hussen and was declined each time.
Within that time frame, Hussen sat down with a committee of MPs to discuss the housing affordability issue.
In the meeting, he noted that “a lot of work has been done and more work needs to be done,” and that since 2020 through the rapid housing initiative, a program centred on building affordable housing for vulnerable populations, the government provided funding for 10,250 affordable housing units.
Ahmed Hussen was appointed federal minister of housing and diversity and inclusion in 2021. (Andrew Vaughan/The Canadian Press)
The Fifth Estate asked his office whether that was enough, given that hundreds of thousands of affordable units have been removed from the market in the last decade.
They answered that a single affordable housing project can take up to three years to complete, and that “the national housing strategy initiatives are taking steps to fill important supply gaps in the Canadian housing landscape.”
The minister did not answer questions about how many affordable units have been built under the strategy or what the rent for those units is.
Meanwhile, renters like O’Toole have no confidence that help is coming.
“I think the government should be held accountable,” he said, noting that municipal and provincial governments all play a role in housing.
“All they’re saying is first-time homeowners. Nobody’s talking about the renters. Nobody,” he said. “And we’re just as equally important as somebody who owns a home.”
Have questions about this story? We’re answering as many as we can in the comments.
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — When Robert Roberson’s execution was abruptly halted in Texas, it was due to a subpoena ordering him to testify over a legal backstop that both Republicans and Democrats say should had saved him long ago: Texas’ junk science law.
The 2013 law allows a person convicted of a crime to seek relief if the evidence used against them is no longer credible. At the time, it was hailed by the Legislature as a uniquely future-proof solution to wrongful convictions based on faulty science. But Roberson’s supporters say his case points to faults in the judicial system where the law has been weakened by deliberate misinterpretation from the state’s highest criminal court.
On Monday, Roberson is scheduled to testify to members of a state House committee, four days after he had been scheduled to die by lethal injection.
“He’s seen how the prosecution has really stood in the way of bringing new science forward,” Democratic state Rep. John Bucy told The Associated Press. “I think his first hand account will be helpful for that.”
Roberson, 57, was convicted of murder the 2002 death of his 2-year-old daughter, Nikki Curtis, in Palestine, Texas. Prosecutors alleged that he violently shook his daughter back and forth, causing fatal head trauma. A bipartisan group of lawmakers, medical experts and the former lead prosecutor on the case have thrown their support behind Roberson, stating that his conviction is based on flawed science.
In his clemency petition to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, several medical professionals wrote that Roberson’s conviction is based on outdated scientific evidence and that Curtis likely died from complications with severe pneumonia.
Shaken baby syndrome — now referred to as abusive head trauma — was a popular misdiagnosis at the time that has largely been debunked, according to Roberson’s attorneys.
Courts have rejected numerous attempts by his attorneys to hear new evidence in the case, and Texas’ parole board voted to not recommend Roberson clemency, a necessary step for Abbott to stay the execution. The governor has not commented on Roberson’s case.
No one facing execution has had their sentence overturned since the junk science law was enacted in 2013, according to a report by civil rights group Texas Defender Service.
In the last 10 years, 74 applications have been filed and ruled on under the junk science law. A third of applications were submitted by people facing the death penalty. All of them were unsuccessful.
Of the applications that led to relief, nearly three-quarters were for convictions related to DNA evidence despite making up less than half of all applications.
Legal experts suggest the reason for this is the Texas Criminal Court of Appeals misinterpreting the law and assessing applicants based on their innocence rather than the evidence.
“In practice, the CCA is applying a much higher standard than what the legislators wrote,” said Burke Butler, executive director for Texas Defender Service. “It (proving innocence) is a virtually impossible bar for anyone to meet,” she said, adding that DNA claims are likely more successful because the court can point to another perpetrator.
A House committee is set to discuss how the junk science law has failed to work as intended. In their subpoena to block the court’s execution warrant, lawmakers argued that Roberson’s testimony is vital to understanding its ineffectiveness.
Prosecutors have stated that the evidence in Roberson’s case has not changed significantly since his conviction. The Anderson County District Attorney Office did not respond to phone calls and voice messages Friday from The Associated Press.
Texas’ junk science law was the first of its kind in 2013 and a model for other states across the country, according to legal experts. California, Connecticut, Michigan, Nevada and Wyoming have similar “junk science” statutes, but it has not been studied how successful they are at overturning death penalty convictions.
There are many instances when prosecutors rely on inconsistent or faulty evidence during trial, and junk science laws can be a necessary tool to combat wrongful convictions, according to University of Oklahoma law professor Jim Hilbert.
“The Roberson case is a classic case that the Texas law was meant to address,” Hilbert, who has written about discredited science used in criminal trials, said.
“It has had a positive impact, but in such a limited way. There is so much more it can do.”
___
Lathan is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
NEW YORK (AP) — To some New Yorkers, he’s the white vigilante who choked an innocent Black man to death on the subway. To others, he’s the U.S. Marine Corps veteran whose attempt to subdue a mentally ill man ended in tragedy.
A Manhattan jury will soon have its say on Daniel Penny, who is charged with manslaughter for placing Jordan Neely in a fatal chokehold on May 1, 2023. Jury selection in Penny’s trial begins Monday.
The court proceedings, which are expected to last six weeks, will shed light on a killing that was a flashpoint in the nation’s debate over racial injustice and crime.
Neely’s death also divided a city grappling with what to do about people experiencing mental health crises in a transit system where some subway straphangers still don’t feel safe, despite a drop in violent crime rates.
“There is simply no reason for Jordan Neeley to be dead today,” David Giffen, executive director of the Coalition for the Homeless, told The Associated Press on Wednesday. “So many systems failed Jordan and contributed to his death.”
Penny, 25, has been free on a $100,000 bond. He faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted of second-degree manslaughter and up to four years if convicted of criminally negligent homicide.
Witnesses said Neely — a 30-year-old former Michael Jackson street impersonator struggling with drug addiction, mental illness and homelessness — had been shouting, throwing things and acting erratically on a subway train in Manhattan when Penny approached him.
With the help of two other passengers, Penny pinned Neely to the ground and placed him in a chokehold for more than three minutes until Neely’s body went limp and he lost consciousness. The medical examiner’s office ruled the death a homicide caused by compression of the neck.
Meanwhile, millions of dollars in donations poured in from across the country to help Penny cover his legal costs, including from prominent conservative personalities and Republican candidates for president.
Penny’s lawyers have argued that the Long Island native didn’t intend to kill Neely, just to hold him down long enough for police to arrive, as he was concerned for the safety of others.
“If Danny is convicted, his conviction will have a chilling effect on every New Yorker’s right and duty to stand up for each other,” Penny’s lawyer Steven Raiser said Wednesday. “Our sincerest hope is that New Yorkers selected for this jury will stand up for Danny just like Danny stood up for them back on that train over a year ago today.”
Penny, who served four years in the Marines before being discharged in 2021, claimed that Neely shouted “I’m gonna’ kill you” and that he was “ready to die” or go to jail for life.
But Neely’s family and supporters have said he was simply crying out for help. They said his mental health deteriorated after his mother’s body was found stuffed in a suitcase in the Bronx and he testified at her boyfriend’s murder trial.
Some witnesses, including a freelance journalist who captured video of some of the altercation, also said Neely had been acting aggressively and frightening people but hadn’t attacked anyone before Penny pulled him to the floor.
Neely’s surviving family members say they’ve been anticipating this moment and intend to attend the trial.
“I just want to look into his face and wonder why he would do something like that,” said Mildred Mahazu, Neely’s 85-year-old aunt and primary caretaker after his mother died. “Jordan was somebody’s child. He was loved by his family.”
Neely’s uncle, Christopher Neely, agreed.
“Justice for Jordan is all we think about,” the 45-year-old Manhattan resident said. “We can’t let Jordan’s name be added to the list of Black people killed by a racist white person with no justice.”
Prosecutors argued in court filings that Penny’s actions were unwarranted, reckless and negligent, even if he didn’t have the intention to kill.
They’ve focused on recorded statements Penny made to police in which he describes Neely as a “crackhead,” touts his armed forces experience and demonstrates to officers the submission technique he used.
“I just put him out. I just put him in a chokehold,” Penny said, according to a transcript of the recordings included in court filings. “He was threatening everybody.”
“I’m not trying to kill the guy,” Penny said at another point to police. “I’m just trying to deescalate the situation.”
Bragg’s office declined to comment beyond what its said in court filings. Prosecutors, in pretrial hearings, sought to exclude evidence about Neely’s medical and psychological history, including his record of substance abuse. The judge hadn’t released his ruling on that request as of Friday.
Raiser said Penny’s defense will offer up other potential causes for Neely’s death, including high levels of the synthetic cannabinoid known as K2 that were identified in toxicology reports.
They’ll also argue that video shared widely on social media proves Penny was not applying pressure consistently enough to render Neely unconscious, much less kill him, he said.
“If he was applying that kind of pressure, Mr. Neely would have been rendered unconscious long before the video, circulating online, ever started,” Raiser said.
In January, Penny’s lawyers lost their bid to have the case dismissed outright. Then earlier this month, Judge Maxwell Wiley rejected their request to prevent jurors from hearing Penny’s statements to police, as well as body camera footage from officers who initially responded.
Penny’s attorneys argued that police should have read Penny his Miranda rights sooner and that his questioning at the police station amounted to an illegal arrest.
But Wiley, in a written ruling, determined that Penny’s statements were admissible. The judge said Penny had waived his rights against self-incrimination in the interrogation room and willingly spoke to officers without a lawyer present.
As for Christopher Neely, he hopes what’s not lost in the trial is the memory of his late nephew.
“I want people to remember his strengths and his conquests to greatness and his conquering of fears,” he wrote. “I want people to remember that mental health is a serious issue and that it needs tenderness, not spontaneous rage. Most importantly, I want people to know that Jordan Neely was supremely loved and still is.”
VANCOUVER – Predictions of a close election were holding true in British Columbia on Saturday, with early returns showing the New Democrats and the B.C. Conservatives locked in a tight battle.
Both NDP Leader David Eby and Conservative Leader John Rustad retained their seats, while Green Leader Sonia Furstenau lost to the NDP’s Grace Lore after switching ridings to Victoria-Beacon Hill.
However, the Greens retained their place in the legislature after Rob Botterell won in Saanich North and the Islands, previously occupied by party colleague Adam Olsen, who did not seek re-election.
It was a rain-drenched election day in much of the province.
Voters braved high winds and torrential downpours brought by an atmospheric river weather system that forced closures of several polling stations due to power outages.
Residents faced a choice for the next government that would have seemed unthinkable just a few months ago, between the incumbent New Democrats led by Eby and Rustad’s B.C. Conservatives, who received less than two per cent of the vote last election
Among the winners were the NDP’s Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon in Delta North and Attorney General Niki Sharma in Vancouver-Hastings, as well as the Conservatives Bruce Banman in Abbotsford South and Brent Chapman in Surrey South.
Chapman had been heavily criticized during the campaign for an old social media post that called Palestinian children “inbred” and “time bombs.”
Results came in quickly, as promised by Elections BC, with electronic vote tabulation being used provincewide for the first time.
The election authority expected the count would be “substantially complete” by 9 p.m., one hour after the close of polls.
Six new seats have been added since the last provincial election, and to win a majority, a party must secure 47 seats in the 93-seat legislature.
There had already been a big turnout before election day on Saturday, with more than a million advance votes cast, representing more than 28 per cent of valid voters and smashing the previous record for early polling.
The wild weather on election day was appropriate for such a tumultuous campaign.
Once considered a fringe player in provincial politics, the B.C. Conservatives stand on the brink of forming government or becoming the official Opposition.
Rustad’s unlikely rise came after he was thrown out of the Opposition, then known as the BC Liberals, joined the Conservatives as leader, and steered them to a level of popularity that led to the collapse of his old party, now called BC United — all in just two years.
Rustad shared a photo on social media Saturday showing himself smiling and walking with his wife at a voting station, with a message saying, “This is the first time Kim and I have voted for the Conservative Party of BC!”
Eby, who voted earlier in the week, posted a message on social media Saturday telling voters to “grab an umbrella and stay safe.”
Two voting sites in Cariboo-Chilcotin in the B.C. Interior and one in Maple Ridge in the Lower Mainland were closed due to power cuts, Elections BC said, while several sites in Kamloops, Langley and Port Moody, as well as on Hornby, Denman and Mayne islands, were temporarily shut but reopened by mid-afternoon.
Some former BC United MLAs running as Independents were defeated, with Karin Kirkpatrick, Dan Davies, Coralee Oakes and Tom Shypitka all losing to Conservatives.
Kirkpatrick had said in a statement before the results came in that her campaign had been in touch with Elections BC about the risk of weather-related disruptions, and was told that voting tabulation machines have battery power for four hours in the event of an outage.
— With files from Brenna Owen
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 19, 2024.
