¼C Modern ✳ The receipts

Honest numbers

Every claim we make, with its receipt attached.

We promise honest numbers. This page is that promise kept: the data behind the manifesto, charted plainly, sourced under every figure. When a number has no source, we do not print it.

Canada added 5.1 people for every home it started to build in 2023.

Population growth divided by housing starts. Both 2023 and 2024 sit above any level recorded in the previous five decades.

5.1 people per housing start, 2023 — the worst ratio in 50+ years of records

2024 eased to 3.9 as population growth slowed sharply after immigration cuts, still above every pre-2023 year in five decades of data. The homes were never built; the shortage remains.

Source: Fraser Institute, The Crisis in Housing Affordability: Population Growth and Housing Starts 1972–2024 (published 2025). Population slowdown: Statistics Canada quarterly demographic estimates, 2025.

At the same age, on the same streets, ownership collapsed.

Share who owned a single-detached home at age 25 to 39: boomers measured in 1991, millennials measured in 2021.

0 10 20 30 % owned Vancouver, boomers at 25–39 (1991): 36.3% Vancouver, millennials at 25–39 (2021): 12.2% 36.3% 12.2% Vancouver Toronto, boomers at 25–39 (1991): 32.7% Toronto, millennials at 25–39 (2021): 19.4% 32.7% 19.4% Toronto
Boomers at 25–39 · 1991 Millennials at 25–39 · 2021

Nationally, among those who did own, the share owning a single-detached house fell from 45.7 percent (boomers, 1991) to 34.1 percent (millennials, 2021).

Data table
MarketBoomers 1991Millennials 2021
Vancouver36.3%12.2%
Toronto32.7%19.4%

Source: Statistics Canada, Millennials in the Canadian housing market: an intergenerational comparison, May 2026.

What carrying the average home costs, as a share of median pre-tax household income.

RBC aggregate affordability measure, Q1 2026. Lower is better. The national level sits roughly 2.8 points below the worst ever recorded, the peak of the 1990s bubble.

Vancouver Canada Calgary Edmonton Regina Vancouver: 84.1% of median pre-tax income Canada aggregate: 53% Calgary: 41.5% Edmonton: 36.8% Regina: 27.2% 84.1% 53% 41.5% 36.8% 27.2%
Data table
MarketShare of income, Q1 2026
Vancouver84.1%
Canada (aggregate)53%
Calgary41.5%
Edmonton36.8%
Regina27.2%

Source: RBC Economics, Housing Trends and Affordability, Q1 2026 report.

And the generation waiting at home.

Young Canadians live with their parents at double the rate boomers did at the same age.

Source: Statistics Canada intergenerational study, May 2026. Charted when the microdata table publishes; until then it stays a sentence, because we do not draw bars we cannot source point by point.