More and More Canadians Struggling to Get By

Patrick Gossage • October 16, 2023

You know that the number of Canadians crushed by rising costs is becoming a national crisis when both military families and auto workers complain of living pay cheque to pay cheque, and when 40 percent of post-secondary graduates are leaving high-cost Toronto in large numbers because they can’t afford to live there. The phenomenon of the graduate living in his or her parent’s basement because they can’t afford rent is used regularly by the federal opposition to shame the federal government who are finally trying to do something about unaffordability that affects nearly everyone.

Unaffected of course are the wealthiest households (top 20 percent) who account for more than two-thirds (67.9 percent) of net worth at the end of 2022. These are the corporate titans who are the constant butt of the NDP who continue to call for a wealth tax to even out glaring inequality. It was interesting to hear UNIFOR auto workers leadership and strikers refer to the huge salaries of automobile executives as a reason to give workers more. And up to present the union has been successful in bringing workers back to middle class wages. 


The huge profits of the major grocery chains and the over generous salaries of their executives has been a recurring theme in recent federal politics. And recently a large survey on grocery buying habits in a high price scenario has nearly half sacrificing nutritional value for price. Sixty-three percent are “worried that compromising on nutrition due to high prices may have adverse long-term effects of their health”. This is a shocking finding indeed. 


Canadians appear to be sacrificing a lot of extras to keep their mortgages out of arrears as many monthly payments have doubled with rising interest rates. Power of sale rates in Toronto are up marginally. But both renters and mortgage holders are struggling to meet higher costs. One Angus Reid survey showed that a year ago last June one-in-five (19 percent) renters reported it was very difficult to meet rising costs, now one-quarter (24 percent) say the same. The proportion of homeowners who find their mortgage difficult to manage has risen from one-third (34 percent) to 45 percent! 


As costs of basics have risen, many Canadians have used credit to keep up. Overall consumer debt has hit a record high in Canada, and any further rate increases from the Bank of Canada would put pressure on Canadians holding credit card balances and other loans. Already, one-quarter (26 percent) say their debt is a major source of stress for them. Two-in-five (42 percent) worry about their debt in a more minor way. This figure is higher among mortgage holders who 30 percent say is a major source of stress.


The most recent Bank of Canada rate hike to 5 percent means more bad news according to a July Angus Reid survey: “Currently,  two-in-five (37 percent) mortgage holders are having a difficult time making their payments. Among this group, nine-in-ten say this latest rate increase will further exacerbate this. Further, among those who say their payments are currently “manageable”, a majority (60 percent) say that this decision will negatively affect their ability to keep payments in this comfortable zone going forward.

In October a Leger poll of young Canadians painted a bleak picture of their particular struggles. The situation is getting worse with each passing year: Generation Z (born 1997 onwards) and millennials (born between 1981 and 1996) lack confidence in the future,” the report stated. It found half of these young Canadians living pay cheque to pay cheque. The rising cost of living is pressing on young Canadians’ minds even more than last year: 48 percent said they feel the added costs on the regular payment of their credit card or bills, compared to 40 percent in 2022. Around 72 percent of renters said their rent takes up too much of their expenses and 81 percent said they’re renting because they’re “unable to buy property.” Another 67 percent said they don’t think they’ll be able to buy property in the next few years, with 68 percent of youth living with family stating the same.


Young people generally find themselves  completely priced out of homes in the GTA. Wages have remained relatively stagnant while house prices have doubled since the 1990’s. Rental prices have more than doubled in the same time period. A, one-bedroom units in Toronto are hitting the market for more than $2,600, while two-bedroom apartments command more than $3,400 and three-bedroom units cost about $3,800, according to a report by rentals.ca and Urbanation. As of September 23 the average annual salary in Toronto is $57,550, which works out to be approximately $27.67 an hour. This is equivalent to $1,106 a week or $4,795 a month. Is it any wonder that the city is simply unaffordable for so many. 

The affordability crisis may be most exaggerated in Toronto, but it is felt nationally. According to a survey conducted by Abacus Data in July, the rising cost of living is far and away the top concern for Canadians, while housing affordability now rivals health care as a priority. Recent data from Environics also shows that Canadians are markedly more worried about household debt than they were a decade ago — with the biggest spike in debt anxiety reported among those aged 18 to 44. 


In 2012, Justin Trudeau mused on a theme which helped carry him to victory three years later and is still a touchstone of Liberal strategy. "Those who think the middle class is thriving in this country should spend more time with their fellow citizens," Trudeau wrote in October 2012, shortly after launching his bid for the Liberal leadership. "[The] squeezing of the Canadian middle class does not need to be explained to those who live it every day." Clearly the kind of anxiety revealed is hardest on the so-called middle class who have the highest consumption rates most affected by rising prices. And at the lower end many still have mortgages. When Trudeau or ministers talk about the middle class and  “those working hard to join it” the slogane becomes more age inclusive   There is now a powerful Cabinet Committee chaired by the Deputy PM Chrystia Freeland which targets Canada’s principal ailments. It is a, “Ministerial Working Group on the Middle Class, Economy and Housing - Provides strategic leadership in considering measures to support the middle class and those working hard to join it, to make life more affordable, and to remove barriers to building more homes, faster to drive down the cost of housing”. An old wrapping for new critical problems. 


All this anxiety which more and more Canadians feel about the economy is a major challenge for the solution-minded Liberal team. The leader of the Opposition has many Canadians believing that unaffordability is all Trudeau’s doing with rising interest rates (not under the government’s control) and the Liberal gas tax. The die is cast for the next election for sure and the government will be survive or fall on how successfully it addresses what is a widespread and deeply felt economic crisis. 

Patrick Gossage Insider Political Views

Well-meaning Assault Weapons Ban and Buyback victim of poor timing and major opposition

By Patrick Gossage • April 14, 2026
In contrast to US inaction after almost weekly mass killings, it took one horrible shooting rampage at the Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal, in 1980, to start the drive for public policy changes around gun control. But years delays between the mass shooting outrage and actual policy to rid the country of assault rifles doomed the eventual gun buyback program. The polytechnique horror was huge news in our relatively massacre-free nation. That December day, 25-year-old Marc Lépine stalked the hallways and classrooms of the École Polytechnique de Montréal with a semi-automatic rifle and murdered 14 women and injured another 13 people before killing himself. A year later, the Coalition for Gun Control was formed to push for stricter gun laws, led by survivors of the Montreal massacre. Later that year, the federal government passed Bill C-17, which imposed safety training and a mandatory waiting period to get a firearms licence-- not an effective means of controlling automatic rifles. Much later, in1996, Parliament passed the Firearms Act, Bill C-68, driven in part by a push for stricter gun laws following the Montreal massacre. The act created a national firearms registry and imposed new rules for obtaining a gun licence, including background checks. The former Conservative government, under prime minister Stephen Harper, abolished the long-gun registry, which it said placed an unnecessary burden on law-abiding gun owners. Quebec subsequently created its own provincial registry to replace it. It took another horrific killing nine years later in Nova Scotia to force Ottawa to take real action on miliary-style guns. On April 18 and 19, 2020, 51-year-old Gabriel Wortman committed multiple shootings and set fires at 16 locations, killing 22 people before he was killed by the RCMP. On May 1, 2020, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, following through on a 2019 campaign promise, announced an immediate ban on some 1,500 makes and models of assault weapons.. The Canadian government sought to follow New Zealand's lead when at the same time it announced the ban it promised a plan to force gun owners to surrender military-style firearms. But while New Zealand acted quickly, in 2019, Ottawa only launched a long awaited buyback program in 2026. In contrast, the government of then New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda announced its firearms buyback program shortly after a white supremacist killed 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch in March, 2019. In order to move quickly, New Zealand set up mobile units where firearm owners could get refunds in exchange for their firearms. They worked hard to get co-operation from gun owners. Meanwhile, here, the firearms industry and individual gun owners vigorously opposed the project, and it was delayed for years. The program was finally initiated this year with little of the sense of urgency it could have had right after the Nova Scotia killings. It has not been going well. In April, the federal public safety minister's office said more than 67,000 assault-style firearms have been declared by 37,869 firearm owners across Canada. That's just under half of the 136,000 firearms the government had budgeted for when it set aside aside $248.6 million for the program. The precise number of banned firearms in Canada is unknown due to the end of the long-gun registry in 2012. There are other deeper problems. Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba have indicated they will not assist with the program, meaning police are not co-operating as in New Zealand. Conservative MPs and firearm owners say the buyback is a wasteful exercise that targets law-abiding citizens. The original gun-control advocacy group, PolySeSouvient, blames “weak political leadership” for what it calls “poor participation” in the compensation program. It looks like Ottawa - to put it mildly - has blown the opportunity to really reduce the number of people-killing guns in this country.

Two Opposites – Mark Carney and Donald Trump

By Patrick Gossage • March 12, 2026
One of the major differences between these two men is that Carney understands the value of well-thought-out strategy, abundantly clear in his Davos speech, which laid out one for middle powers to deal with the end of a rules-based international order and the rise of hegemony. Trump's lack of strategic understanding is clear in his bumbling attempts to justify the billion-dollar-a-day Iran war. His overall tactic of “flooding the zone” – mounting a new initiative or major announcement every day, or even several times a day to ensure press and opposition can never catch up. This tactic has served him well – confusing the world and his would-be opponents into submission under a valley of activity and harsh opinions from the leader of the world. Contrast this approach to leadership from Carney. He is systematically building a nation less dependent on US trade by travelling the world building new alliances and trading partners. And in the scare of Australia giving substance to his idea of alliances with middle powers. All laid out in the Davos speech. It is instructive to appreciate how much Trump was irritated by the Davos speech. Carney got a standing ovation; Trump’s rambling lengthy diatribe did not. He won’t soon forget being so upstaged. He surely recognized an intellectual power he could never match. Carney is a realist and pragmatic when he stated recently “We take the world as it is, not as we wish it to be.” He is dealing with the world that is being reshaped by an irrational power-mad president, a world the powerful Stephen Miller said “that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world.” Does Carney sometimes err on the side of supporting Trump likely to ensure that critical talks on free trade and tariffs have some chance of finding a sympathetic ear? Yes; first he seemed to fully support Trump’s war with Iran. He later made his support more nuanced, saying Trump’s actions were against the rules-based international order. He now says we will not get involved unless a NATO ally is threatened. But generally, Carney is highly rational in contrast to Trump’s self-centered irrationality. Take Trump’s bizarre ill-informed letter to the Prime Minister of Norway, who had no role in deciding if he got the Nobel Peace Prize: “I no longer feel obligated to think purely of Peace (he subsequently engaged in an ever expanding war against Iran). He then reiterated his demand for “complete and Total Control, of Greenland. Thank you!”. His late-night rants, complete with caps, on social media show a mind out of control. Thay are dutifully reported on US news media and often astonish with their non sequiturs and nastiness. One of his more unpresidential quotes came as he fingered White House drapes: “I chose these myself. I always liked gold." The big question for Canadians who are more and more disillusioned with the antics of the President: could these two opposite ever sit down and do a deal that works for Canada. The two do text, and Carney has admitted that in private Trump does listen. But there is also evidence that the trade people in the White House do not like Canada, and as Trump has said, we owe our very existence to the US. And we are “difficult”. They have said that the current trade deal is not good for the US and could be trashed entirely and -deals with Mexico and Canada could be separate and the current trilateral deal may be dead.  Canada was at the brink of reducing the heavy sectoral tariffs on steel, aluminum, and lumber when Premier Ford’s unfortunate ads during the Rose Bowl that featured President Reagan speaking against the usefulness of Tariffs led To Trump suspending talks. They only recently resumed. So can our world-renowned businessman and banker hope to sit down with the unpredictable and unstable President and cut a deal? Some hope that if we extend talks, the President, weakened by the midterms, the bad economic fallout from an unpopular war, and the fragmentation of the MAGA movement may be easier to deal with. On the other hand he may badly need a “win,” bullying big concessions out of Canada and reaping so-cabled benefits from a weaker free trade deal. There is a scenario where Trump gets a black eye if Carney simply walks away with the conviction, perhaps easily shared with an increasingly nationalistic and confident Canada that “no deal is better than a bad deal.” In any case, what a decisive and challenging future we face with Canada at play. Can Carney win for Canada against his opposite by losing a deal?"
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