Thunder Bay House Prices in the Lead

 Teranet and the National Bank of Canada have released their latest Composite Price Index covering the April 2024 to May 2024 period covering the country's 11 largest CMAs and the index rose "by 0.5% from April to May, after remaining stable the previous month. In May, seven of the 11 CMAs included in the index recorded growth: Halifax (+1.5%), Hamilton (+1.1%), Calgary (+1.0%), Vancouver (+1.0%), Victoria (+0.8%), Toronto (+0.5%) and Quebec City (+0.4%). Conversely, decreases were recorded in Edmonton (-0.7%), Winnipeg (-0.6%) and Ottawa-Gatineau (-0.2%), while prices remained stable in Montreal during the month. On the other hand, increases were observed in fifteen of the 20 CMAs not included in the composite index for which data are available in May. The strongest monthly gains were seen in Saint John (+8.8%) and Lethbridge (+2.1%). Conversely, the biggest declines were in Guelph (-3.0% after a 5.8% rise the previous month) and Sudbury (-2.9%)."

The interesting result here is for Thunder Bay.  Monthly prices between April and May 2024 rose by 2.5 percent but what is more remarkable is the year over year increase for Thunder Bay which puts it at the highest amongst the 14 Ontario CMAs in the Teranet data.   As the accompanying figure shows, Thunder Bay registered a May 2023 to May 2024 increase of 10.42 percent, followed by Brantford at 8.99 percent and then Windsor at 7.82 percent.  Near the bottom are St. Catharines-Niagara, London and Guelph at 1.6 to 0.9 percent annual increases.  The strong showing in Thunder Bay is a function of a number of factors including recent growth in population.  However, population has been growing across Ontario so one wonders if part of the increase is also a function of the fact that Thunder Bay house prices are amongst the most affordable not only in Ontario but Canada as a whole attracting buyers from away.

 

 

All in all, good news for current owners of property in Thunder Bay.  Perhaps a bit more problematic for those in Thunder Bay who wish to get into the market.

What New “Affordable” Housing Looks Like in Thunder Bay

 As the federal government ramps up the billions to address the housing crisis in Canada including $6 billion to construct housing infrastructure. $1.5 billion to protect existing apartment buildings and a $15 billion apartment loan program, one would expect to see progress on the affordable housing front.  In the end, the issue is not really a shortage of housing to either buy or rent but affordable housing.  A glance at assorted real estate site in any city shows a large number of listings either for sale or for rent.  However, when one looks at the price, it is the cost of renting or buying that stands out, not a dearth of listings.

An illustration can be made for Thunder Bay which is seeing a large number of new rental building under construction.  A glance at Rent Panda reveals that some recent building projects are renting for some pretty hefty prices.  Take for example the two north side rentals in Thunder Bay shown below  – 80 Junot which is essentially adjacent to the Picton Street area and across from an EMS station – and 312 Crossbow – which is in a prime north side neighbourhood.  Location aside, both of these new build rental units are two bedrooms and two baths and rent for $2450 and $2400 a month respectively – utilities not included.  Two people earning minimum wage together could expect to earn at best close to $60,000 a year.  The rent alone will take up nearly half of their gross income, never mind the utilities.

Perhaps, south side rents are less?  Well the accompanying slide shows that a new build two bedroom one bath on Mary Street near Neebing Avenue is going for $2,300 a month though it includes water as a utility but likely not hydro.  I guess we could argue that these are all new builds and maybe we should settle for something older.  Well, a three bedroom one bath house on East Christina Street on the south side is renting for $2400 a month.  

The point here is that there is housing available for rent and some of it is new and quite nice but at $2300 and upwards a month and often excluding utilities, it is not affordable housing given the average incomes in Thunder Bay.  Median household income in Thunder Bay is just shy of $80,000 a year which means that half of households earn less than this.  At these rental prices, these below median income households will see close to half of their household income go to rent and utilities.  This is not affordable housing.  This is not geared to income or social housing.  This is where the shortage lies not only in Thunder Bay but across the country.

Will Thunder Bay Meet Its Housing Targets?

 

The Mayor’s State of the City Address last evening highlighted  housing construction in Thunder Bay particularly touting that Thunder Bay within Ontario had met its target so far and ranking tenth amongst Ontario centers (See here for a ranking).  The Mayor reiterated once again that in response to coming economic development and demand, Thunder Bay needed more housing and has a target of 1,691 new homes over three years.  Naturally, the question that arises is whether or not Thunder Bay can indeed meet this target. Much depends on the ability of the local construction sector to actually build that many homes in three years as well as whether the demand will materialize.

 

Forecasting the future these days is a pretty perilous exercise but some insight on the ability of Thunder Bay to build what amounts to nearly 600 new homes a year can be garnered from past performance.  Figure 1 plots monthly Statistics Canada total residential permit data by dollar value and number of permits from 2011 to 2023.  The numbers fluctuate seasonally though there is a spike in 2023.  However,  there are similar spikes in earlier periods.  If you want to smooth things out by taking a average - Thunder Bay has averaged monthly over the 2011 to 2023 period approximately 25 residential permits with an average value of 6.5 million dollars.  Converted  annually, that 25 permits a month translates into 300 units - a bit short.

 

Perhaps rather than permits issued, a better indicator of Thunder Bay’s capacity and ability to build nearly 600 units annually is a longer-term total housing starts series.  Figure 2 plots this from January 1990 to January 2024 and includes a polynomial smooth to highlight trends.  The results suggest that Thunder Bay is indeed capable of building 600 units a year as we have done so in the past.  Indeed, the early 1990s resulting in over 1,000 new housing starts annually.  However, the major obstacle is likely to be not building capacity or ability but demand for new units.  As the smoothed series points point, we are on an uptick that can see about 400 new homes being built in the next year.  Reaching 600 is possible based on the recent past given the smoothed numbers going into the pandemic.  However, as noted, the result is going to be driven also by our economic growth.  Thunder Bay has been doing well economically over the last year but will require sustained performance at this level to generate the needed demand for housing.

 

 

 

 This post originally appeared on the Fraser Institute Blog, February 24th, 2024.

Ontario’s housing woes—a supply-side problem

Housing prices in Ontario, like in much of the rest of Canada, have soared because of several factors including supply constraints combined with rising demand fuelled by robust population growth. The most recent installment in this ongoing saga is the federal government’s move to cap international student visas to which Ontario has announced measures requiring universities and colleges to guarantee student housing—though how this is to be done is a good question.

These short term reactive regulatory actions at both the federal and provincial level will ultimately do little to solve the problem of scarce and expensive housing because they do not address the root of the problem—the supply side, particularly the high cost of building new homes, which results in meagre efforts to build new housing stock.

Aside from the recent labour shortages and run-up in construction costs in the pandemic’s wake, there are two additional facets to the supply and cost-side issues of housing in Canada in general and Ontario in particular.

First, there’s the role of government in driving up the cost of new housing through regulatory actions at the provincial and municipal level. Housing in early 21st century Ontario has been treated not as an investment but as a source of cash for governments, which always seem to need more money. According to a CMHC report, government charges on new housing development via warranty fees, municipal fees, development and permit fees easily add 20 per cent to the cost of building a new home. Indeed, the regulatory charges for a new home in a place such as Markham can easily add up to $180,000 with some of the higher costs imposed on higher density row homes and high rise units relative to single-detached homes. This is not an inconsequential amount given housing prices in Markham average about $1.3 million.

Second, housing supply has not kept up with population growth. This is not a new story—the addition of new per-person housing stock in Ontario peaked in the 1970s. The chart below plots total housing starts for Ontario from 1955 to 2023. While there have been cyclic highs and lows, the overall trend has been upwards. Even so, the total number of starts peaked in 1973 at 110,536 starts. By way of contrast, 2023 saw 89,297 new home starts. In 1973, Ontario’s population was 8.1 million people whereas by 2023 it was estimated at 15.8 million.

When one calculates the number of new starts per person and constructs an index with 1955 equal to 100, it becomes clear that new housing starts per person have been on a long-term decline. Compared to 1955, we’re building 45 per cent fewer new homes per person. If you compare it to the per-person peak in the 1970s, Ontario in 2023 built nearly 60 per cent fewer new homes per person.

To add to the stock of affordable housing, the Ontario government has set the target of 1.5 million homes to be built by 2031. To this end, it created a Building Faster Fund that would provide up to $1.2 billion to municipalities that meet or exceed the government housing target set for that community and provide strong mayoral powers to municipalities to help cut through municipal red tape and speed up construction. The government has also set housing targets for municipalities to meet to receive the funding.

Keep in mind that to reach a target of 1.5 million new homes by 2031, Ontario would need to add 187,500 new homes a year until 2031. As the first chart illustrates, since 1955 there has not been a single year where Ontario has come close to that number. Indeed, if one compares housing starts as a per cent of the target set by the provincial government across municipalities based on data from its Housing Tracker (see chart below) it’s clear that as of late-January 2024, barely one-quarter of municipalities had met their 2023 housing target. Not the most auspicious start.

What’s Ontario to do? The province’s housing availability and affordability problem will likely get worse before it gets better. Along with boosting the supply of skilled trades people to help construct more homes, it must reduce the regulatory and zoning barriers that slow down the construction of multi-unit residential projects, reduce the governmental development charges particularly on “missing-middle” density builds that emphasize family-sized units, and provide further tax incentives geared to building high-rise multi-unit builds with family-sized units. Governments should also increase efforts to leverage surplus public lands at the federal, provincial and municipal levels to help construct affordable housing as the current approach has paid little attention to having a constant and ample supply of shovel-ready sites.

Only such a multi-pronged approach will have any hope of meeting the housing needs of Ontarians over time.

Solving the Homelessness and Housing Crisis

 

As rents soar in Canada and encampments spring up in cities across the country, it is evident that the country faces a housing crisis which to date seems intractable.  Even the recent slowdown in home prices does little to improve the situation given that average housing prices in Canada remain just shy of $700,000 with prices varying across the provinces. Average housing prices in Greater Vancouver are just shy of $1.2 million while Greater Toronto is slightly less at $1.1 million.  And while at an average of $322,000, Thunder Bay seems more affordable compared to Toronto and Vancouver all of these averages mask the variation in prices around the average that realistically means something half decent that you may actually like is always substantially above the average. 

 

However, the housing and homelessness crisis and what has been termed the housing shortage is not really just about the price of an average house.  There are a number of issues here.  First, there is actually not a “shortage” of houses and apartments per se as a glance at any real estate listing in cities shows that there are always houses for sale or apartments for rent.  However, the price or rents of those housing units are well above what individuals are either able or willing to pay especially given the recent rise in interest rates which has increased the cost of home ownership in particular. One could term this a crisis in affordable housing rather than a shortage of housing. Second, there is the issue of homelessness which has manifested itself with rising numbers of people in cities across the country living in tents and encampments.

 

Solving these issues requires a two-prong solution.  First, dealing with affordable housing.  The sudden drive to expand the supply of housing to make it affordable is certainly a potential long-run solution. However, in the end building more $1,000,000 homes in suburbs, which developers like to do because they can make a lot of money, really does not solve that problem. Moreover a $1,000,000 new build home program does not solve the housing affordability problem unless it is done so incompetently by the private sector that they create a glut that drives prices down which seems unlikely.  Developers across the country over the years have learned that you just do not build a couple of hundred homes in a subdivision and then sell them – you build on spec with a large deposit.  Basically, every new home built already has someone lined up for it.

 

The solution to the affordable housing is the building of either rent-geared-to-income housing or the building of standardized-government subsidized housing units (much like the Wartime Homes Program) whose design, construction and sale is also geared to income.  One example of this is the standardized house designs being put forth by the government of British Columbia which could serve as a template for other provinces. This will enable homes to be built more quickly but it could also serve as a model for lower cost housing designs. As for rent -geared-to-income, all new apartment builds should have portions of the building ranging from 10 to 20 percent of rent geared to low and middle incomes with government social housing subsidies providing the incentive to builders. This is preferable to simple erecting mega projects of low-income apartments in neighborhoods that essentially creates clusters of low-income individuals.

 

In a sense, the Ontario government’s current approach to increasing housing supply by providing incentives and powers to municipalities to simply expand housing stock does not follow either of the above approaches.  Take the case of Thunder Bay where the target is to build over 2000 homes by 2031 according to the provincial target but given that the target has been exceeded in 2023 it is now seeking to build (with federal funding of course) 2000 homes over the next three years.  The optics tout this as a success story and the start of a housing boom fueled by mining but the 167 units for 2023 (which exceed the target of 161) is largely driven by projects already planned or underway and 60 of the units (plus another 60 which have started) are apartments being marketed as “luxury” apartments.  It means the rents for the smallest units will easily be over $2000 a month.  This will not be ‘affordable” housing given the cost-of-living crisis that has gripped the nation and its media.  Moreover, the target going forward is ambitious given the past track record of housing starts in Thunder Bay to date which given the cities rate of population growth to date has been modest. 

 

The other housing crisis – homelessness. -will not be solved by new suburban housing developments, neighborhood infill, or luxury apartments.    It is an entirely different problem all together.  The solution here is best modeled on what has been done in Finland where a non-governmental organization (NGO) called No Fixed Abode founded in 1986 reduced the number of homeless in Finland from 20,000 to about 3500 at present. Note that Finland’s population is 5.5 million and there are currently 3500 homeless people estimated.  In Canada, just Hamilton Ontario with a population of 579,000 has an estimated 1,500 homeless.  As well, since 2008 Finland has also embraced another program called Housing First which creates flats in social housing complexes that along with serving as places to live also provide a fixed address for those requiring access to government services and supports.

 

Now, Finland is not Canada and simply grafting another country’s solution to solve your problem can generate all kinds of problems. However, there is something here that needs to be explored.  Some of all the money that is going to be thrown at simply increasing housing stock irrespective of whether or not people can afford it needs to be directed to what I would term Transitional Emergency Housing.  People living on minimum wage or are evicted from apartments and have no place to live need some place to get back on their feet.  Boarding houses with rooms to let used to be a place where people of limited means often ended up til they got back on their feet, but no such places really exist anymore. People who are homeless need to be housed and housed without questions being asked.  Creating a complex or dispersed network of complexes of transitional emergency housing with very small personal units combined with social support such as a community kitchen, social workers and even a nurse practitioner and mental health workers and basic security on site would be one way of dealing with the homelessness crisis. 

 

 

 

Where to locate such complexes?  They need to be built on a scale that reflects their local neighborhood and are close to where many homeless choose to locate because of amenities – often downtown cores.  Most municipalities own land in their downtown cores that could be used for such a purpose. They will not be cheap to operate but realistically what else is the solution?  Simply leaving the problem to grow does not solve the problem.  Throwing money on market rent apartments and suburban subdivisions does not solve homelessness, never mind, really create affordable housing. Using resources in a wise and targeted way is the solution to both housing affordability as well as homelessness. True, perhaps these are the ravings of simple economist who does not fully grasp the complexity or enormity of the problem.  On the other hand, perhaps not.

House Prices Are Coming Down

 

The latest house price figures have been released by the Teranet-National Bank House Price Index for major Canadian metropolitan centres in Alberta, British Columbia, New Brunswick, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, Ontario, and Quebec. According to Teranet:

 

After adjusting for seasonal effects, the Teranet-National Bank Composite House Price Index™, which covers the country’s eleven largest CMAs, declined by 0.4% from September to October, the first decrease following five consecutive monthly increases. In October, four of the 11 CMAs included in the index experienced decreases: Toronto (-1.6%), Edmonton (-1.2%), Vancouver (-1.1%) and Ottawa-Gatineau (-1.1%). Conversely, notable increases were recorded in Montreal (+3.7%), Halifax (+1.1%) and Winnipeg (+1.0%). On the other hand, decreases were observed in 11 of the 20 CMAs not included in the composite index for which data are available in October. The biggest monthly decreases were seen in Saint John (-5.3%), Trois-Rivières (-3.3%) and London (-2.5%). Conversely, the biggest increases were in Moncton (+4.6% after a 2.3% drop the previous month), Kingston (+3.8%) and Peterborough (+2.6%).

The month over month figures for October show decline in most centres but the more interesting numbers are the declines from the peak price.  Peak price for most of these cities occurred in Spring of 2022 though Calgary and Saint John appear to have seen peaks in 2023. The accompanying figure shows that no one has seen a price increase since the peak though Sherebrooke, Quebec City, Moncton, Lethbridge, and Calgary appear to be perfectly flat since their peak.   

 

As for the remaining cities, the percent change since peak price range from -2.7 percent for Montreal to -18.6 percent for Brantford.  Thunder Bay is in the company of cities with relatively small declines coming in at -3.6 percent while Sudbury is a bit more coming in at -9 percent.  

Strong Mayors and Housing: Thunder Bay Edition

 

Thunder Bay City Council this week did not support Mayor Ken Boshcoff’s desire to acquire “strong mayor powers” in a quest to meet provincial targets for housing and reap the benefits of associated funding support.  In some respects, this is not a surprise, not so much because members of council are so concerned about local democracy but because it does represent an erosion of their power given that strong powers on offer allow mayors to pass bylaws with the support of just one third of council, as well as veto bylaws passed by council on matters involving provincial priorities. In addition, the mayor will be able to propose the city budget, reorganize city departments and hire or fire the city manager and even some department heads. If anything, this represents a major potential increase in workload for the Office of the Mayor and one suspects there will eventually be some hiring to provide the necessary support.

 

Thunder Bay City Council because of its unique structure of at-large and ward councillors has always had councillors whose electoral mandate pretty much matched that of the mayor given they were elected by city-wide voters.  What the new changes mean in Thunder Bay and indeed in municipalities across the province is that the power structure has been unilaterally changed by the province in an effort to get the provincial housing agenda kick-started.  Indeed, going down the road, what some future mayor might do with such powers is a real concern. Nevertheless, it would appear that the mayor is going to ask for those powers with or without council support because the mayor wants to commit Thunder Bay to a target set by the province of 2,200 new homes by 2031.

 

This target is an interesting one because it means that over the next eight years (2024 to 2031), Thunder Bay needs to build an average of 275 new housing units annually.  The accompanying figure plots the annual number of housing starts from 1972 to 2023 and also plots the annual target set at an average of 275 units per year.  The 2023 estimate is incomplete given that the numbers from Statistics Canada only go to August and the monthly average based on January to August is used to fill in the rest of the year.  Even that total seems an underestimate given the couple of large apartment projects that have emerged that might double the total for 2023.  

 

 

 

Needless to say, the target is an ambitious one given that since 2000, the annual average works out to about 105 units per year.  In other words, going forward, it will be expected that Thunder Bay has to achieve just over 2.5 times the number of starts than it has managed on average over the last two decades. 

 

Can a strong mayor somehow wield the influence and power to more than double the number of housing starts in Thunder Bay?  Given the shortage of building trade workers as well as the fact that for the houses to be built, there has to be a demand for the housing and interest rates have spiked at the moment, it will be a challenge.  Then there is the ability of developers to earn a profit on the new builds whether single detached houses, apartments, or condos, even with whatever financial support the province has in mind.  Again, one suspects this target may be a tough one to reach.  A lot depends on whether or not there really are a lot more people in Thunder Bay than official counts say there are and if those people are actually interested in permanent housing in Thunder Bay and more importantly have the ability to pay for it either as owners or renters.

 

One suspects that in the end, the real influence of strong mayor powers in Thunder Bay will not be so much on the future housing stock but on things like the city budget and even senior staffing.  The mayor’s position is about to get more important and as the adage goes, with great power comes great responsibility.

It Really is About Housing Supply and Canada Needs to Get Building

 

The housing shortage, rising prices and rising rents continue to preoccupy Canadian public policy debates and with good reason.  As of June 2023, median rent for a one bedroom apartment in Vancouver stood at $2,700 and $2,400 in Toronto with rent across Canada up 20 percent over pre-pandemic levels.  Meanwhile, average housing prices in Canada reached $729,044 in May of 2023 – the highest they have been since April of 2022.  Since 2000, residential property prices in Canada have essentially doubled – per capita income have not.  

 

Needless to say, the response in the most Serene Kingdom of Canada has been predictable.  In the name of boosting supply, municipalities starting to chase multiple property owners for tax revenues  (who incidentally are probably renting out the properties they own and helping to alleviate the shortage). Then there is the typical passive-aggressive Canadian story about how seniors are not downsizing and are living in homes with empty bedroom but of course “Policy experts and large city mayors are not suggesting that seniors should rent out their rooms en masse to better use the extra space.”

 

There is indeed a supply issue in Canadian housing, but it is not because there are too many multiple owners who are hoarding empty apartments or existing homeowners who do not want to share their spare rooms.  It is because over the long term the supply of new residential construction has fallen behind the rate of population growth so that housing starts per capita are dramatically lower than they were during the 1970s and 1980s.  Incidentally, this era had even higher interest rates and inflation than today and still managed to keep up with construction.  The accompanying figure plots seasonally quarterly total Canadian residential housing starts (units) as well as the per capita index (with 1961=100) [Data Source: Statistics Canada] for the period 1961Q1 to 2023Q1.  The results are quite startling. 

 

 

 

In the first quarter of 1961, total housing starts in Canada were 34,225 units.  In the first quarter of 2023, they were 55,753 – an increase of 63 percent.  The problem is that in 1961Q1 Canada’s population was 18.1 million while in 2023Q1 it was 39.9 million – an increase of 120 percent.  As a result, when the number of starts per capita are converted into an index (with 1961=100) it becomes quite apparent that despite surging population, we are building fewer new units per person despite a slight upward trend in the total number of units. 

 

The most quarterly housing starts ever were actually  in first quarter 2021 at 73,738 with the average quarterly number of starts in 2021 at 68,612.  In 1973, the average number of quarterly housing starts was 66,883.  Total starts at present are not much different than the peak of the early to mid 1970s.  When you look at the per capita index, the overall trend since 1961 is downward but essentially it appears that after the housing bust of the late 1980s, housing starts per capita have stayed flat at about half of what they were in the 1970s.

 

The baby boom and tail of the boom that entered the workforce in the 1969s to early 1980s was a population surge that was accompanied by new and rising per capita housing construction.  The current surge in population is not being accompanied by rising per capita construction but with construction at the historical per capita rates in place since the 1990s.   That is why housing prices are high. Band-aid solutions that attempt to solve the problems by essentially redistributing existing supply is but another sign of a society that seems to find it increasingly hard to build new things and to get things done.  But then, this is the same society that is dealing with inflation by injecting more money into the demand side of the economy. In the end, government policy to fight inflation is still conflicted with higher interest rates to slow down the economy on one hand and stimulus on the other.  It would be more useful if some of that stimulus went to building housing.

Dealing with Homelessness

 

Among the growing problems of affordability in cities across Canada including Thunder Bay, is the specific issue of homelessness.  The latest point-in-time survey by the District of the Thunder Bay Social Services Administration Board that was published in January of 2022 of 221 participants documented that 43 percent used emergency shelters.  Indeed, the Board estimates that there are closer to 700 people experiencing homelessness in the 103,000-square-kilometre district of about 146,000 people and about 70 percent of them identify as Indigenous.  Finding solutions to this complicated set of issues is an on-going process and into it has stepped the City of Thunder Bay.

 

Thunder Bay City Council has decided to move ahead on a recommendation to establish a $1 million fund to support local capital projects addressing poverty and homelessness in Thunder Bay.  The fund is not intended as a stand-alone source of financing and is expected to leverage additional support from the federal and provincial government as well as other funders that could include private sector sources, philanthropic organizations as well as First Nations organizations.  The projects are designed to be in the area of transitional or affordable housing and grant applications will be reviewed by a committee of senior city staff.   The idea, initially proposed by Councillor Bentz, is innovative and perhaps one of the first in Canada and comes in the wake of the 2022 federal budget which has committed more funds for homelessness as well as a commitment to the redesign of federal housing strategies.

 

This program represents a start to fixing problems in a community that has received its share of bad press in the national media lately when it comes top homelessness, poverty and racism.  City council approved the recommendation though there was one dissenting vote from Mayor Mauro.  Mayor Mauro argued that such a fund would replace federal dollars and that the City is going to pour resources into projects that would have occurred with federal funding anyway. The Mayor is technically correct that funding to end homelessness is likely going to flow in greater amounts from the federal government anyway.  Moreover, the housing crisis is a federal and provincial responsibility to solve even if its effects are felt largely at the local level.  However, that does not mean a municipality should sit back and wait for someone else to start solving the problem.

 

At the same time, providing the municipal resources represents a way to kick start some aspects of the process in a cooperative manner given that the funds are expected from federal and provincial governments as well as other partners.  In some respects, it represents an action in tune with basic principles of subsidiarity in fiscal federalism by signalling change from the grassroots.  Rather than replace federal dollars, the Community Partnership Fund Thunder Bay is creating may actually attract more funding and give the option to the other levels of government, as well as private agencies, First Nations Organizations and philanthropy groups of an opportunity to accompany their verbal pronouncements with more effective actions.  And besides, the political optics for Thunder Bay with this fund are positive even if the marginal impact is ultimately small.  Change requires first steps to be taken and that is what this is.

 

Thunder Bay City Council has done some boneheaded things in the past but this is not one of them.

 

 

 

Reliance on housing investment creates prosperity mirage in Ontario

 

While Ontario continues to grapple with COVID, there’s light at the end of the tunnel. At some point, government decision-making will move away from pandemic management and towards economic recovery and the need to get Ontario’s economy firing on all cylinders.

In 2020, Ontario’s nominal GDP dropped by nearly 5 per cent. Ontario’s spring 2021 budget forecasts a rebound in 2021 of slightly more than 6 per cent followed by another 6 per cent in 2022. However, it’s premature to conclude that happy days are here again given the long-term economic and productivity issues in Ontario.

The first chart below presents Ontario’s real per capita GDP (in 2015 dollars) starting in 1961 to provide a long-term perspective.

The second chart presents the annual growth rate of real per capita GDP with a linear trend. The picture is actually rather grim as it shows a long-term decline in real per capita GDP growth. Between 1961 and 1991, Ontario’s real per capita GDP rose from $23,218 to $43,357—an increase of 87 per cent. However, over the next 30 years, real per capita GDP only grew an additional $10,094 dollars—an increase of only 23 per cent.

Whereas the 1990s saw a rebound after the dip of the 1990-91 recession, growth essentially flattened for the 15-year period from about 2000 to 2015. A recovery seems to have begun in growth in 2015 but then 2020 alone saw real per capita GDP take a 7 per cent hit.

A lot has happened in Ontario over the last 30 years that factor into the reasons for the long-term growth and productivity decline (which is not unique to Ontario). Indeed, trying to get real GDP growth above 2 per cent is a problem not only for Ontario but also Canada and many advanced economies. However, the key issue for Ontario can be summarized by in the third chart below, which shows a long-term decline in the investment-to-GDP ratio in the province over time. Ontario has reduced the share of output devoted to new investment.

Productivity growth requires new investment in productive capital—plant, machinery and equipment—and the period from 1960 to 2000 saw it decline from highs near 25 per cent of GDP to well below 20 per cent. True, a recovery of sorts seems to have started since 2000 but much of that is housing investment. As much as people feel wealthy from their investment in new housing and the appreciation of its value given the incessant bidding up of real estate prices, that’s not the foundation for true productivity growth.

Indeed, like much of Canada, Ontario’s economy right now is being propped up by government spending and real estate spending. This is a prosperity illusion.

Declining long-term economic growth in Ontario has resulted in weaker growth in its tax base and government revenues, and yet Ontarians still want their government to provide health care, education and investment in new infrastructure in those sectors. Ontario governments have dealt with these demands to provide the public goods Ontarians want by essentially spending more than they take in. The result is structural deficits and mounting provincial government debt, as the chart below shows. The provincial net debt-to-GDP ratio has gone from about 5 per cent in the 1960s to about 40 per cent, followed by the pandemic bump above 40 per cent in 2020.

Yet, despite this run up in debt, Ontario’s government now spends (on a per-capita basis) some of the lowest amounts on health care and education in Canada.

Low economic growth rates, rising provincial government debt and an economy increasingly marked by a public fixated on real estate appreciation as a source of wealth-creation rather than productivity growth remains a recipe for a diminished future. The rebound in growth rates forecast for this year and next are being driven by a flood of cheap money that has generated widespread public and private borrowing and spending on housing to create an illusion of prosperity.

To have an economic future that’s sustainable and not a mirage, Ontario must boost its productive investment.

This originally appeared on the Fraser Institute Blog,  May 3rd, 2021.