Did we ever have a "deal" that "you get a job, you get a house, by your 20s"?

One of Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre’s ads in the current election campaign shows him on Shawnessy Drive in Calgary’s suburbs, saying this: “We had a deal in this country when I grew up on this street. You get a job, you get a house, by your 20s.”

But that’s simply not true—there never was any such deal. It’s not just that there was never any such written agreement; there was never any such understanding. I grew up in the 1950s and 1960s in an upper middle-class family, with mostly upper middle-class friends; I can think of only one friend who was able to afford a house while still in his twenties. My children grew up in the 1980s and 1990s and the first few years of this century; neither they nor most of their friends could afford to buy a house while still in their twenties.

Might my friends and I have been unusual? Might my children and their friends have been unusual? At first glance, some statistics might seem to support the notion that, whether or not there was a “deal,” the norm in the 1970s and 1980s was for people to become homeowners before they were 30; the median age of first-time home buyers in those decades was 29. The same set of statistics shows that the median age of first-time home owners was still only 31 years in 2015 (when my eldest child turned 30).

Such statistics, though, look only at people who were able to afford to buy a home; they don't give a picture of all Canadians. As Poilievre should be aware, many Canadians in low-income brackets are never, in any era, able to afford to buy their own home; the “median age of first-time home buying” number leaves them entirely out of the picture. The data show that the post-WWII percentage of Canadians renting rather than owning has fluctuated from about 45% in 1950, to about 31% between 2010 and 2015, to about 34% in 2024. If you include the whole population, there has never been a time when the average Canadian could afford to buy their own house by the time they turned 30. Through the generations, many, many Canadians have lived their entire lives without being able to afford to buy their own house.

There are other reasons, too, why some people in any generation are unlikely to be able to afford to buy a home before they turn 30. Many of my friends, for example, stayed in university well into their twenties, obtaining two or even three degrees before entering the work force.

Poilievre’s own education and employment history is quite unusual. He dropped out of the University of Calgary in 2002,* and then, when he started his full-time job in 2004 at the age of 25, it was a job that paid $141,000—or almost six times the average 2004 salary in Canada, $24,400. As a Member of Parliament at 25, there can be no doubt that Poilievre himself was far better able to afford to buy a house in his twenties than was the average Canadian.

None of this is to suggest that we do not have important inter-generational justice issues. We surely do. Nor is it to suggest that housing affordability—for renters as well for prospective buyers—is not a huge issue. Of course it is. Housing prices and rents have increased far faster than have incomes in recent decades. To address that problem, we need to greatly increase housing supply, while allowing house prices and rents to fall (as, thank goodness, they have begun to do over the past year or two in many cities). And people of my generation need to view with equanimity the prospect of the value of our homes coming back to earth. We did nothing to earn the inflated valuations of our homes, and we should welcome it if the cost of housing comes down to a level that our children and their children can more easily afford.

Poilievre, like other politicians, wants to increase supply, but plays politics when he refuses to admit that prices will need to fall significantly to make housing more affordable. In that way, he’s no better and no worse than other politicians. But the dishonesty with which he advances the notion that there used to be a “deal” guaranteeing young Canadians home ownership before they turned thirty is a dishonesty unique to Poilievre. It will surely exacerbate intergenerational ill-will, while deflecting attention away from the degree to which our economic problems are matters not just of intergenerational justice, but also of productivity, of demographics, and of justice between haves and have-nots, of whatever age.

Postcript, April 2

The last twenty-four hours have added a new wrinkle to Polievre's weirdness; it's come to light that he seems to regard owning a home as a necessary prerequisite to having children. He has declared that he will stand up for the "36-year-old couple whose biological clock is running out faster than they can afford to buy a home and have kids." In similar fashion, he has declared that he will come to the defence of the "39-year-old woman, desperate to have kids but unable to buy a home in which to raise them, her biological clock running out."

Most of the attention paid to these remarks has focused on the “biological clock” side of things. At least as remarkable, I would say, is Poilievre’s obliviousness to the lives of those who may always remain unable to buy a home for financial reasons—or who may actually prefer to remain renters, for a whole host of reasons. Poilievre’s phrase “unable to afford a home in which to raise kids” speaks volumes. Are we to take it that Poilievre believes those who live their entire lives in low-income brackets should refrain from ever to having children? Are we to take it he believes the 46% of Montrealers who throughout their lives live in rental accommodation should refrain from ever having children?** Or perhaps he thinks it’s somehow impossible if you live in such circumstances in such a place to have children.

As many of us can attest, it actually is possible to have children and to give them a good upbringing while living in rental accommodation. But that’s probably something Poilievre doesn’t want to know. He seems to have no desire to imagine the lives of those who did not do as he did, or may not want to do as he did—grow up in a suburban street on which everyone lives in a detached house; and then buy a house, marry, and have your first child, all before you turn thirty.

*Several years later, Poilievre completed an undergraduate degree through Athabasca University.

**Or the 67% of New Yorkers who live in rental accommodation. Or the 87% of Berliners.

Letter to the Globe and Mail: Separating Mothers and Babies

Re “Why are we still keeping elephants in zoos?” (March 22): Marsha Lederman writes movingly and well about “the suffering of animals, particularly from human causes”—and in particular about “a mother and her calf being separated.” “Why are we doing this?” she asks. Why indeed? And why, on so-called “farms,” are we still separating calves from their mothers so that we can drink the milk meant for the calves? Zoos are horrific places for non-human animals; factory farms (including dairy and egg operations) are far, far worse. A whole-foods, plant-based diet is better for our own health and better for the planet as well as infinitely better for other animals.

Letter to the Globe and Mail: Lessons from the Pandemic

Re “Hindsight is 2020” (March 10) and “2020 hindsight on COVID-19” (March 11): These and other recent pieces have compared Canada’s pandemic performance with that of some other countries without ever mentioning the small group of countries that imposed far fewer restrictions. Sweden in particular was widely vilified for its lack of restrictions. It ended up with a 2020–2023 “excess death rate” higher than that of Denmark but lower than that of either Norway or Finland (comparable countries that enacted much stricter measures).

As we now know, lockdowns had long-lasting ill effects on children’s learning and on the mental health of many people. Plus, of course, they caused serious harm to the economy. It’s no wonder that (as a March 5 BBC article reported) “even some researchers who have found evidence that lockdowns saved lives have cautioned against turning to this measure in haste in the future.” Vaccines definitely worked; the verdict on lockdowns is more mixed.

Letter to the Globe and Mail: CEO Compensation

[I've written several letters to the editor the past month. None has been published; I'll post three of them here.]

Re “RBC paid CEO $26 million last year” (March 7): In the fourth century BCE Plato suggested than in human societies governments should “permit a man to acquire double or triple, or as much as 4 times the amount [that is deemed to be at poverty levels].” Twenty-first century surveys suggest that most people today are in rough agreement; both liberals and conservatives feel CEOs should be paid 4-5 times what ordinary workers are paid.

Current starting pay for a bank teller at RBC is under $20 per hour (a little under $40,000 a year). I’ve just pulled out my calculator; RBC’s CEO was paid about 700 times more than that bank teller.

I’m with Plato.

[Here's a link to my long piece on this topic from some years ago, "Why Plato Was Right: Those at the Top Should Be Paid No More than Three or Four Times What We Pay Those at the Bottom": https://donlepan.blogspot.com/2017/06/bringing-end-to-luck-money-why-those-at.html]

Generosity Should Not Have to be Justified Purely by Appeals to Self Interest

Of all the horrors that the Trump administration has set into motion during its first two weeks, the effort to shut down the US Agency for International Development (USAID) ranks high. What has been the impact? In Khartoum, where much of the population has been facing starvation, the Trump administration’s funding cuts have resulted in the closure of more than half the soup kitchens that have been keeping people alive. That’s just one example; there are hundreds of others around the world.

I’ll offer two thoughts. One is that it might be good to put at least as much effort into considering what we can do to help those who need help around the world as we seem to be putting into considering how to alter our buying habits so as to buy American less frequently. Buying in to “Buy Canadian” campaigns is playing by Trump’s playbook; while I can understand the motivation, the fundamental principle involved seems to me to be just as unattractive as are Trump’s own “Buy American” campaigns.

On the other hand, we are certainly not playing by Trump’s playbook if we reach out (and reach into our wallets) to try to help those in need around the world. Charities such as UNHCR and Medecins sans Frontiers/Doctors Without Borders (as well as faith-based charities such as World Vision and Islamic Relief) are doing everything they can to fill the gaps left by the cuts to USAID; we can help by contributing to one or more of them as generously as we can. (Before writing the next paragraph, I’ll go to the MSF website and make a contribution.)

A second thought has to do with the fact that Trump and his ilk are doing everything they can to undermine not just programs, but also decent, human values. Cuts to foreign aid create untold damage for the world’s most needy; more subtly, the very way in which discussions of foreign aid are increasingly framed works to undermine ethical values.

There is nothing subtle, of course, about the way the Trump administration itself rejects altruism and embraces selfishness for America. A recent statement from the US State Department leaves no room for doubt:

Every dollar we spend, every project we fund, and every policy we pursue must be justified with the the answer to three simple questions: Does it make America safer? Does it make America stronger? Does it make America more prosperous?

Increasingly, though, even those who oppose the Trump administration's cuts to foreign aid do not argue that, as humans, we should be generous to those who most need help; what they emphasise instead is that we should maintain foreign aid because it helps us. As reported today by Mark Rendell in the Globe, Christopher Hernandez-Roy, deputy director of the Americas program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, criticized the decision to close USAID on the grounds that such a move undermines a crucial component of America’s “soft power” in the world. In Canada, a spokesperson for Ahmed Hussen, Minister of International Development, expressed deep concern at the decision to shut down USAID, and emphasized self-interest as a reason for Canadians to continue to provide foreign aid: "Foreign aid is not a handout; it’s an investment in the safety, security, and well-being of Canadians and communities around the world.”

That foreign aid is to a large extent in the donor country's own self-interest is no doubt true. But surely the most important justification for foreign aid is simply that humans who are fortunate enough to be living comfortable lives should be generous to those who are in need. To give and to give generously should not need to be justified as an “investment” or through appeals to self-interest. And there should be no shame in giving those in need short-term as well as long-term assistance. What those who rely on the soup kitchens in Khartoum need right now is indeed a hand-out—and those of us who can afford to help give them just that should be proud to do so. Trump does everything he can to taint generosity; let’s not play along.

The Horrific Attack on Bourbon Street

Relatively little is known about the horrific attack last night in New Orleans, but it seems that the attacker was a US Army veteran inspired by the ideology of the Islamic State.

It’s not hard to guess why someone adhering to a viciously puritanical ideology might focus on those particular blocks of that particular street. I can’t think of any other place in all of America that has more of a reputation for giving full expression to American decadence than do the first six or eight blocks along Bourbon Street as you enter the French Quarter from Canal Street.

As I remembered this stretch from the two times I've lived in New Orleans (in 2007 and then again in 2011), the bars along this stretch were of the seediest sort, blaring canned music out onto the street and advertising “Big Ass Beers” in huge letters. And (with the notable exception of two classic restaurants--Galatoire's and Arnaud's) there was very little along the stretch except seedy bars, tacky tourist souvenir shops, and strip clubs. Further into the French Quarter, Bourbon Street becomes very pleasant—and New Orleans as a whole (very much including its bars) is wonderful in an almost infinite variety of ways. But as I remembered them, those few blocks of Bourbon Street were deeply unpleasant; it was not by coincidence that there were often been fundamentalist Christian demonstrators along that same stretch, carrying large signs accusing the Bourbon Street bars and strip clubs of being dens of iniquity.

I've often visited new Orleans over the past 15 years, but I've avoided that stretch of Bourbon Street. I just now used Google street view to get a more recent sense of those blocks. Much seems to have changed. There are still some seedy bars, to be sure, but they seem to be far less dominant--and considerably less seedy--than was the case 15 years ago. There is still a "Kama Sutra Cabaret" but there seem to be far fewer strip clubs than there used to be. All in all, very little evidence of iniquity. But perceptions linger, of course, and perceptions, however outdated, often seem to have more of an impact on cruelly deranged minds than does reality.

The Christian fundamentalists used to harangue the tourist throngs through megaphones. But I don’t think anyone before the past 24 hours imagined that rage against sinful behavior in Bourbon Street’s real or perceived dens of iniquity—rage of any religious stripe—would find expression in mass murder.

Update, 4 January: It's striking that, overwhelmingly, media coverage of the attack has portrayed the tourist strip on Bourbon Street in a purely positive light. The Assoctaed Press report that's printed in today's Globe and Mail (and no doubt in many other newspapers) is in this respect typical; it describes Bourbon Street as "famous world-wide for its festive vibes." True, but a fuller and more honest accounting would also mention its long-standing reputation for seedy bars and sleazy strip joints.

Letter to the Globe: The Vancouver Art Gallery and the Tate

For years the VAG planned to move out of its current quarters into a much larger new building designed by Herzog & de Meuron, a prestigious Swiss firm known for showy and expensive gallery and museum architecture. Sure enough, projected expenses ballooned out of control and the project never got off the ground; it was officially declared dead in 2024, and the VAG has gone back to the drawing board.

The Globe published this letter on the topic in its 16 December issue; sensibly, they made three short paragraphs of the one long one I had written.

Re “Big Ideas” (Letters, Dec. 12): In the 1990s London’s Tate Gallery was housed in a beautiful old building that had become too small for its collection.

Instead of moving out of the beautiful old building, they opened a second gallery—converting the old Battersea Power Station into Tate Modern for a mere £134 million. There have been huge battles over the subsequent plan to build a vast extension to Tate Modern, but everyone agrees the original decision to adopt a two-gallery model was a good one.

The Vancouver Art Gallery’s current home—a 1906 courthouse building—is one of the most beautiful gallery spaces in the world. Rather than abandoning it, why not keep it as a home for the gallery’s traditional art collection, and then plan for a second, much larger but economically-built structure to house the gallery’s modern art collection?

Letter to the Globe: The American Election and the Average American Worker

Quite a number of commentators on the American election have suggested that the average American has been doing better economically under the Democratic administration of Joe Biden than they did under the Trump administration. The numbers tell a different story. The letter below was published in the 11 November issue of the Globe and Mail.

Re “Postmortem” (Letters, Nov. 13): According to economist Alan McFayden, “the evidence tells us that most Americans have higher incomes now under Joe Biden than they did under Donald Trump.” But FactCheck.org reports that Bureau of Labor Statistics data show real average hourly earnings for all private sector employees decreasing by 2.24% between January 2021 and May 2024, and real median weekly earnings for all full-time workers decreasing by 2.14% over the same period. The Bureau of Economic Analysis reports that real per-capita disposable personal income decreased by 9.04% over that period.

There’s no doubt that the US economy overall has been growing, and that the growth in corporate profits has significantly outpaced inflation. And there is good reason to expect that Bidenomics will eventually increase real average earnings for workers. Sadly, there is little to suggest that’s happened yet.

Letter to Alberta Views Magazine: Rodeos

One of the best things about Alberta Views magazine is the monthly “Dialogue” feature they run, in which two people on opposing sides of an issue air their views, and then have a chance to rebut the other’s initial statement. For July/August the issue was “Should We Ban Rodeo?”, with Camille Labchuk from Animal Justice arguing yes, and Aritha van Herk arguing no. I would have liked the question to be “Should We Support Rodeo or Not?”—banning anything rubs so many people the wrong way—but it was nevertheless a good debate. The feature can be found online here: https://albertaviews.ca/should-we-ban-rodeo/ . There were many responses from readers published in the September and October issues, most siding against rodeos. The letter below was published in the October issue.

Re “Should We Ban Rodeo?” (July/August) Aritha van Herk does as good a job of defending rodeos as anyone could; her argument that banning them would further polarize our society is worth taking seriously.

But what of her assertion that rodeo is a positive good? Her claim is that rodeos help people “learn about animals, agriculture, and food,” and help “everyone better understand the interaction between people and livestock”? But van Herk appears herself to badly misunderstand the basics of that interaction. She tells us that “no one, least of all working ranch hands, wants to inflict pain or damage on the animals that shape their livelihood.” But the fact is that cattle, who have a natural lifespan of roughly twenty years, are killed before they reach the age of two (having spent much of their short lives in feedlots). Doesn’t killing and eating a creature entail pain or damage?

Van Herk lambastes those who ignore the “environmental toll exacted by soybeans” and those who know so little about animal agriculture that they “think that chocolate milk comes from brown cows.” “Let’s face facts,” she urges. But the fact is that most soybeans are grown not to be consumed by humans directly but rather to feed animals raised in order to provide food for humans. If we humans all adopted a whole foods, plant-based diet, we would need far less land to be devoted to growing soybeans than we do now. It’s animal agriculture that requires vast amounts of land to be devoted to raising crops such as soybeans; the far more efficient ecological approach is for humans to obtain the nutrients we need directly from plants. And yes, Prof. van Herk, humans often don’t realize where the milk they drink (chocolate or otherwise) comes from. When we humans drink cows’ milk, we do it by taking the babies away from their mothers so that we can drink the milk that otherwise would have gone to the babies. And then, when they are quite young, we slaughter the male babies, so we can eat them as veal. As van Herk says, “let’s fact facts.”

Letter to The Economist: Diet and Health

The Economist is a great publication in so may ways, and open- and fair-minded on almost every topic. A long-standing exception has been animal agriculture; quite consistently over the past twenty years or more, The Economist has ignored or downplayed the ever-growing body of evidence as to the many sorts of harm caused by animal agriculture and by the human practice of eating animal products. And one will search in vain in back issues of the magazine for any coverage of the extraordinary health benefits of a whole foods, pant-based diet. The letter below was not published.

Your recent article on the food business (“Appetite for Change,” August 24–30) tells us that “it may not only be an excess of sugar, fat, and salt that causes health problems,” and reports that the “heavy processing” of food may also be to blame. True enough, but even more damage is caused by something you don’t touch on; you make no mention whatsoever of the effects on our health of eating animals rather than plants.

The organization Physicians for Responsible Medicine lists more than a dozen areas (arthritis, asthma, cancer, diabetes, heart disease, etc.) in which research has shown health outcomes to be far better to the extent that we eat a whole-foods, plant-based diet. And to the extent that we do go that route, our tax bill for health care costs is reduced, global warming is reduced, pollution of our lakes and rivers is reduced, and harm to non-human animals is reduced. It would be good to see some of this reported on in your pages.

Letter to the Globe: Farm Animals and the Law

I haven't posted much on this blog in the past few months, but I have been writing lots of letters to the editor. Many of them didn't have a lot to say (the several I wrote to ask newspapers to pay more attention to the war in Sudan, for examle). But some may be of interest; I'll post a few now. The Globe and Mail published a slightly revised version of this letter in its 6 August issue.

Re “More life” (Letters, Aug. 2): A letter writer finds that the National Farm Animal Care Council and Canadian Council on Animal Care “do somewhat protect” farm animals. The truth is that neither they nor federal or provincial governments provide meaningful guards against such cruelty.

Just as American states have done, Canadian provinces have made animal agriculture essentially exempt from animal cruelty laws; anything considered “generally accepted practice” is allowed. And what is generally accepted by the animal agriculture industry – and by these councils – often entails horrific cruelty.

Instead of focusing on reducing cruelty, our governments continue to pass “ag-gag” laws designed to prevent the public from realizing the extent of the cruelty. Meaningful protection of farm animals on the part of all levels of government is long overdue.