My latest for @TheHubCanada,

DARE TO BUILD, AGAIN: 10 BIG IDEAS FOR A BETTER CANADA IN 2026

While global headlines scream uncertainty, we still have real power to make life better here at home.

I expect some to be controversial, but I’ll explain each 🚀🇨🇦

1/11 👀🧵👇 1. ALLOW INCOME SPLITTING FOR YOUNG FAMILIES

I believe we as a society are not investing in youth and families enough. A generation is facing a milestone recession in careers, partnerships, marriage, and having kids.

Furthermore, having children is more than a personal choice; it is a long term investment in Canada and its future.

Hence, I propose income splitting for married couples under 35 (with or without children), and households with children under 18 (couples of any age). This will allow a higher-earner spouse to transfer some income to a lower-income spouse, reducing the households marginal tax rate and boosting their after-tax income.

I believe this will offer a lot of couples options for saving for down-payments, and managing work life balance early in their children’s lives.

FWIW, I grew up in a home where my mom was the primary breadwinner, as my sister may become for her family.

I don’t think this piece is terrible, but it would have behooved the writers to question:

Why is it that so much new supply is investor driven?

Easy to blame “Investors”, rather than the public policy that drives everyone’s incentives in the first place. A few thoughts. 👇1/X

https://twitter.com/alexbozikovic/status/1844708601090265198

There are two key reasons why investors have become more important to new housing supply than primary residents.

1) The long timelines to complete projects.

2) The tax treatment of new vs existing housing.

Let me explain… 2/X

My latest for @TheHubCanada

CANADA CAN NO LONGER AFFORD ITS ‘SOFT CORRUPTION’ PROBLEM

While I’m wearing a tinfoil hat, we need to talk about how complex processes are their beneficiaries are undermining Canada and threatening our economic future. 🧵👇

thehub.ca/2024/10/03/eri… I start off with a recent announcement from the city of Toronto, where a new 2.1km pedestrian and bike path was estimated to cost nearly $150M. Over $70K per meter!

Every level of government and the entire political spectrum was culpable for this outcome. (2/X)

Mark Wiseman

“Century Initiative is not advocating for a bigger, dumber, less productive country”

100M by 2100 is a goal, long term, and a voyage. That we are supposed to build infrastructure for and plan for intelligently.

https://twitter.com/ericdlombardi/status/1799073117702377705

“Need to sprint out of our productivity stagnation”

Cites the growing divide between Canadian job growth vs US.

Canada is becoming poorer relative to the rest of the world.

Tbh Mark Wiseman is not mincing words. Also cites failure of temporary immigration policy.

The MOST PETTY proposal to end the housing crisis that would surely work:

End zoning rules in all neighbourhoods with average home values above $2M in Ontario

Raise the gates and hear me out 🧵👇 - Home vales above this level are only common in neighborhoods with good amenities near transit or have large mansion lot sizes (where building multifamily can offer more space)

- You don’t cause gentrification if you direct growth to neighbourhoods the Gentry lives in

The vast majority of our “crises”, from housing to health care and the environment, can be solved with existing technologies, scaling new (but currently expensive) technologies, and by solving engineering challenges within our grasps.

The primary challenges are systemic. Not only are our problems primarily systemic, they do not require us to spend significantly more or become a socialist state (as some would have you believe).

This gives me a lot of hope. The main barrier are those who benefit from regulatory capture of existing systems.

It is very easy for people to support more transit and more housing in theory.

Because it’s easy to imagine a future that’s perfect and institutions that make great decisions every time in alignment with your values. It’s hard for many to support housing and transit practice, because there is no perfect project and our institutions aren’t perfect.

But very often the issues are trivial to the overall benefit.