Making Life Affordable Again

Canadians have had enough of trying to ‘get by.’

Everyday life for ordinary folks is a constant struggle in which people are forced to cut corners, make economies or go into debt.  In fact, Canadian households now owe $3 trillion, leaving us among the most indebted in the world. Coupled with our high shelter costs, this is no longer just an affordability issue - it’s a broader economic threat. Don’t expect Liberal, Conservative or NDP governments to make the changes required.

Artistic illustration of a human profile with a landscape of trees, mountains, a river, and buildings inside the silhouette.

The problem

Despite the hyperbole of the Conservative Party, the actual correlation between the rate of food price inflation and the annual change in the carbon price was negative.  An increase in fossil fuel prices was a far bigger culprit.  In the case of groceries and so many other daily items, price hikes instead reflect the huge and persistent disparities in market power between large corporate actors operating in Canada, and the lowly citizen/consumer.  Sure, the Covid pandemic disrupted supply chains and created some bottlenecks and product shortages, but the gouging of the consumer by the big grocers reflects longstanding practices relating to concentration, market power and, as in the case of bread, collusion.  For example, the top five grocers (Loblaw, Sobeys, Metro, Walmart and Costco) account for 76% of food retail sales in Canada. The alleged profiteering by some grocers and the substantial mark ups by oil and gas companies, banks, and car dealerships, have hit Canadians hard over the past five years. It appears that these profits have often been used to buy back shares and pay dividends to shareholders.

Overall, this situation stems from three factors: large corporations enjoy considerable pricing power and discretion in Canada; they have been ‘covered’ by a broader inflationary background environment during this period; and governments have lacked the resolve to intervene on your behalf. As Canada’s Food Price Report (2025) notes, there is widespread distrust of large grocers among Canadian consumers, but governments in Canada have, until very recently, been largely indifferent to the ordeals of Canadians who continue to be subjected to discretionary price mark-ups, price gouging and shrinkflation.  The established political parties don’t have your back!

Our solution

  • Raise the Corporate Income Tax rate from 15% to 20%.  Despite having been lowered to 15% in 2012, it has not led to appreciable increases in corporate investment in Canada in the ensuing 14 years;

  • Institute a Minimum Book Profits Tax of 15%.  It directly links tax liability to financial accounting profits, not just tax accounting rules.  Currently many Canadian corporations employ aggressive accounting games, and this measure would create a tax floor for large firms. A version of this tax was implemented in the USA in 2023 when they introduced a 15% minimum tax on large corporations’ book profits (the profits they report to shareholders in their financial statements), rather than taxable income reported to the IRS.

  • CV21 believes that, in matters pertaining to mergers and competition, it is long overdue that changes be introduced to demonstrate that Canada is not simply run by corporations, but rather by the Canadian public through their elected representatives.  Given that the market conduct of major corporate entities towards consumers and competitors and the regulators themselves, has seriously undermined the public interest, it is time to ban all lobbying by for-profit interests (corporations, sectoral organizations and private corporate or ‘philanthropic’-funded ‘think tanks’).

  • Although Bills C-56 and C-59, which passed in the last Parliamentary session, made some limited progress towards effective competition law in Canada, as the Canadian Anti-Monopoly Project (CAMP) has pointed out, key elements such as presumptions against mergers in already consolidated industries and a system for tackling unfair methods of competition remain absent from Canada’s competition law framework.  At this point we need a ‘root and branch’ – not incremental – revision to our competition laws and enforcement policies because Canada has long had higher levels of concentration than its international peers, and these trends have worsened over the past twenty years.

  • We need to seriously consider the idea of making public mortgages available under the auspices of the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.  Public mortgages could be structured to include longer amortizations; fixed rates by default; non-predatory renewal terms; income-linked repayment options; and automatic refinancing when rates fall.  Instead of the excess margins obtained by the Big Six banks as a result of mortgage lending, public mortgages would contribute to returning a surplus to the public treasury; funding affordable housing construction; subsidizing non-market housing; and supporting green retrofits.  In sum, rather than mortgage interest and principal repayments feeding private equity and executive compensation, it would fund public goods.

  • Canada needs Postal Banking. Canada’s major banks earned $60 billion in profits in 2025, while nearly a million Canadians remain unbanked and many face predatory payday lenders. High fees, branch closures, and rising household debt underscore systemic exclusion and inequality. CV21 proposes reinstating postal banking, which Canada had until 1968, leveraging Canada Post’s 6,400 locations—60% in rural areas—to offer low-cost, accessible financial services. These would include savings and chequing accounts, low-interest credit, and eventually small business loans. This model would emulate successful postal banking systems in countries like the UK and France, prioritizing fairness and universal access.  It would also provide a pathway for Canada Post whose once lucrative parcel business has been decimated by private courier companies.

  • No bailouts for speculators. In the dreaded event of another financial crisis, Vision 21 insists on protecting the insured personal deposits and savings of ordinary Canadians along with Canada Pension Plan assets, but refusing bailouts for private concerns engaged in speculative and high-risk financial activities such as derivatives or leveraged real estate investment. Public funds should not underwrite the ill-considered judgement of rentiers; moral hazard must be observed. With inequality worsened by decades of financialization, precious taxpayer resources should be directed toward public priorities such as healthcare, education, Indigenous rights, affordable housing and public infrastructure—not to indemnify failed, speculative bets.

Shelter line stretchin’ ‘round the corner

Welcome to the new world order

Families sleepin’ in their cars in the southwest

No home, no job, no peace, no rest

Well the highway is alive tonight

But nobody’s kiddin’ nobody about where it goes

I’m sittin’ down here in the campfire light

Searchin’ for the ghost of Tom Joad

 

Title Track from Bruce Springsteen, The Ghost of Tom Joad, 1995