Twenty-five bold ideas for making Canada affordable again
I’ve always been intrigued by Downsview, a wide-open, underdeveloped 370-acre site just north of downtown Toronto surrounded by highways and condos. It was once home to the aircraft manufacturer Bombardier and also hosted a Canadian Forces base. But for decades, the space has remained a blank slate. Now, finally, Downsview is becoming something: a mixed-use community with more than 54,000 residents. And not a minute too soon, given the country’s housing crisis. The $30-billion redevelopment will unfold over 30 years and include, in addition to residences, schools, community centres, parks and shopping. Turning abandoned industrial sites like Downsview into places to live is one of the solutions put forth in this month’s sweeping Maclean’s cover story on how to address the country’s housing shortage. The editorial package is chock full of practical ideas that can be implemented immediately. Some are even happening already on a small scale and might be replicated elsewhere. Pierre Poilievre made housing a big election issue. Many young people, anxious about where they’re going to live, were grateful that he was paying attention to their worries. If elected, can Poilievre actually fix the problem? Yes—and the April issue of Maclean’s explains how. Visit macleans.ca for more coverage of everything that matters in Canada, and subscribe to the magazine here. —Sarah Fulford, editor-in-chief, Maclean’s |
Donald Trump has made border security and deportations an immediate focus, alarming many on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border. Canada’s response: to beef up its defences, adding surveillance towers, drones, Black Hawk helicopters and a customized plane for aerial surveillance. In this essay for Maclean’s, Ronald Deibert, director of the Citizen Lab and author of Chasing Shadows: Cyber Espionage, Subversion, and the Global Fight for Democracy, argues this kind of surveillance is a recipe for danger, especially when AI gets involved. “The Canadian government should avoid hastily dumping resources into our own border and security agencies simply to appease Trump,” writes Deibert. |
Last June, Montrealer Mathieu Grondin moved to Ottawa to become Canada’s first-ever night mayor, a municipally funded position devoted to improving the capital city’s after-hours economy. In this Q&A with Courtney Shea, Grondin explains what the role is, why it’s needed and how a former DJ became a politician. “It’s funny because in Canada, Ottawa is the nerdy cousin, but to the rest of the world that reputation applies to the entire country,” he explains. “It’s a perception, but it’s one that stands in the way of a lot of economic potential, so we have some work to do.” |
Buy one of these 100% made-in-Canada tote bags for just $25 each and you’ll be supporting the independent Canadian journalism Maclean’s has been doing for 120 years. |
Claire Brosseau has wanted to die since she was a kid. She’d hoped to end her life on her own terms, but the government stalled its plans to offer MAID to people like her in 2023, and again in 2024. So, she and the lobby group Dying With Dignity Canada launched a lawsuit arguing that withholding MAID from the mentally ill violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Read Luc Rinaldi’s feature story on the crusade for psychiatric MAID. |
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