Why Can’t We Build? The Real Villain Behind Canada’s Housing Crisis

With Chris Spoke, developer and host of the Hogtown podcast Every party says they want to fix the housing crisis. But on the ground, very little changes. Why? This week on Craft Politics, we go deep with Chris Spoke—Toronto-based developer, housing policy advocate, and host of the Hogtown podcast. Chris isn’t just talking about the housing crisis. He’s trying to build through it. In this episode: 🏘 Why zoning—not greed or foreign buyers—is the real problem 📉 Why the incentives in municipal politics make it nearly impossible to build 🗳 Why “local democracy” might be the biggest obstacle to affordability 📊 What a well-designed federal housing policy should look like—and why Trudeau’s version was better (in theory) than Poilievre’s 🧠 How to bring communities onside (hint: it’s not by yelling “YIMBY”) Plus: 🌇 Why Canada’s post-WWII housing model doesn’t apply in 2025 🏗 The case for radical deregulation—and how Japan and New Zealand did it 📉 The wild stat about how few people it actually takes to block development 💥 The rise of “BANANAs” (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything) And don’t miss: 🚫 Chris’s worst NIMBY moment 🧠 Rapid fire round: worst myth, best policy idea, and his favourite urbanist thinker 🧱 Why landlords aren’t to blame for high rents (but policy might be) We wrap with: 🍺 This week’s tasting notes: Percy drinks a Christmas tree in a can, and Joseph finds his go-to BBQ lager. 🔊 Listen now if you want to understand why the system isn’t working—and what a serious housing fix actually looks like.