We need wartime effort, for war ... and for housing

In this episode of On The Line, two big conversations on two critical topics: housing and national security.

First up: Mike Moffatt. Mike is one of Canada’s leading housing experts. He’s a professor at Western University’s Ivey Business School, senior director at the Smart Prosperity Institute, and host of the Missing Middle podcast. Matt talks to Mike about the state of Canada’s housing market, why prices are crashing in Toronto and Vancouver, and why that’s both a good and a bad sign. They cover policy, affordability, investor behaviour, and what governments are still getting wrong — and right — about how to fix it.

This episode of On The Line is brought to you by Airbnb. Last week, we talked about how the number of Airbnbs that could be homes accounts for only 0.6 per cent of Canada's housing stock. Everyone knows that you can’t solve a crisis with less than one per cent of a solution. But did you know that Airbnbs actually play a critical role in helping Canadians navigate affordability? Seventy seven per cent of Airbnb hosts say that renting their homes helps them cover the rising cost of living.Learn more at Airbnb.ca/closerlook.

Our next guest is Glenn Cowan. Glenn is a venture capitalist, a former special operations officer, and the founder of ONE9 — a firm investing in dual-use technologies that serve both national security and commercial markets. Glenn joins the show to talk about Canada’s defence industrial base, why doing national security innovation in this country is so hard, and what the future of warfare looks like. He shares lessons from his experience in Afghanistan, the Middle East, and Africa — and explains why Canada needs to be far more serious about the technologies and partnerships that will shape the next generation of global conflict.

This episode of On The Line is also brought to you by the Métis Nation of Ontario. It's Moose Factory in the 1860s. The summer sun rises over the still water of Hudson’s Bay. When others might rest for the summer, Métis families pushed hardest. Nets dropped before dawn. Canoes were packed with the morning's catch. Women salted fish on wooden planks, turning the haul into trade goods. From the shores of Hudson’s Bay, salted fish travelled inland to Hudson's Bay Company posts across what is now northern Ontario. Canada’s first great supply chain was stitched together by hard summer work by Métis families across the Upper Great Lakes and Northern Ontario.

As Canadians take time to relax, remember: the Métis helped build this country under the July sun. To learn more, visit OntarioMetisFacts.com.

All that and more on On The Line. Subscribe at ReadTheLine.ca, follow us on your favourite podcast app, and don’t forget to leave us a nice review. Audio drops every Tuesday morning, with video rolling out Tuesday evening on YouTube and our social channels. Catch it wherever you listen or watch.