Free Lunch by The Peak

Canada's housing market has become our national obsession, and with good reason. Years of skyrocketing prices are now meeting surging mortgage rates, and the result is some of the least affordable housing in the world. What's driving that affordability crisis, and what comes next? On this episode of Free Lunch by The Peak, we speak with Mike Moffatt, a Senior Director at the Smart Prosperity Institute and Assistant Professor at Ivey Business School. Mike argues that a lack of supply is the key driver of expensive housing in Canada—we get into the details of why that is and some of the ways our dysfunctional housing market warps our economy.

In this special holiday episode, we're joined by Brett Chang from The Peak Daily to look back at 2022, chat through some of the biggest stories of the year, and make some predictions about what's to come in 2023. Plus: Our reading recommendations from the year.We're back to our regularly scheduled programming next week. See you in the new year!

The system of low-cost, hyper-efficient manufacturing that emerged after the end of the Cold War promised to deliver the goods—literally—and usher in a new era of high growth and cheap consumer products. But after years of supply chain disruptions brought on by the pandemic and growing detachment between China and the West, we're now seeing how fragile that system really can be. Is it time for something new? Sean Speer thinks so. He's the PPF Scotiabank Fellow in Strategic Competitiveness at the Public Policy Forum and Editor-at-Large of The Hub, and in this episode, he makes the case for building up industry in Canada to make more of the stuff we need at home.

Canada's labour market has been through a wild ride over the past 3 years or so, from pandemic-era lockdowns to an incredible re-opening bounceback and record low unemployment. And now, with the Bank of Canada trying to cool off the economy and a recession (maybe?) on the horizon, things are getting... strange.On this episode of the podcast, we talk with Brendon Bernard, a Senior Economist at the Indeed Hiring Lab who knows the job market inside and out. He walks us through exactly what's happening in Canada's labour market today, how we got here, and what we can expect going forward (plus, we get into whether now is the time to negotiate a big raise at work).

Welcome to Free Lunch by The Peak, a new weekly podcast for Canadians that digs deep into economics, business, finance, and tech.Join us every Tuesday morning for new episodes. Search and follow Free Lunch by The Peak wherever you get your podcasts.