Host Cara Stern is back from parental leave, and she and Mike are jumping right into one of the most debated topics in housing policy — rent control. Inspired by Zohran Mamdani's campaign rent freeze proposal, they dig into how these rules shape the housing market, not just for landlords and tenants, but for entire cities. While rent control offers stability and predictability for those lucky enough to have it, it can also quietly freeze people in place — making it harder to move for a new job, grow a family, or even downsize later in life.

In this episode, they explore how rent control affects mobility, opportunity, and fairness between long-term renters and newcomers. From young families trying to upsize to seniors staying put in oversized apartments, Cara and Mike unpack the tradeoffs behind this well-intentioned policy. Is rent control helping affordability, or holding cities back from building the housing we actually need?

Chapters:

01:00 Introduction

01:19 Zahran Mamdani's rent control policy overview

01:44 Rent control explained

02:19 Mike gives an example of how rent control locks people into place

05:20 How being locked into place effects family planning

07:28 How being locked into place effects seniors downsizing

09:34 Rent control hurts people who need to move

10:03 The distributional consequences of rent control

10:45 How newer tenants subsidize newer tenants

12:39 Cara proposes an NIMBYism theory

13:21 Mike counters with “unintended consequences”

15:18 If rent control disappears mobility increases

17:36 Should rent control be abolished in Ontario?

Research/links

Housing Market Spillovers:

Evidence From The End Of Rent Control In Cambridge Massachusetts

https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w18125/w18125.pdf

Stats Can data:

Housing suitability of private household

Rent controls do far more harm than good, comprehensive review finds

Rent controls do far more harm than good, comprehensive review finds — Institute of Economic Affairs

Renters’ shelter costs by duration of tenancy

Renters’ shelter costs by duration of tenancy

Mamdani Seeks to Freeze Rents on Stabilized Units. What About the Rest?

Mamdani Seeks to Freeze Rents on Stabilized Units. What About the Rest? - The New York Times

The Misallocation of Housing Under Rent Control

The Misallocation of Housing Under Rent Control - American Economic Association rentcontrol.pdf

Hosted by Mike Moffatt & Cara Stern & Sabrina Maddeaux

Produced by Meredith Martin

This podcast is funded by the Neptis Foundation and brought to you by the Smart Prosperity Institute.

This week on The Missing Middle Podcast, Mike Moffatt and Sabrina Maddeaux bust some myths and take a hard look at Canada’s place in the global housing landscape. Drawing on new OECD data, they reveal why Canada’s housing affordability crisis is among the worst in the developed world—with home prices having risen more than twice as fast as incomes since 1999. They compare Canada’s record to other OECD countries (spoiler: it’s not flattering) and highlight where affordability has been successfully maintained (hint: not here). Sabrina offers a theory on why both Canada and Australia are failing so badly at keeping homes affordable, and together, she and Mike make the case for dropping the excuse that this is just a “global trend.”

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction

01:30 Game:React to the Boomer Comment

02:40 Young people don’t want responsibility?

03:59 Global trend or Canadian crisis?

05:12 Missing Middle study on the global housing landscape

07:35 Home prices vs incomes

09:33 It’s worse in Canada, it’s us, we’re the problem

12:30 Which countries are better at affordability?

15:00 Possible reasons Canada and Australia are struggling with affordability?

Housing report card:

https://jhelmer.quarto.pub/rescon-state-of-the-sector-quarterly-reports/12-report-card-brantford.html

Derek Thompson Sunstack - Chart 10

https://www.derekthompson.org/p/the-25-most-interesting-ideas-ive?utm_source=www.profgmarkets.com&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=nvidia-to-invest-5-billion-in-intel

Canada vs. the World: The Worst Record on Housing Affordability Since 2004

https://www.missingmiddleinitiative.ca/p/canada-vs-the-world-the-worst-record

OECD Affordable Housing Database:

https://www.oecd.org/en/data/datasets/oecd-affordable-housing-database.html

Hosted by Mike Moffatt & Cara Stern & Sabrina Maddeaux

Produced by Meredith Martin

This podcast is funded by the Neptis Foundation and brought to you by the Smart Prosperity Institute.

The Canada Revenue Agency is facing a public crisis: long delays, wrong assessments, and frustrated taxpayers. Hosts Sabrina Maddeaux and Mike Moffatt unpack the CRA’s 100-day “fix,” why it’s only a Band-Aid solution, and the deeper structural issues inside Canada’s tax system. From call-centre chaos to a tax code even accountants struggle to understand, this episode explores how CRA policies are eroding public trust and what real reform would look like.

Mike also shares his personal experience battling denied medical expense claims and the endless back-and-forth with CRA agents. Together, they discuss the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, the agency’s growing enforcement powers, and why ordinary Canadians are being left behind by a broken system.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction

00:42 CRA's challenges

02:35 An incredibly complicated tax code

03:42 Understanding taxpayer complaints

04:50 Guilty until proven innocent

06:16 The numbers behind objecting to assessments

08:52 The taxpayer bill of rights

10:05 Personal experiences with CRA

13:42 BOOM!

Research/links:

There are much bigger problems with the CRA than just long hold times

This is the real problem with the Canada Revenue Agency

Taxpayer Bill of Rights

https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/corporate/about-canada-revenue-agency-cra/taxpayer-bill-rights.html

Hosted by Mike Moffatt & Cara Stern & Sabrina Maddeaux

Produced by Meredith Martin

This podcast is funded by the Neptis Foundation and brought to you by the Smart Prosperity Institute.