OTTAWA – Federal Industry Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne will represent Canada at former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe’s state funeral this week.Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was scheduled to visit Japan and attend Tuesday’s funeral, but cancelled those plans to oversee recovery efforts after post-tropical storm Fiona ravaged much of eastern Canada and parts of Quebec.Describing Abe as a friend and ally of Canada, Champagne says the former Japanese prime minister played an important role bringing the two countries closer together.Trudeau was slated to meet current Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida as Japan prepares to take over as president of the G7 and the Liberal government finalizes its new Indo-Pacific strategy.In an interview with The Canadian Press, Champagne says he doesn’t know if he will meet Kishida on behalf of Trudeau.But he says in addition to paying respects to Abe, he expects to meet Japanese officials to discuss the bilateral relationship and areas of mutual co-operation.“Certainly, I think Prime Minister Kishida knows how deeply engaged we have been, certainly on the industrial, commercial and economic front,” he said.“And we’ll be meeting with a number of people. I just don’t know if the meeting with the prime minister will still be happening.”Champagne was in Japan delivering a speech to business representatives in Tokyo when Abe was assassinated by a gunman in July.The industry minister says it was a surreal moment when he learned the former Japanese prime minister had been killed.“I was literally giving a speech,” Champagne said. “I was like three-quarters into it and suddenly I started to see people looking at their phones. And someone came to the podium and advised me that something very tragic had happened.”Abe’s state funeral is a sensitive topic in Japan, where such memorials are uncommon and the late leader’s legacy remains disputed.Abe, a conservative nationalist in a country that embraced pacifism after the Second World War, was assassinated with a homemade firearm nearly three months ago.In a reflection of deep divisions, an elderly man reportedly set himself on fire to protest the funeral, and more demonstrations are expected in the coming days.This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 25, 2022.⁠— With files from The Associated Press.SHARE:JOIN THE CONVERSATION Anyone can read Conversations, but to contribute, you should be registered Torstar account holder. If you do not yet have a Torstar account, you can create one now (it is free)Sign InRegisterConversations are opinions of our readers and are subject to the

TORONTO – A few weeks ago, Carly Soares needed a dress for a wedding and fast.“I tried going shopping at the mall, but noticed there was a scarce collection of formal dresses,” the 30-year-old said. “It was actually very surprising. It’s still the pandemic-loungewear kind of vibe throughout a lot of retail stores.”The dresses she did come across were either too casual or too expensive, so she decided to rent one from a dress rental boutique, something she had never tried before.And after a positive first experience, Soares said she would definitely do it again.Clothing rental has become more mainstream over the last decade with the rise of the sharing economy, but the COVID-19 pandemic wasn’t kind to these types of retailers.As pandemic restrictions lifted, however, some Canadian rental businesses saw a boost in traffic.While experts believe there is still more opportunity in the space, they are warning that growth might be subdued as Canadians change their shopping habits and priorities in an environment of hot inflation and rising interest rates. There are other challenges as well, including getting more people on board with the idea of essentially sharing clothes, people’s mindset around the type of clothing suitable for rewear, environmentally-conscious consumers questioning how environmentally-friendly fashion rental truly is, and the logistics of inventory.“We’ve been conditioned to purchase something, wear it, throw it out. Changing that to appreciate that rental opportunity is something that does take quite a lot of time,” said Daniel Drak, assistant professor at the Parsons School of Design.One of the most prominent clothing rental businesses, if not the most, is U.S.-based Rent the Runway, founded in 2009, which quickly became a hit with women who wanted access to designer clothing but didn’t want to spend tons of money on outfits they might wear once or twice.In Canada, a rush of new clothing rental businesses began popping up in the years leading up to the pandemic, offering everything from special occasion wear to workwear to maternity wear to everyday wear, but like many companies in the small business retail sector, getting through the last two years was a challenge.Canadian companies like Rent Frock Repeat, workwear rental business Dresst and Montreal’s Station Service have all ended their run over the last couple of years.It’s a “very challenging” market to be in, said Julie Kalinowski CEO of Toronto-based The Fitzroy, which offers special occasion dress rentals at a more affordable price.According to Drak, Gen Z will be the generation that really moves the industry forward because of their excitement around shopping resale, whether it’s for economic reasons, aiming to reduce clothing waste or to find one-of-a-kind pieces.He said now is the time for existing and emerging Canadian clothing rental businesses to lean into that popularity and make resale a part of their business model, which some have started to do.The global resale apparel market was valued at US$14 billion last year, according to Statista, and is projected to grow to US$51 billion by 2026.Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) assistant professor Anika Kozlowski said making genuine efforts to reduce clothing waste and reduce emissions stemming from clothing production, and operating as a local business in order to do so, might also be a good strategy, especially considering Canada’s smaller population.This would involve a strong understanding of the community the business operates in, the use of high-quality Canada-made items from ethical brands, finding ways to clean and repair clothes in a way that isn’t harmful to the environment, and avoiding long-distance shipping.That’s something Blyth Gill is working on with Vancouver-based Tradle, an e-commerce baby clothing subscription business that allows parents to rent and exchange clothes for each growth spurt.“Because babies outgrow clothes quickly, the need to have and exchange clothes has a really short cycle,” he said.Tradle works with local, high-quality brands, avoiding fast fashion brands. And when the clothes can no longer be reused, they won’t be thrown away, but instead recycled or broken down.The company launched right before the pandemic, which Gill said was definitely a learning experience.“Naturally, when we didn’t know as much about COVID-19, people were probably thinking, ‘sharing clothes? I don’t know,’” he said.But Gill said he’s happy that phase is now behind them and is excited for the next stage of the business’ growth.The Fitzroy’s Kalinowski is quite optimistic as well.“Since the last reopening, it’s been crazy, it’s been a boom, it’s been probably our best sales yet. It’s been a big year for weddings, all the events are back on, all the galas are back on. We just had the Toronto International Film Festival, one of our busiest weeks. So it’s been crazy busy.”Gabriella Iamundo, 31, uses fashion rental for special occasion wear, but doesn’t really see herself using it for everyday clothing, athleisure wear or workwear, or subscribing to a service, a sentiment TMU’s Kozlowski said is likely pretty common across the board.“I rented (special occasion wear) for the first time probably four or five years ago, maybe a little bit longer than that, and it just became something I thought was good for events,” Iamundo said.“To be honest, it’s pretty common in my circle of friends to check (rental services) out to at least see what the options are, especially before having to go buy something.”When looking further ahead, Parsons’ Drak sees bigger, traditional brands starting their own rental segments – which U.S.-founded Urban Outfitters has done – or acquiring existing businesses in the space, which would shake up the market.This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 25, 2022.SHARE:JOIN THE CONVERSATION Anyone can read Conversations, but to contribute, you should be registered Torstar account holder. 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TORONTO – Five things to watch for in the Canadian business world in the coming week:MarketsStock markets in Canada and the U.S. were under pressure last week after the U.S. Federal Reserve raised its key interest rate by three-quarters of a percentage point and forecast more hikes are to come. Investors will be watching to see where markets go now.Dye & Durham resultsDye & Durham Ltd. will release its fourth-quarter and full-year financial results after the close of markets on Monday and hold a conference call with investors. The company called off its proposed acquisition of Australian company Link Group last week, but said it has a “robust pipeline” of merger and acquisition opportunities.Railway hearingsThe U.S. Surface Transportation Board will hold three days of hearings starting on Wednesday into the proposed merger between Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. and Kansas City Southern Railway Co. The public hearings will be held at the board’s headquarters in Washington.GDP reportStatistics Canada will release its figures for gross domestic product by industry for July on Thursday. The initial estimate for the month suggested real GDP edged down by 0.1 per cent for the month as output fell in the manufacturing, wholesale, retail trade and utilities sectors.Travel changesThe federal cabinet order enforcing mandatory COVID-19 vaccination requirements at the Canadian border is set to expire on Friday. Current border restrictions mean most foreign nationals are not allowed to travel to Canada unless they have completed a primary series of an approved COVID-19 vaccine, unless they qualify for an exception.This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 25, 2022.Companies in this story: (TSX:DND, TSX:CP)SHARE:JOIN THE CONVERSATION Anyone can read Conversations, but to contribute, you should be registered Torstar account holder. If you do not yet have a Torstar account, you can create one now (it is free)Sign InRegisterConversations are opinions of our readers and are subject to the

Around the world, the kitchens, bedrooms and bathrooms of the population have something in common with many of the United Kingdom’s royal palaces.They are often stocked with the same items personally selected by Her Majesty The Queen and other members of the Royal Family, marked by what’s known as a royal warrant.Popular products such as HP Sauce, Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, Burberry clothing, Clarins skin care or Elizabeth Arden cosmetics can all display a royal coat of arms, marking them as a product chosen by Her Majesty.But those seals of approval may evaporate following the Queen’s death this month, leaving some brands wondering if they’ll continue to enjoy the favour of royal households as His Majesty King Charles takes the throne.HP Sauce, through its parent company Heinz, holds a royal warrant, though it’s not visible on these bottles. Heinz was officially the ‘Purveyors of Heinz Products’ to HM The Queen, a role that could admittedly be difficult for another company to fill.

By definition, personal savings is the difference between personal disposable income and personal consumption expenditure. Therefore, savings is the residual — what’s left of one’s disposable income after satisfying one’s consumption needs.So even if it sounds like a truism, a saver is someone who has the capacity to save. That is, someone with relatively high disposable income — an income in excess of what they need to satisfy their basic, and not-so-basic, consumption needs.Consequently, those unable to save are the ones with relatively low disposable income — an income sometimes short of what they need to satisfy even their relatively lower consumption needs. And among this group of non-savers, some may even have to go into debt to satisfy their consumption needs while others may be forced to reduce their consumption to levels most may consider unacceptable.Now, when there is inflation, everyone is affected independently of their incomes. Indeed, inflation reduces everyone’s real disposable income — that is, income’s purchasing power falls with inflation.Mind you, not all are affected in the same way.On the one hand, individuals with relatively high disposable income do not need to reduce their consumption levels when prices go up. Actually, they will be able to continue consuming as much as before — although paying more now, and thus saving less.On the other hand, some lower-income individuals may need to go deeper into debt to maintain their levels of consumption, while others may have to reduce their levels even further.Therefore, it appears that inflation hurts low-income individuals the most — and this is the group that will benefit from the $4.6-billion inflation-relief package recently announced by the federal government.While not surprising, some conservative commentators and politicians’ reaction to this government support initiative seems misguided. Believing that inflation is always due to too much money chasing too few goods, their reaction was as expected. For instance, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is on the record saying that the “problem with spending more money as a solution to inflation is that it simply pours more gasoline on the inflationary fire.”Poilievre is right that the government package is not a solution to the inflation problem. But, in any case, it doesn’t pretend to be either. It’s just a relief package, a Band-Aid. In other words, it simply intends to alleviate the impact of inflation on the most vulnerable members of society.But if this package is not a solution to today’s inflation problem, neither is raising the rate of interest. We must understand that the source of today’s inflation is neither excess demand nor undue wage increases, and thus today’s inflation is not a job for the Bank of Canada. Hence, with its tight monetary policy, the Bank is not attacking the domestic source of inflation — namely, profiteering by large corporations — while pulling the economy into an unnecessary recession.And without a doubt, interest rates hikes will worsen the situation of lower-income Canadians the most. Indeed, those let go first in a recession are usually the less skilled, lower-wage workers. Additionally, by increasing debt-service costs, higher interest rates contribute to reducing further the standard of living of indebted low-wage workers.At the same time, higher rates of interest benefit the savers — that is, those higher-income Canadians with capacity to save. Indeed, higher interest rates contribute to increasing their incomes, thus helping to offset some of the cost inflation may have imposed on them. At the end, interest rate hikes translate into an income transfer from borrowers to lenders, a redistribution of income towards the rentier class.But Poilievre is right that the $4.6-billion package represents an injection of new money in the economy — as it’s always the case with any government expenditure. But this is a very small addition, representing just 0.2 per cent of GDP — so it cannot fuel inflation in any significant way, if at all. And Poilievre’s argument is not that lower-income Canadians do not deserve to be helped during these difficult times — rather, he implies that by raising inflation the government package will somehow make their situations worse.Mmmm … doesn’t this sound rather familiar? Doesn’t it remind you of the argument against minimum wage increases because they would reduce employment and harm those intended to be helped? Oh, it does.However, if the intention is to alleviate lower income Canadians from the harm of inflation, why doesn’t the government listen to conservative criticism and implement this relief package without increasing the amount of money circulating in the economy? That is, if the package implies an injection of $4.6-billion of “new” money, why doesn’t the government remove at the same time $4.6-billion of “old” money from the economy? This way, the inflation-relief package would not pour “more gasoline on the inflationary fire.”And if any government expenditure represents an injection of “new” money, any government tax represents a withdrawal of “old” money. Therefore, I would propose to finance this relief package with a tax increase on those who, in addition to being the least affected by inflation, also benefit the most by the increase in interest rates — that is, a higher tax on the high-income Canadian savers.Mmmm … that’s an idea. But no doubt an idea that conservatives like Poilievre will dislike even more.Gustavo Indart is a professor emeritus in the economics department at University of Toronto.SHARE:

Despite the challenges facing Ontario’s health-care system more than two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, the president and CEO of Toronto’s biggest hospital network remains remarkably optimistic.“It’s been a very, very trying time,” says University Health Network president and CEO Kevin Smith. “Obviously, the shortage of nurses has been at the forefront of this discussion.”But UHN is coming out of the pandemic’s first two years in a decent financial position thanks to the provincial government’s help, Smith says. “They’ve made us whole throughout COVID,” Smith says. “We haven’t had to worry nearly as much about losing funding.” Toronto General and Toronto Western Hospital, as well as the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, and the Michener Institute of Education all comprise the University Health Network. Like a university spread across several campuses, each of these facilities operates under the same executive leadership team — with Smith at its head. Shoring up the province’s health-care system won’t be easy. Ontarians are worried about the possibility of an increasingly privatized system, and Queen’s Park’s attempt to free up hospital beds — Bill 7 — will allow for the transfer of elderly hospital patients to nursing homes not of their choosing.But Smith believes there is a way for UHN, and Canada’s health-care system as a whole, to move forward in spite of COVID’s many lasting obstacles. He spoke to the Star about nursing agencies, how the University Health Network’s two foundations stepped in during the pandemic, and his thoughts on the health-care privatization debate: I’m sure you have a lot of worries on your mind. What’s one that is keeping you up at night that folks outside the health-care system might not understand?I think the biggest worry I have is a two-edged sword. How do we get people who need care what they need in a timely fashion? A number of the multi-organ transplant patients that, 10 years ago, wouldn’t have survived are living vibrant lives today because of programs at University Health Network. They’re among the best outcomes in the world. That’s fantastic.But at the same time, we’re creating this huge population of patients who will need very specialized care for the rest of their lives. Historically, we haven’t built a system like that. People have had shorter life expectancies and haven’t had as many comorbid diseases. How will we manage to continue to care for those individuals, while meeting the needs of new patients and not generating adequate numbers of medical graduates to do the work?Where do you look for inspiration to solve those problems? I find solace talking to colleagues. I hosted Gianrico Farrugia, the CEO of the Mayo Clinic, last week. We both appear on the list of top 10 hospitals of the world. I was heartened by the fact that the issues Gianrico and his colleagues are struggling with are identical to ours. They have a different funding system. They have different issues around equity and access. But when it comes to the challenges of operating a health system and caring for individuals, there is no difference whatsoever. Do they have the same issues around hiring nurses?They absolutely do. We are also both seeing that even if nurses are willing to stay in the clinical workforce, many are suggesting they want to work in a less clinically intensive environment. And then, of course, there are a large number of clinic staff who would rather work in an agency world where they have more control over their schedule.This is not unique to Canada at all. I can’t take you to a perfect health-care system anywhere in the world, and I wish I could. There are trade-offs, and Canada made some choices on trade-offs in different ways. We have among the best outcomes in the world, which is great. The problems we have are consistent with the other G7 and G15 countries in terms of health-care access, quality and cost.Is there anything more that UHN can do to hire and retain nurses permanently without resorting to agencies?I think there is. We’ve put together a task force to focus on those big problems of health care with human resources, particularly in nursing. I had a meeting with our leadership team that is working with our ethics professionals to ask where we can legitimately recruit nurses from without damaging the health status of places that might be in a worse shape than Canada. There are jurisdictions in the world that overproduce nurses for export — Cuba would be one environment.We’re actively engaging in international recruitment and working with the Canadian government to fast-track candidates. We’re actively looking in refugee environments where those who are trained as nurses can be rapidly processed as refugees and then evaluated against North American practice standards. Concurrently, we’re also looking at extending some of the regulated providers. What is it that nurses still do that perhaps others who are less highly trained and skilled than nurses could be trained to do?And then lastly, but certainly not least, it’s a very exciting time in health care to think about technology, digital health, artificial intelligence, and home-based care. If we could get patients treated for what historically might have been treated in hospital, that means we can get more done in an acute care environment.There’s been a lot of talk in Ontario about the possibility of more health-care privatization. That seems to worry a lot of people. Does it worry you?It doesn’t worry me nearly as much as the words: “universal accessibility.” Thirty per cent of our system has been in private hands for a very long time — dental care, eye care, drug care, parts of the long-term-care system. I think the clarification that would take a lot of the sting out of this debate would be the words: “You will not suffer because of your economic situation in terms of access.”I know there are those who feel very, very strongly that if there’s any profit margin in a business that it should be driven back into the system. I’m a bit more sanguine about that. If someone can provide outstanding service, really good outcomes, high quality of work, and they can do that within a private structure while meeting universal accessibility, I’m prepared to experiment with that.Do you think people should be forced to move into a long-term-care facility that’s far away from their family, as per Bill 7?Ideally, no. If they have to because of limited access to acute care services — that there are people who really need to be in those beds and their outcome will be compromised if they don’t get care — then I do think we have to look at other solutions. I don’t think any system would say you could stay in a place with very limited capacity, even if you no longer needed the services of that people, when others who do need them are unable to access it. Hospitals foundations have received lots of donations over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. Is UHN having to lean on its foundations for funding?Our foundations have been absolutely remarkable, no question about that. One of the most important things they were able to do was offer resources for hotel rooms when employees were ill, or for people who were really struggling with transportation. Many generous donors have stepped up.But I have to say, the government has really met our needs economically during COVID. They’ve been very easy to work with. We’ve had the things we needed funded, funded. Obviously, that’s going to get more challenging as we go back to more normal times, especially recognizing that we have a shortage of people and our nursing colleagues have been very clear about their expectations of significant increases through collective bargaining. They’re significant at a time when inflation and other pressures make it difficult for government to think about tax increases.Our two foundations, UHN Foundation and the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation, raise about $250 million a year. It’s their investment that allows us to invest in research and innovation, scholarship, education and training. We don’t get funded differently than other hospitals when it comes to clinical care. So if we value having one of the world’s top five cancer centres — it’s our foundations that help us do that. There are a lot of catch-up effects from the pandemic that are still playing out — trauma, long COVID, addiction issues. When do you think you’re going to return to normal as a hospital? Do you expect to deal with these lingering issues for years or decades?I think we’re on our way to more normal. Don’t forget, we always deal with capacity issues. We often would be running at 110 or 120 per cent pre-pandemic. We’re approaching 100 per cent occupancy now. I think the big change is we have a new disease. It’s not a disease that’s going away, and we didn’t size our system to accommodate COVID, long COVID, and the sequelae of COVID. We’ve seen monkeypox of late, and I think most of us believe the risks of antibiotic use and infectious disease are higher up the list of risks than they once were.As a result of COVID, we lived in a changed world. It’ll open up the doors to new professions and new opportunities. It’ll open up — I hope — the door to reconsidering where and how we deliver care. But it will also challenge, in Canada and around the world, the funding of a health-care system that’s already very expensive. I think it’ll also help us consider what patient-centred care looks like, and what clients expect of us as a system.Health care is not insulated from the broader evolution of society. It’s quite new for us in health care to frequently deal with uncivil patients. Incivility to health-care workers is at an all-time high, at a time when they are considering whether they want to continue in the profession. That’s one of the greatest concerns I have. How do we bring back a two-way stability — to our patients, and from our patients, and build a high-quality work environment for people who we need to keep in the profession? They’re feeling quite overwhelmed.This interview has been edited for length and clarity.SHARE:JOIN THE CONVERSATION Anyone can read Conversations, but to contribute, you should be registered Torstar account holder. 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There was a brief time in the late 2010s during which the social media titans seemed unassailable. Facebook and Instagram in particular — companies with user bases that dwarfed the populations of entire continents — seemed so utterly dominant that it was hard to see how anyone or anything might unseat them.Then along came TikTok. The short-form video platform wildly popular with generation Z has gone from obscure lip-synching app to a cultural force with well over a billion users.What is perhaps most remarkable about TikTok’s rise is that it has made Facebook and Instagram seem very vulnerable.Now, one finds oneself asking not, “Can anything stop Facebook?” but, instead, “Can anyone challenge TikTok?”The answer to that is yes — and the challenger is not a traditional social media app, but YouTube.This week, the massive, Alphabet-owned video site announced upcoming changes: its Shorts feature — essentially, short-form video à la TikTok — will be part of the YouTube partner program starting in 2023, and ad revenue will be shared with content creators.That suddenly makes YouTube much more attractive to creators — the relatively new class of worker who makes a living producing video content.What YouTube’s move also does, however, is squeeze Instagram into a sort of no man’s land where it may well face increasing headwinds succeeding either as a social media platform or TikTok competitor.YouTube Shorts are a bigger deal than they may appear, mostly because their small, digestible format makes them very popular — sometimes more so than longer-format videos. YouTube’s vice-president of creator products, Amjad Hanif, stated that Shorts get 30 billion views a day and 1.5 billion people are viewing them every month.One key, though, is the way in which they might help smaller creators rather than those already established. For example, Canadian Kyle Roswell’s YouTube channel dedicated to coffee has respectable views for longer videos, with some in the hundreds of thousands; his most popular Short, on the other hand, has 13 million views.That kind of difference can mean the difference between a YouTube being a side hustle and a job. While YouTube’s top channels may resent the need to now dedicate time to a new, shorter format, smaller creators have a lower barrier to entry to an audience and revenue.It also means YouTube is firmly aiming its sights at TikTok, who for its part introduced revenue-sharing earlier this summer. That arrangement, however, is only available to the top four per cent of accounts, and it is quite plausible that YouTube’s broader reach may make it more accessible and profitable.In this back-and-forth between short-form video, however, Instagram may get lost in the mix.Over the past couple of years, Instagram has pivoted to try to deal with the threat of TikTok, shifting to videos called Reels and deprioritizing its early focus on photos and sharing among friends.It’s not going well. The Wall Street Journal reported that a leaked internal document from Instagram stated that users are not spending much time on Reels and, worse, “most Reels users have no engagement whatsoever.”Beyond the traditional sense of companies competing on features, part of what is happening here is that different platforms have different cultures and functions.The revelation of TikTok was that it mostly ignored the idea of following friends and family and instead was more like short-form TV: open the app and be entertained by people you don’t personally know. YouTube is similar, with the difference being the inclusion of longer-form videos. It isn’t really social media — it’s just media, almost like the evolution of or successor to TV.Instagram is different because it started life as a place to see photos of what friends were up to. That’s why when the app copied Snapchat’s stories — short, disappearing photos and videos — it was very successful, because it complemented the existing approach of keeping up with one’s social circle.In trying to compete with TikTok, however, Instagram finds itself stuck in a no man’s land, neither functional competitor nor the social app it once was.Looked at in that light, it’s no wonder the once-unassailable app is now looking much more, well, assailable.For its part, YouTube appears to have made a very smart move, though we wait of course to see how it plays out in the real world. If nothing else, what makes YouTube’s approach clever is that it knows what it is: a site or app that people turn to for video on things that interest them.It’s a clarity of purpose that it shares with TikTok — and one that Instagram appears to be lacking. And what once seemed unthinkable — that the social media giants may in fact fade — now seems just that much more possible.Navneet Alang is a Toronto-based freelance contributing technology columnist for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @navalangSHARE:

At a time of prolonged uncertainty and disruption, the deeply ingrained human drive to own a home and exert some control over a patch of personal space has become more compelling than ever.In an Ipsos study commissioned by Peerage Realty Partners earlier this year, 75 per cent of Canadian homeowners said their home became more important to them during the pandemic; 65 per cent felt a stronger emotional connection to their home overall.The personal imperative to own a home is increasingly offset by the daunting challenge of affordability. This is thrown into stark relief by census data just released by Statistics Canada that reveals in 2021, the number of Canadians who owned the home in which they lived declined, while the number of renters increased significantly.This information was generally received with a shrug of acceptance given the surge in residential real estate prices across the country over the past few years. Realistically, the more recent increase in mortgage rates is likely to further accelerate the trend in 2022.That decline to 66.5 per cent ownership in 2021 from 69 per cent a decade ago, means Canada is still aligned with the data from the U.S. and other developed countries. The fact that millennials (ages 25 to 40) now comprise the bulk of renters at almost 33 per cent comes not as a great surprise given rising interest rates and the down payment stress tests imposed by regulators.But for those who focus on the broader social context of this trend, further exclusion foreshadows a complex long-term threat to healthy, sustainable communities.First and foremost, there is ample evidence that owning a home rather than renting one has a direct correlation to financial well-being and the ability to bridge the wealth gap. This is more important than ever at a time when significant economic polarization increasingly delineates and destabilizes Canadian society.Owning a home is a powerful tool for savings and asset appreciation, something that government policies, such as capital gains exemptions for a principal residence, actively reinforce. According to information shared by StatsCan in March, real estate accounts for almost 60 per cent of total assets for Canadians younger than 35, while that share ranged from 55.7 per cent for those aged 35 to 44 years. For those 65 and older, it’s 40.5 per cent because this cohort has had more time to diversify their asset portfolio.For families, ownership allows greater security and control over housing costs. As the available supply of rental properties is squeezed, Statistics Canada noted that the cost of renting has soared by 17.6 per cent over the past five years. That’s almost twice the 9.7 per cent cost increase experienced by homeowners.Second, studies indicate that neighbourhood engagement, specifically the standard of neighbourhood maintenance, increases with the number of owner-occupied dwellings. Practically speaking, renters have less incentive to take on home and neighbourhood improvements given that the benefits directly accrue to the landlord.That engagement factor also extends to homeowner involvement with local organizations, support for local businesses, and community causes. In turn, these contribute to an impetus to vote and interact with elected officials — a reality that is not lost on successive governments and their ownership-friendly rhetoric and policies.Third, mindful of privilege and several other variable factors, there is a body of work — including research from Habitat for Humanity — linking the welfare of children growing up in the relatively stable environment of owner-occupied homes with regular school attendance, higher secondary school graduation rates, and higher cognitive test scores.As affordability and availability erode the opportunity to benefit from owning a home, the time has come to consider new and inclusive ways to help make that happen. The new Tax Free First Home Savings Account introduced in the last budget is one step forward — as are the co-ownership and hybrid financing models that have been refined and reinforced for the current market.After all, the long-term benefits to getting more creative about the ways to put more families into their own homes extends to the broader community and its future resilience.Trevor Maunder is the CEO of Peerage Capital, a private investment firm that focuses on real estate services and real estate investment.SHARE: