The One Canadian Economy Act, which received Royal Assent on June 26, 2025, has two components to it: the Building Canada Act and the Free Trade and Labour Mobility in Canada Act. Today, I'd like to talk about the first one.
The intent of the act is to expedite the delivery of "nation-building projects." Projects that will strengthen Canada's autonomy, resilience, and security, and turn the country into a global superpower (my words, not theirs).
The government states that this might include things like highways, railways, ports, airports, oil pipelines, critical minerals, mines, nuclear facilities, and electricity transmission systems.
At a high level, the streamlining is intended to work like this:
Projects first need to qualify as a nation-building project.
Then, the federal government approves the project right from the outset.
Following this a single conditions document will be issued by a new Federal Major Projects Office. This is intended to replace the current process of multiple sets of comments, conditions, and federal permits.
Overall, the target is to reduce average approval timelines from ~5 years to ~2 years.
What I particularly like about this sequence is that projects get "approved" right at the start. This is intended to immediately change the conversation from whether we should build to how do we build, which is an important distinction.
As someone who manages projects for a living, I can tell you that decisive and clear direction is critical to moving projects forward. Uncertainty and indecision kill momentum and motivation within teams. You need to be able to say, "this project is going, and going fast, so focus on figuring it out and making it happen!"
Ultimately, everything comes down to execution. But at least we're taking positive steps toward becoming a country that once again builds — and builds big.
"Rent control is the second-best way to destroy a city, after bombing." —Lawrence H. Summers
Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for the mayor of New York City, clearly ran a good campaign. He used social media and short-form videos to find his audience and win with the message that the city has become unattainable to most.
But it is also clear that the stock market really does not like his message. Shares of firms with exposure to New York City's real estate market reacted immediately: Vornado Realty Trust, SL Green, Equity Residential, Empire State Realty Trust, LXP Industrial Trust, and others, were all down. At the same time, the wealthy vowed to leave New York for places like Florida, as they so often do these days.
One of reasons for this negative reaction was Mamdani's commitment to not just cap rent increases, but freeze rents in rent-stabilized units for the entire duration of his term. We've spoken a lot about rent control over the years (here, here, here, and other places) but, at a high level, the problem with rent controls is that they create a strong disincentive for landlords to invest and maintain their homes and for developers to build new homes. So what ultimately happens is that you get a more rapidly aging inventory of existing homes and a reduced amount of new supply.
A full-out rent freeze takes this even further. A rent freeze does not mean that utility costs will also be frozen, that insurance and taxes will be frozen, that interest rates will be capped, and that all other landlord operating expenses will be restricted from inflating. (If this were the case, we really wouldn't have market economy.) So what a rent freeze does is ensure that, in real dollars, a landlord is able to collect
The One Canadian Economy Act, which received Royal Assent on June 26, 2025, has two components to it: the Building Canada Act and the Free Trade and Labour Mobility in Canada Act. Today, I'd like to talk about the first one.
The intent of the act is to expedite the delivery of "nation-building projects." Projects that will strengthen Canada's autonomy, resilience, and security, and turn the country into a global superpower (my words, not theirs).
The government states that this might include things like highways, railways, ports, airports, oil pipelines, critical minerals, mines, nuclear facilities, and electricity transmission systems.
At a high level, the streamlining is intended to work like this:
Projects first need to qualify as a nation-building project.
Then, the federal government approves the project right from the outset.
Following this a single conditions document will be issued by a new Federal Major Projects Office. This is intended to replace the current process of multiple sets of comments, conditions, and federal permits.
Overall, the target is to reduce average approval timelines from ~5 years to ~2 years.
What I particularly like about this sequence is that projects get "approved" right at the start. This is intended to immediately change the conversation from whether we should build to how do we build, which is an important distinction.
As someone who manages projects for a living, I can tell you that decisive and clear direction is critical to moving projects forward. Uncertainty and indecision kill momentum and motivation within teams. You need to be able to say, "this project is going, and going fast, so focus on figuring it out and making it happen!"
Ultimately, everything comes down to execution. But at least we're taking positive steps toward becoming a country that once again builds — and builds big.
"Rent control is the second-best way to destroy a city, after bombing." —Lawrence H. Summers
Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for the mayor of New York City, clearly ran a good campaign. He used social media and short-form videos to find his audience and win with the message that the city has become unattainable to most.
But it is also clear that the stock market really does not like his message. Shares of firms with exposure to New York City's real estate market reacted immediately: Vornado Realty Trust, SL Green, Equity Residential, Empire State Realty Trust, LXP Industrial Trust, and others, were all down. At the same time, the wealthy vowed to leave New York for places like Florida, as they so often do these days.
One of reasons for this negative reaction was Mamdani's commitment to not just cap rent increases, but freeze rents in rent-stabilized units for the entire duration of his term. We've spoken a lot about rent control over the years (here, here, here, and other places) but, at a high level, the problem with rent controls is that they create a strong disincentive for landlords to invest and maintain their homes and for developers to build new homes. So what ultimately happens is that you get a more rapidly aging inventory of existing homes and a reduced amount of new supply.
A full-out rent freeze takes this even further. A rent freeze does not mean that utility costs will also be frozen, that insurance and taxes will be frozen, that interest rates will be capped, and that all other landlord operating expenses will be restricted from inflating. (If this were the case, we really wouldn't have market economy.) So what a rent freeze does is ensure that, in real dollars, a landlord is able to collect
The same is true in condominiums and other ownership structures. Whenever somebody talks about frozen maintenance or common element fees, I immediately remind them that this is a bad thing, not a feature. It means the condominium corporation is on an unsustainable path and will eventually run out of money. Something is being sacrificed in order to keep up with rising operating and capital expenses. At the very least, you need to keep up with inflation.
I can appreciate that rents are too high. As a developer, I would love to be able to build to lower rents. It reduces absorption risk and it's better for the city. But rather than just freeze rents, a more productive and sustainable approach would be to attack the underlying root causes for the problem. A rent freeze is a short-term political fix that will have second and third-order consequences. Problems for a different day and for a different mayor, perhaps. But problems nonetheless.
Cover photo by Daryan Shamkhali on Unsplash
Nationwide across the US, transit ridership is only at about 70% of where it was in 2019 before the pandemic. But this is not the case in all cities around the world. According to this recent Bloomberg article, Madrid, Hong Kong, and Paris are all above their 2019 ridership levels. Seoul and Shanghai are also close at just over 90%, and London is at 85%.
So this problem of fewer people riding transit seems to be a North and South American phenomenon. Rio de Janeiro is at 73%, Mexico City is at 70%, and San Francisco is somewhere near or at the bottom at 44%. The obvious explanations for this are that Europe and Asia are generally denser and less car-oriented, their return-to-office patterns have been much stronger (less WFH), and their governments probably care more about transit (and spend more money on it).
Broadly speaking, I think this is all true, but I'd love to know more precisely what's driving these differences. Because it's not exactly obvious. Consider, for example, Paris and London. Paris is at 103% of its 2019 levels, whereas London is only at 85%. Why is that? Both cities share a lot of similarities. They have a river that weaves through the middle, they're dense, they have lots of trains, and both are alpha global cities.
So why the delta? What exactly is Paris doing that is encouraging more transit usage?
Charts via Bloomberg
The same is true in condominiums and other ownership structures. Whenever somebody talks about frozen maintenance or common element fees, I immediately remind them that this is a bad thing, not a feature. It means the condominium corporation is on an unsustainable path and will eventually run out of money. Something is being sacrificed in order to keep up with rising operating and capital expenses. At the very least, you need to keep up with inflation.
I can appreciate that rents are too high. As a developer, I would love to be able to build to lower rents. It reduces absorption risk and it's better for the city. But rather than just freeze rents, a more productive and sustainable approach would be to attack the underlying root causes for the problem. A rent freeze is a short-term political fix that will have second and third-order consequences. Problems for a different day and for a different mayor, perhaps. But problems nonetheless.
Cover photo by Daryan Shamkhali on Unsplash
Nationwide across the US, transit ridership is only at about 70% of where it was in 2019 before the pandemic. But this is not the case in all cities around the world. According to this recent Bloomberg article, Madrid, Hong Kong, and Paris are all above their 2019 ridership levels. Seoul and Shanghai are also close at just over 90%, and London is at 85%.
So this problem of fewer people riding transit seems to be a North and South American phenomenon. Rio de Janeiro is at 73%, Mexico City is at 70%, and San Francisco is somewhere near or at the bottom at 44%. The obvious explanations for this are that Europe and Asia are generally denser and less car-oriented, their return-to-office patterns have been much stronger (less WFH), and their governments probably care more about transit (and spend more money on it).
Broadly speaking, I think this is all true, but I'd love to know more precisely what's driving these differences. Because it's not exactly obvious. Consider, for example, Paris and London. Paris is at 103% of its 2019 levels, whereas London is only at 85%. Why is that? Both cities share a lot of similarities. They have a river that weaves through the middle, they're dense, they have lots of trains, and both are alpha global cities.
So why the delta? What exactly is Paris doing that is encouraging more transit usage?
Charts via Bloomberg
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