The housing crisis is an affordability crisis. There is no relief from the high cost of rent, for example. Among those who can pull together a down payment, an average of 60% of their household income goes toward home ownership costs. The problem, believes undergraduate student Elliott Gale-Wagner, is that investors are holding on to land and passively benefitting from its appreciation. Citing diverse sources ranging from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation to Nobel winner Joseph Stiglitz, Gale-Wagner used his article, A Tax-Based Solution to Canada’s Housing Crisis, to argue a Land Value Tax is central to resolving the crisis. The article won the Smith Family Scholarship for Economic Policy and was recognized at the Undergraduate Awards of Excellence in Economics ceremony on Wednesday, March 4, 2026. The article, Gale said, is meant to challenge how people view housing.

“When most people look at housing, they look at real estate listings and see a house, a bundle of characteristics, and a price,” Gale-Wagner explained. “Economists break that bundle into its parts so we can analyze which components are driving inequality or becoming disproportionately expensive. Using national balance sheet data from 1990 to 2023, I focused on the difference between land value and structure value. My conclusion is that our tax system is constructed incorrectly. We tax property instead of land, and that disincentivizes property improvements and contributes to the housing crisis.” [Read more…]