Wildfires,Tax Hikes & Distressed Sales

🔥 Wildfires Ignite Canada’s Insurance Crisis

• Wildfires are increasingly driving up home insurance costs in Canada, making insurance a major factor in housing affordability.

• In high-risk regions, insurance can consume 15–20% of monthly mortgage payments, in some cases, becoming a bigger affordability barrier than the mortgage itself.

• Alberta and British Columbia face the steepest pressures: some areas like Medicine Hat and Fort McMurray.

• U.S. precedent shows the danger: in California, major insurers like State Farm and Allstate have already stopped offering coverage in wildfire zones.

• Canada has not yet seen insurers pull out en masse, but pressures are mounting as reinsurance costs climb and catastrophe losses grow.

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Why This Matters: Wildfire risk is making insurance a central factor in determining the affordability of Canadian homeowners' homes. In high-risk regions, premiums are rising faster than home values, pushing buyers out of the market. If insurers retreat as they did in California, some Canadian homes may become effectively uninsurable and unsellable.

😥Toronto Faces $153M Housing Funding Gap

• Toronto is facing a $153M housing funding shortfall in 2026 after cuts from both the federal and provincial governments.

• Ontario’s allocation under the Canada-Ontario Housing Benefit will drop from nearly $20M in 2025 to under $8M in 2026.

• Ottawa’s latest refugee shelter funding leaves Toronto $107M short this year of what’s required to meet demand.

• Mayor Olivia Chow warns the city may need a 3% property tax increase to fill the gap. _(source)

Why This Matters: Toronto is already grappling with record shelter demand and affordability pressures. Without adequate support from higher levels of government, the city faces a tough choice: cut services or hike taxes.

📈Toronto Distressed Sales Hit Record Highs