Through the Honourable Rob Lantz, Premier of Prince Edward Island and Chair of the Council of the Federation:

Canada has a path that can protect front-line officers, calm public concern over developer bailouts, restore housing affordability, preserve rural land values, and give young people a lawful way to build a future: a national land-based housing stream that houses and feeds people while creating livelihoods and strengthening community safety.

Prime Minister Carney has warned against clinging to nostalgia and has called Canada to adapt to a changed world. Housing must be part of that adaptation. Public support can help builders, families, municipalities, and rural communities cross from a failing cost structure into a model that restores affordability, livelihoods, and hope.

The Toronto case shows why preventing teenage recruitment into criminal networks must be treated as public-safety work. Constable Marc Pinizzotto was killed during a search warrant connected to an investigation into shootings and alleged criminal networks. When teenagers see few affordable ways to live, work, belong, and build a future, recruiters can offer money, status, and identity in place of a real path forward. Affordable homes, food security, mentorship, and practical livelihoods give young people a better path before criminal networks can reach them.

The affordability equation shows why this shift is needed. A new apartment around $466,900 is roughly 10.9 times working single-adult income and about 6.2 times broad household income, while still leaving residents without meaningful productive land. By contrast, a lean yurt-hamlet home around $160,000 is about 3.7 times working single-adult income and 2.1 times broad household income, while a practical yurt-hamlet home around $235,000 is about 5.5 times working single-adult income and 3.1 times broad household income. The model lowers dwelling cost, shares infrastructure, and adds productive land, food systems, and local work back into the affordability equation.

A 140-acre farm commons could support 28 clustered yurt homes within about one hectare of the existing farmhouse, keeping shared services compact while the surrounding agricultural land remains whole and productive. Each household would receive a five-acre-equivalent stewardship share distributed across the living ecology of the farm rather than carved into a private severable lot. This protects land values by avoiding scattered severances, speculative fragmentation, and unplanned rural sprawl: homes stay clustered, the farm remains one parcel, agricultural land stays in production, and long-term improvements such as orchards, managed woodlots, soil restoration, workshops, and stable residents strengthen the productive value of the property.

This same community structure also supports mental health, reduces isolation, and strengthens continuity after crisis care. In Hearst, OPP Constable Tarun Bali was killed after an 18-year-old allegedly left hospital care while detained under the Mental Health Act, pointing to the need for supported housing, familiar daily structure, and continuity after crisis contact. In Montréal, Constable Mohamed Lamine Benredouane’s death points to the need for community connection before isolation and grievance harden. Yurt hamlets can work alongside clinical care by surrounding vulnerable people with neighbours, mentors, work, food, rhythm, and human recognition before crisis becomes confrontation.

This can match the scale of Canada’s housing gap. A national strategy with 125 regional factories producing about 9,000 land-based hamlets per year could house roughly 500,000 people annually, helping close the 250,000-unit annual shortfall CMHC has identified while creating steady work for builders, trades, farmers, foresters, suppliers, and local communities. If public housing support can reach up to $200,000 per conventional unit, similar support could fund the dwelling, land share, servicing share, and amenity share for households in this model, turning housing funds into permanent affordability, food security, productive land stewardship, and local livelihood infrastructure.

This approach lets Canada love the people on every side of the transition. Officers are loved when fewer crises reach confrontation. Vulnerable people are loved when they are housed, fed, seen, and supported before emergencies escalate. Workers, families, municipalities, and rural communities are loved through places where shelter, food, care, work, and belonging are close together. A path forward into a sustainable future is visible: land kept whole, homes made affordable, livelihoods restored, communities strengthened, and public safety improved upstream. The choice before Canada is whether to keep funding the old cost structure, or walk this path while there is still time to build it with care.

With respect,

Andrii Logan Zvorygin Candidate for Mayor of Owen Sound Local Help Canada https://helpos.ca/