Pay people to have kids

The problems facing Canada today are not unique.

We have an insane housing bubble, labour shortages and a population crisis. Young people are facing bleak economic futures, are failing to create families and that’s presenting our business community with labour shortages.

Our governments are quick to slap bandaids on these problems with mass immigration and rental housing programs, but ultimately these solutions are going to fail. We should expect better solutions from our government. It is so involved in our lives, it is its responsibility.

The Filles du Roi was an incredibly successful program from New France that should be re-evaluated for today's problems. Two-thirds of French Canadians can trace their lineage to 800 women sent by the King of France between 1663 and 1673 to New France to be wives for the colonists. Those new families who had 10 children were granted a pension from the French Crown. Canada could do something similar today to properly address labor shortages long-term.

To solve housing, we don't have to look all the way back to the 1600s, just to the “strawberry” houses all over the Okanagan, built for workers during the war, and for veterans after the war.

The Crown should open land for development of similar inexpensive housing for young people, ready to start families. More rental suites are never going to cut it for young families. Strong family units with stable financial footing would provide Canada with all the labor and economic production it could ever need.

The solutions are sitting in our history ready to be implemented. They're proven effective solutions, we're living off the royalties of them today. It's time for this modern short-term thinking to leave our government and responsible, long term solutions to return.

Nick Hassard