As federal leaders jockey to show who can best stand up to Trump, domestic issues that topped the national agenda months ago aren’t getting the depth of attention they deserve. Among these is housing unaffordability for younger Canadians.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre captured the stakes well last summer when he said: “We had a deal in this country… You get a job. You get a house by your 20s. That deal is broken.”

He’s right. This deal has been broken since the outset of the new millennium, when home prices began rising rapidly. They have since become so disconnected from earnings that many young people are locked out of the market altogether. Their consolation prize is high rents that erode financial security.

While Mr. Poilievre correctly identified the problem, no political leader is being honest with voters about the political bargain at the root cause of our housing crisis. Across multiple levels of government, and over time, Canada has chosen to protect housing equity for existing homeowners – even when that protection meant higher costs for renters and aspiring owners.

This bargain is political, because affording a home isn’t just about personal financial decisions. It’s a structural problem, shaped by decades of policy decisions. Our policy decisions oblige younger people to compromise their own standard of living to protect the ‘retirement nest eggs’ that rising home prices have generated for homeowners who have come before them.

Consider this. The net value of principal residences has grown by $5 trillion since 1977 (adjusting for inflation). While 70% of this increase can be explained by population growth, the remaining $1.5 trillion flows from rising prices. Canadians over age 55 reaped 60% of this $1.5 trillion windfall.

Political leaders could choose to make housing more affordable by organizing policies around the goal of having home prices fall. Lower prices would give young people a better shot at entering the market. They would help those enduring high rents see payments more in line with their earnings. So why aren’t candidates in this election even considering a policy option that would benefit so many?

Here’s the dupe-free answer you’re unlikely to get from ANY party on the campaign trail.

Most political leaders judge that their electoral success depends on protecting the wealth many older homeowners have gained from rising prices – wealth they’re now expecting to use in retirement. There’s little appetite to disturb the ‘nest eggs’ of this strong voting demographic, even though older Canadians have the lowest poverty and highest wealth of all age groups.

Conversely, politicians shy away from restoring what younger people have lost – the dream that good homes should be in reach of what hard work can earn. And since younger people tend to vote at lower rates, they rarely have to pay a political price for this decision.

Such political judgments compel younger Canadians to absorb higher costs to uphold a housing system that disproportionately rewards older homeowners. Quietly and without fanfare, Millennials and Gen Z offer a profound expression of intergenerational solidarity. They pay higher rents, take on larger mortgages, delay or abandon homeownership, and start families later – not because they want to, but because our political choices leave them no alternative.

Since younger Canadians are already doing their part, the question now is whether political leaders are ready to do theirs by making compensation part of the election conversation.

Compensation needn’t mean taxing the housing wealth owners have gained, although adding progressivity to property taxation merits consideration. What compensation should absolutely include is revisiting government spending priorities and tax expenditures.

Programs like Old Age Security, the Age Credit, the Pension Income Credit, and retirement income splitting provide billions annually to retirees – many of whom also benefit from large housing-wealth gains. Rather than asking younger generations to keep funding these benefits through deficits and a growing share of their taxes, Ottawa should shift eligibility for higher-income retirees who don’t need government subsidies, and use the savings to reduce costs for Millennials and Gen Z.

Sadly, that’s not what we’re hearing this election. Conservative and Liberal leaders are instead promising billions in income tax cuts for everyone, whether or not they need it. Such cuts will make it harder still to balance a budget that has already slid into big deficits. They also ignore how many older homeowners have gained housing wealth that is already tax-sheltered.

Party leaders are also making the usual promises to “build more homes.” This is part of the solution, but we already know that more supply alone won’t fix the generational imbalance. Years ago, CMHC estimated that Canada needed 3.5 million additional homes by 2030 to restore affordability to early-2000s levels. That would have required construction of 437,000 homes per year. Actual construction only increased to around 250,000.

When leaders imply that new GST rebates alone will jump start enough new affordable construction to close this gap, we’re being duped. Steve Pomeroy shows there are roughly 550,000 resales of existing homes each year, compared to 150,000 newly constructed homes. So most real estate transactions would not be impacted by proposed changes to GST.

What an honest platform would make clear is that there is no fixing Canada’s housing woes until parties acknowledge the harm many young Canadians endure to protect $1.5 trillion in housing wealth windfalls – and offer a plan to compensate them.

Let this be the election when political leaders stop taking for granted the protection provided by Millennials and Gen Z, and instead recognize it for what it is – a heartfelt show of intergenerational solidarity they offer at their own expense.