There was widespread fear at the onset of the pandemic, for obvious reasons. Among the likes, was Stephen Poloz, then head of our central bank. Could central bankers save the system once again? Was there enough monetary juice left in the tank to stimulate the economy? In an interview with the Globe & Mail, Poloz recounts, “Reporters were asking me, ‘What’s the maximum, how big could it be?’ I said, ‘Well, it’s unlimited. … It’s whatever the market needs.’ ” Sure enough, $5B of Quantitative Easing per week later and it worked. Financial markets are humming along, credit is flowing, and Canadas national housing market is enjoying record high prices, officially up 17% on the year, a necessary side effect says Poloz. And so far, policymakers have been unwilling to intervene for fear of undermining the economic recovery. “One of the concerns we’re having is there’s starting to be ‘fear of missing out’ … and that might be driving some of the expectations,” Deputy Governor at the Bank of Canada Toni Gravelle noted in a recent speech. Yes, extrapolative expectations are running high, and why wouldn’t they? When policy makers intervene to prevent natural price corrections you create speculative feedback loops. People believe house

There’s no question low interest rates and a seemingly unlimited amount of QE (money printing) is creating distortions across financial markets, and in particular our housing market. However, according to former Bank of Canada governor Stephen Poloz, this all par for the course. “If the side-effect is a hot housing market, that’s one I’ll take every day” noted Poloz in an interview with BNN Bloomberg. Adding, “It’s hot, and we could see signs of speculation, but we have to accept that because otherwise we would have a really, really bad recession.” In case you needed further evidence the housing boom was manufactured in Ottawa, look no further. While Poloz is right in the fact we avoided what would have been a deeper recession, it does not come without consequences. These policies will have a crippling blow on the younger generation, already struggling to enter the housing market. By printing a whole whack of loonies, we have essentially debauched the value of the currency, eroding purchasing power, decimating savers, while simultaneously boosting asset prices. Again, growing the divide between the haves and the have nots. It should come as no surprise that political tensions are boiling over, with increasing calls for government