In 1946 CMHC (Canada Housing and Mortgage Cor- poration) was formed to do two important things – to house returning soldiers from the second world war and to lead the nation’s housing strategy. A bold task for a bold nation; this is what Canada was. We were world leaders not because of what we said but because of what we did, this was Canada’s global identity — action.This identity permeated Canada and in particular the policies and actions of the CMHC. World at Home is more than a comparison between Canada’s post war identity and the CMHC, it is also a reminder of what Canada was and what it could be again. A look into our recent past reveals not a nation of hockey-loving Tim Horton’s coffee drinkers who dwell on a vast plain of sprawling suburbs and are passive by nature, but a people who acted on their values. It reveals a country who initiated the UN peacekeeping force, came out strongly against the Vietnam War (then took in over 69 000 refugees from Indo-China) and housed over 30 000 war veterans and their families after WWII. It is a country that experimented with housing and density (Habitat at Expo67) and shared its housing knowledge with the world (CMHC was awarded a UN peace medal in 1982 for sharing its practices on housing, building and planning with the Economic Commission for Europe). This was a country built on action. Identity Now Canada is not what it was. It no longer leads the world and in most cases, does not even follow.The housing situation in the country is embarrassing.The Toronto Community Housing Corporation is in shambles and is being threatened with privatisation, and in Vancouver, housing prices have soared to beyond the ridiculous (a postwar bungalow sells for $889 000). On the world stage we are constantly being condemned for our lack of action on climate change and for the first time since the UN was established, Canada has gone more than a decade without a seat on the security council. The Canada of the future will have to take inspiration from its past.The Diefenbakers and Pearsons of this country have long since passed.The world leader that was Canada has rested for so long on its laurels that it is not even a shadow of its former self.We have political dithering, uninspired urbanism and a country intent on thinking about meaningless economies while productive ones disappear. Action(s) Planners and architects can no longer sit on the sidelines, we must get our hands dirty in the everyday. Housing solutions in this country can no longer wait for nonexistent government procurements or high priced clients. We must start creating new typologies unsolicited, which deal with liveable densities, associated economic models and a multicultural ideology. We must rethink the economy beyond consumerism, creating new design solutions for both the goods and services we consume. We must plan for and design the spaces where this production will occur and we must maintain and protect our cities’ productive lands from speculation.
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department of unusual certainties
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