Keeping to the Marketplace: The Evolution of Canadian Housing Policy

Christine Hughes is a policy analyst at the Ontario Native Affairs
Secretariat.

This is an immensely readable account of the development of Canadian
housing throughout the 20th century. Of particular interest is the
author’s review of the contributions made by some of the key
personalities (both politicians and bureaucrats) responsible for shaping
Canadian social-housing policy. Among those individuals discussed are
W.C. Clark, Deputy Minister of Finance (1933–53); David Mansur, the
first president of the then Central (now Canadian) Mortgage and Housing
Corporation (1946–54); and public-/social-housing advocates Harold
(W.H.) Clark and Humphrey Carver.

While the book documents housing policy in eastern, central, and
western Canada, Bacher focuses most closely on the evolution of housing
policy in Ontario, which he characterizes as being at the “forefront
of innovation in government housing policy.” He details a number of
significant developments in Ontario’s housing policy, including the
1949 opening of Toronto’s Regent Park housing project; the 1964
creation of the Ontario Housing Corporation; and the development, in
1986, of the Homes Now program (the first exclusively provincial
social-housing program in Canada).

This well-researched book contains a detailed list of references for
each chapter and an extensive index. Archival photographs add to its
appeal. A welcome addition to the library of anyone interested in
Canadian social history, in housing policy, or in the process by which
public policy is formulated.