# Why do Canada and Australia have so few people? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 25, 2016, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-canada-and-australia-have-so-few-people/747071 "2016-02-25T04:34:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![LC\_Strawhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e19adc/32.png) [@LC\_Strawhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LC_Strawhouse)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-canada-and-australia-have-so-few-people/747071/141 "2016-02-27T19:05:58Z")
> [@Raygun99](#): > > You’ve been asked multiple times now - find one example of a settlement that can’t expand in population because of Crown lands nearby. [How’s this?](http://www.permies.com/t/5172/homestead/Land-Cost-BC-Primary-Barrier) ---
**Author:** ![Raygun99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Raygun99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raygun99)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-canada-and-australia-have-so-few-people/747071/142 "2016-02-27T19:40:00Z")
Wait, someone trying to buy hundreds of acres of actively logged timberland is your example of a restriction? This person is seriously wondering why 100 acres of trees is expensive? I note that within that thread, a number of people note that plenty of land is available more cheaply in northern BC, but lament that it is to far removed from any towns. Funny that. I thought we were taking about affordable housing, of which there remains plenty, even in BC. I also note that no specific town is indicated as unable to expand. ---
**Author:** ![LC\_Strawhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e19adc/32.png) [@LC\_Strawhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LC_Strawhouse)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-canada-and-australia-have-so-few-people/747071/143 "2016-02-27T20:11:40Z")
> [@Raygun99](#): > > Wait, someone trying to buy hundreds of acres of actively logged timberland is your example of a restriction? This person is seriously wondering why 100 acres of trees is expensive? I note that within that thread, a number of people note that plenty of land is available more cheaply in northern BC, but lament that it is to far removed from any towns. Funny that. I thought we were taking about affordable housing, of which there remains plenty, even in BC. I also note that no specific town is indicated as unable to expand. Huh? The guy is talking about buying 20-100 acres so he can farm it, but finding that the prices are way out of whack compared to the U.S., and that the government doesn’t license Crown land to non-corporations in practice. This is exactly the kind of person who should be allowed to do their thing IMHO. If you don’t think that applies to this discussion then I think you’ll reject anything I find. ---
**Author:** ![missred](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/missred/32/14096_2.png) [@missred](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/missred)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-canada-and-australia-have-so-few-people/747071/144 "2016-02-27T21:36:03Z")
> [@LC\_Strawhouse](#): > > Ok fine, so with a few scattered exceptions Canada is worthless to any right-thinking human being except for its utility to the mining industry. Maybe you’re right, but I think that vision describes a pretty damn sad country and Canadians shouldn’t complain if they’re not taken seriously on the world stage. The cost of living on that land goes far beyond the price per lot. If you can’t grow your own food, it must be brought in by truck, rail or air, as does everything that you need for day to day living. The infrastructure for things like water, sewage, electricity, communications and, yes, even roads is minimal or non-existent. It would be much more cost effective to live where you have all of that and a job. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-canada-and-australia-have-so-few-people/747071/145 "2016-02-27T21:40:22Z")
> [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](#): > > Canada’s not taken seriously because it doesn’t force its people to live on undesirable land? Who knew? Funny. But the point is being made that the Canadian government doesn’t “let” people live on “undesirable” land. They can’t buy it because it is “undesirable”. And it’s obviously undesirable because no one is buying it :smack: Big difference than “forced”. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-canada-and-australia-have-so-few-people/747071/146 "2016-02-27T21:52:50Z")
> [@penultima\_thule](#): > > I’ll give you the full drum: > > J.Furphy & Sons is an Australian foundry and engineering firm established in 1864 which still operates from Shepparton in regional Victoria. > Their signature product was a mobile water cart made with cast iron ends and a sheet metal barrel, usually horse drawn, sometimes pulled on sleds. They were painted dark red and had the name FURPHY stenciled on the sides. > _(as a bonus factoid the cast iron head where the tap was located carries the motto “Good, better, best. Never let it rest. Until your good is better and your better is the best”.)_ > [Furphy water carts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furphy) were chosen as the means to carry water for the troops at army camps in 1914 before their disembarkation for and during the The Great War. > > Troops who gathered around the water carts would swap stories about the war, where they had come from, things that happened in other countries, what the army top brass were planning etc. So they became the central point for originating and disseminating gossip, rumours, stories with no factual basis, wildly exaggerated or apocryphal tales … in much the same manner as the office water cooler. > > The camp rumours which came from around the water tank became known as … **furphys** Thanks for reclaiming the honor of Canadians and Australians. FTR, I guessed incorrectly by context and by assonance–which is interesting, I think–that “furphy” meant “kerfuffle.” The etymology of which I also don’t know. ---
**Author:** ![slash2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@slash2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slash2k)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-canada-and-australia-have-so-few-people/747071/147 "2016-02-27T22:04:09Z")
> [@LC\_Strawhouse](#): > > Huh? The guy is talking about buying 20-100 acres so he can farm it, but finding that the prices are way out of whack compared to the U.S., and that the government doesn’t license Crown land to non-corporations in practice. This is exactly the kind of person who should be allowed to do their thing IMHO. If you don’t think that applies to this discussion then I think you’ll reject anything I find. And the people in that thread are telling him that there are still plenty of large cheap tracts available; it’s just that it’s not going to be in the area where everybody wants to live. See, e.g., this response from within your own cite: > [@](#): > > Land is cheaper where it is less desirable for the majority. Previous commenters are right, there is LOTS of cheap land in Canada. I’ve often realized that if all I wanted was to live the self-sufficiency dream, I could, I’d just have to move. GREAT locations include the Prairies and the East Coast. > > Even within BC land prices vary a lot. There are much cheaper properties in the Kootenays (Slocan Valley), the interior north of the Okanagan (esp around 100 Mile and Quesnel–great lake environments and just a few hours from Vancouver), Northern Vancouver Island and boat access only islands not far from them, and especially the North. Smithers is a great community and PG has lots to offer, and the prices in between are MUCH less expensive. I bet if he came down to the states and looked around, he’d find that prices are not nearly so far out of whack as he’s imagining. Try looking for 20-100 acres of good farmland close to Seattle and let us know what you can find. You’ve switched your focus from large-scale settlement to one guy looking for a farm. In the very thread you are using as your cite, people are telling this guy that “The areas suitable for farming (and some that aren’t)have mostly long gone either for that or for subdivisions simply because so many people want to live there.” You seem to be imagining that the Crown refuses to let people have good agricultural land; your own cite includes people explaining that homesteaders took all the good agricultural land long ago, and that what the Crown has now in timber isn’t suitable for his purposes anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Raygun99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Raygun99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raygun99)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-canada-and-australia-have-so-few-people/747071/148 "2016-02-27T22:05:37Z")
I find that guy’s claim entirely unconvincing. All we have is his say so that the properties are comparable. Maybe they’re of similar utility to him, but they have vastly different utility to the people that own the land. No one’s holding onto a parcel of land for $700k just because - it’s because they think they can extract that much value and more from it. We don’t know where these parcels are, what their composition is… Frankly, your target is shooting around all over the place. The request was to show a municipality that wants to expand but can’t because it can’t acquire Crown land. Vancouver real estate is expensive because it’s hemmed in by geography (and if you want to talk expensive housing, start building on the side of a mountain). Toronto is expensive because it’s extremely desireable and there is limited land close to the city centre - by definition. If you want cheap housing, it’s out there, you just have to move out a ways. If you want cheap _farm land_, it’s out there (Prairie farm land is literally dirt cheap). Rural Ontario towns have land to expand - what they lack is people who want to expand into them. No one’s farming Northern Ontario because you can’t. You mentioned Lapland a while back - if you look at the population stats for that region, it’s fallen - not dramatically, but it’s fallen - from 200k in the 1950s to about 150k now. That’s the hallmark of a marginal, resource driven settlement area. Canada has had similar situations - Uranium City was a 20,000 person town in the 1980s, and it’s at the very northwestern tip of Saskatchewan. Then the mine closed, and it now has a population of 200. This is what happens on marginal land. ---
**Author:** ![Raygun99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Raygun99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raygun99)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-canada-and-australia-have-so-few-people/747071/149 "2016-02-27T22:07:30Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > Funny. > > But the point is being made that the Canadian government doesn’t “let” people live on “undesirable” land. > > They can’t buy it because it is “undesirable”. And it’s obviously undesirable because no one is buying it :smack: > > Big difference than “forced”. Why would someone start a new town on marginal land when the towns we have on marginal land aren’t full? There’s got to be a reason to move somewhere. ---
**Author:** ![slash2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@slash2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slash2k)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-canada-and-australia-have-so-few-people/747071/150 "2016-02-27T22:09:12Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > Funny. > > But the point is being made that the Canadian government doesn’t “let” people live on “undesirable” land. > > They can’t buy it because it is “undesirable”. And it’s obviously undesirable because no one is buying it :smack: > > Big difference than “forced”. As has been posted upthread, the government of Ontario (and probably most or all of the other provinces) already has a procedure to transfer Crown Land to the local municipality when the municipality wants it for residential lots or other development (see post #105). If the elected local government sees no demand or need for development, is that not reasonable evidence that the demand doesn’t exist? ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-canada-and-australia-have-so-few-people/747071/151 "2016-02-27T22:24:29Z")
Here is a test. East of the Mississippi American land is pretty much free market valued. Pick some 40 acres in the middle of nowhere in say Alabama, Georgia or Mississippi. Lets say it cost $5,000 dollars an acre (number totally made up). Now THIS land will be about 10 to 20 miles from some small town that will have all the necessities of life (and a bit more). 30 to 40 miles from a nice sized small town. And 75 miles give or take from an honest to goodness big city. Not only that, you can actually farm it. Or just plant pine trees and harvest them every 20 years or so. Or lease to a hunting club (for all the city slicker hunters near by). Or rent to a bunch of folks who want to put up trailers and do a decent daily commute to work. Now, lets imagine a similiar Canadian piece of property. What is ITS price? If it is higher, then the Canadian government is hogging too much of the land. Especially as the Candian land probably isn’t nearly as farmable (if farmable at all), tree harvesting can probably on happen more like once every 100 years, you can’t least it for hunting because Canada has more hunting land than you can shake a stick at, and with this land, you probably won’t be between two small towns, you’’ be 20 miles between a small town and nowhere. ---
**Author:** ![LC\_Strawhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e19adc/32.png) [@LC\_Strawhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LC_Strawhouse)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-canada-and-australia-have-so-few-people/747071/152 "2016-02-27T22:25:09Z")
> [@slash2k](#): > > As has been posted upthread, the government of Ontario (and probably most or all of the other provinces) already has a procedure to transfer Crown Land to the local municipality when the municipality wants it for residential lots or other development (see post #105). If the elected local government sees no demand or need for development, is that not reasonable evidence that the demand doesn’t exist? Neither you nor I know about the government’s decision making process on how to allocate Crown land. We do know that a typical practice is to license it to corporations, so Average Joe is definitely going to lose out on that front. I hate to break it to you, but the GTA is not some kind of paradise on earth. People wish they had other options. > [@billfish678](#): > > Funny. > > But the point is being made that the Canadian government doesn’t “let” people live on “undesirable” land. > > They can’t buy it because it is “undesirable”. And it’s obviously undesirable because no one is buying it :smack: > > Big difference than “forced”. Exactly. I’ll add though that the land seems to be mysteriously very desirable when it comes to the mining and logging industries. > [@missred](#): > > The cost of living on that land goes far beyond the price per lot. If you can’t grow your own food, it must be brought in by truck, rail or air, as does everything that you need for day to day living. The infrastructure for things like water, sewage, electricity, communications and, yes, even roads is minimal or non-existent. It would be much more cost effective to live where you have all of that and a job. I completely agree. It’s the government’s fault that they are not providing this infrastructure far and wide, which just continues the vicious cycle. Businesses are always on the lookout for cheap overhead and labor if they can get it, which is how communities get started. ---
**Author:** ![Raygun99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Raygun99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raygun99)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-canada-and-australia-have-so-few-people/747071/153 "2016-02-27T22:39:21Z")
> [@LC\_Strawhouse](#): > > Neither you nor I know about the government’s decision making process on how to allocate Crown land. We do know that a typical practice is to license it to corporations, so Average Joe is definitely going to lose out on that front. > > I hate to break it to you, but the GTA is not some kind of paradise on earth. People wish they had other options. They have them. Take a lot on MLS for towns in southern Ontario and you will find hundreds of towns with affordable housing. The reason they’re affordable? They’re too far from Toronto. > [@](#): > > I completely agree. It’s the government’s fault that they are not providing this infrastructure far and wide, which just continues the vicious cycle. Businesses are always on the lookout for cheap overhead and labor if they can get it, which is how communities get started. So the government should build roads to places that don’t have people and have no economic activity in the hopes that people will move there? Which parts of the vast muskeg of northern Ontario should this happen to? Again, there is cheap land _already_ available all over Ontario, and elsewhere in Canada. You seem to want it to be a) cheap and b) in a major metro area, which are mutually exclusive. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-canada-and-australia-have-so-few-people/747071/154 "2016-02-27T22:46:53Z")
> [@Raygun99](#): > > They have them. Take a lot on MLS for towns in southern Ontario and you will find hundreds of towns with affordable housing. The reason they’re affordable? They’re too far from Toronto… I am not a real estate mongul (but my ego is HUUUGGEEEE and I have a blonde tupee 🙂 ). But the prices for house and land bandied about in this thread so far did not sound cheap to me as a Deep South American. And I’m not even a middle of nowhere Deep South American. ---
**Author:** ![LC\_Strawhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e19adc/32.png) [@LC\_Strawhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LC_Strawhouse)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-canada-and-australia-have-so-few-people/747071/155 "2016-02-27T22:48:43Z")
> [@Raygun99](#): > > So the government should build roads to places that don’t have people and have no economic activity in the hopes that people will move there? Which parts of the vast muskeg of northern Ontario should this happen to? Again, there is cheap land _already_ available all over Ontario, and elsewhere in Canada. You seem to want it to be a) cheap and b) in a major metro area, which are mutually exclusive. In the second biggest country on earth, I refuse to believe that we can’t fit in a few more big healthy metro areas somewhere. They don’t have to be in Northern Ontario - lots of people would love to live in the Maritimes if they could. This isn’t Hawaii where the whole damn country is an active volcano. All I’m suggesting is that someone takes a critical look at the crown land policies. Maybe I’m totally off base on this, but then again just maybe it could use some reforms for the good of all? > [@slash2k](#): > > You’ve switched your focus from large-scale settlement to one guy looking for a farm. In the very thread you are using as your cite, people are telling this guy that “The areas suitable for farming (and some that aren’t)have mostly long gone either for that or for subdivisions simply because so many people want to live there.” You seem to be imagining that the Crown refuses to let people have good agricultural land; your own cite includes people explaining that homesteaders took all the good agricultural land long ago, and that what the Crown has now in timber isn’t suitable for his purposes anyway. You asked for one specific example and I gave it to you. The guy is willing to spend his own money on farmland and isn’t finding any suitable sellers in BC of all places. You can’t get more cut and dried than that. I don’t think I will be able to find that magical blog post which is exactly the evidence you’re looking for. ---
**Author:** ![Raygun99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Raygun99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raygun99)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-canada-and-australia-have-so-few-people/747071/156 "2016-02-27T23:00:43Z")
> [@LC\_Strawhouse](#): > > In the second biggest country on earth, I refuse to believe that we can’t fit in a few more big healthy metro areas somewhere. They don’t have to be in Northern Ontario - lots of people would love to live in the Maritimes if they could. This isn’t Hawaii where the whole damn country is an active volcano. So who or what is stopping them from moving to the Maritimes? Seriously! Move to [Truro](https://www.realtor.ca/Residential/Single-Family/15868451/20-Lockhart-Avenue-Truro-Nova-Scotia-B2N5P7-Truro) or [Sydney](https://www.realtor.ca/Residential/Single-Family/16596353/147-Howe-Street-Sydney-Nova-Scotia-B1P4V3-Sydney) or [Miramachi](https://www.realtor.ca/Residential/Single-Family/15784150/391-EDWARD-Street-MIRAMICHI-New-Brunswick-E1V2Z4) and you will find cheap housing by the truckload. > [@](#): > > You asked for one specific example and I gave it to you. The guy is willing to spend his own money on farmland and isn’t finding any suitable sellers in BC of all places. You can’t get more cut and dried than that. > > I don’t think I will be able to find that magical blog post which is exactly the evidence you’re looking for. I asked for a municipality that can’t expand, not one guy who has an unrealistic expectation of what farm land should cost, and won’t look in a different part of the country where there is cheap farm land. A blog post is utterly unconvincing - what I’m looking for is a town that is abutting Crown land and can’t expand because the Crown won’t sell it. And that sure as heck is not Toronto. ---
**Author:** ![Raygun99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Raygun99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raygun99)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-canada-and-australia-have-so-few-people/747071/157 "2016-02-27T23:08:18Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > I am not a real estate mongul (but my ego is HUUUGGEEEE and I have a blonde tupee 🙂 ). > > But the prices for house and land bandied about in this thread so far did not sound cheap to me as a Deep South American. And I’m not even a middle of nowhere Deep South American. That may be. But they are cheap compared to Toronto and other large metro centers, either in Canada or the US. And it’s not because the towns themselves are boxed in by Crown land. They’re certainly cheap to this Calgarian, a city that is expanding out into bald prairie as fast as the houses can be put up. ---
**Author:** ![LC\_Strawhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e19adc/32.png) [@LC\_Strawhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LC_Strawhouse)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-canada-and-australia-have-so-few-people/747071/158 "2016-02-27T23:16:22Z")
> [@Raygun99](#): > > So who or what is stopping them from moving to the Maritimes? Seriously! Move to [Truro](https://www.realtor.ca/Residential/Single-Family/15868451/20-Lockhart-Avenue-Truro-Nova-Scotia-B2N5P7-Truro) or [Sydney](https://www.realtor.ca/Residential/Single-Family/16596353/147-Howe-Street-Sydney-Nova-Scotia-B1P4V3-Sydney) or [Miramachi](https://www.realtor.ca/Residential/Single-Family/15784150/391-EDWARD-Street-MIRAMICHI-New-Brunswick-E1V2Z4) and you will find cheap housing by the truckload. The whole point is that the government hasn’t bothered to modernize that area and make it hospitable for middle class people and businesses. So we’re back to square one. > [@Raygun99](#): > > A blog post is utterly unconvincing - what I’m looking for is a town that is abutting Crown land and can’t expand because the Crown won’t sell it. And that sure as heck is not Toronto. We’ll never find that because it’s not part of public discourse in Canada. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-canada-and-australia-have-so-few-people/747071/159 "2016-02-27T23:16:49Z")
> [@Raygun99](#): > > That may be. But they are cheap compared to Toronto and other large metro centers, either in Canada or the US. And it’s not because the towns themselves are boxed in by Crown land. They’re certainly cheap to this Calgarian, a city that is expanding out into bald prairie as fast as the houses can be put up. But WHY should it only be cheap compared to some major metro area? Canada apparently has more worthless land than you can shake a stick at. But it isn’t for sale. Which drives up the price of the almost worthless land. Which drives up the price of the not so worthless land. Which drives up the price of the okay land. Which drives up the price of the good land. Which drives up the price of really good land. It’s starting to sound to me like Canadian land management is some variation on “rent control” in big cities. ---
**Author:** ![Raygun99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Raygun99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raygun99)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-canada-and-australia-have-so-few-people/747071/160 "2016-02-27T23:23:07Z")
> [@LC\_Strawhouse](#): > > The whole point is that the government hasn’t bothered to modernize that area and make it hospitable for middle class people and businesses. So we’re back to square one. These are cities that have roads and hospitals and airports and everything. You can’t Potemkin village up a metropolis and make it happen. If businesses are hurting for cheap land as you say, well, here it is. A people looking for cheap places to live have it. You are so close to realizing that you are putting the cart before the horse. > [@](#): > > We’ll never find that because it’s not part of public discourse in Canada. “[Canadian city] can’t expand for lack of land, government won’t sell it Crown land” would be huge news. If North Bay or Smithers or Brandon or Moncton or … was bursting at the seams and couldn’t find new land, you would hear about it, and it would be reflected in housing prices. I honestly wonder if you’ve ever looked at housing prices outside the GTA. You seem stuck on this idea that cheap housing can’t be found. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-canada-and-australia-have-so-few-people/747071.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-canada-and-australia-have-so-few-people/747071.md?page=9)