The legacy media attacked Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre after he referred to millennial couples who are forgoing having children due to Canada’s housing crisis and high cost of living despite news outlets reporting on the same issue in the past.
Poilievre said that under a Conservative government, couples in their mid-thirties who have been faced with balancing an unaffordable housing situation with a “biological clock” that is “running out” would no longer be overlooked. Pundits jumped on the statement soon after, trying to malign the Conservative leader.
“We will not forget the single mom who can’t afford food,” Poilievre said. “We will not forget the seniors who are choosing between eating and heating. We will not forget that 36-year-old couple whose biological clock is running out faster than they can afford to buy a home and have kids.”
Poilievre made the comments during a campaign stop in New Brunswick on Monday.
While some were quick to be offended by Poilievre comments, claiming that he was “out of touch” with female voters or that they were rooted in misogyny, the statements were factual.
“It’s appalling to hear the Conservative leader use such outdated and harmful rhetoric. Using a woman’s fertility as a punchline in a political attack is not only disrespectful – it’s downright misogynistic,” wrote Liberal candidate Yvan Baker on X.
Others on social media were quick to acknowledge the facts.
“We’re meant to have children in our early to mid twenties, not our thirties. Poilievre’s comment on our biological clocks is correct,” responded one X user.
Another X user wrote, “While the Liberal supporters are losing their collective minds over Pierre Poilievre mentioning the “biological clock” saying it’s creepy and misogynistic let’s look back on when the Liberal Party busted out their period bracelets.”
Regardless of the polarizing reaction on social media, Canada’s falling birth rate is and has been at least partially tied to the fact that most millennials have given up on the idea of ever affording a house.
In fact, this is an issue that’s already been addressed for several years by media outlets like CBC News, the Globe and Mail and the National Post.
Statistics Canada, a government-run agency, has also reported on this connection for years.
Canada saw its lowest fertility rate on record in 2022, the same year that the Bank of Canada recorded the highest inflation rate since the 1980’s.
“Affordability concerns and lack of access to suitable housing were more recently cited as factors influencing the fertility intentions of Canadians, in particular among those aged 20 to 29,” reads a Statistics Canada study from 2023.
“In 2022, 38% of young adults (aged 20 to 29) did not believe they could afford to have a child in the next three years, while 32% did not believe they would have access to suitable housing to start a family in that time frame. Adults aged 20 to 29 were more likely to believe that financial capacity and adequate housing would act as barriers to them having a child compared with adults aged 30 to 49,” it said.
The MacDonald-Laurier Institute published a study earlier this month which found that “increases in the overall cost of living suppress fertility, and the effect appears quite strong.”
CBC Radio aired an episode of The Current in 2023 titled “Cost-of-living crisis means more Canadians are putting parenthood on pause” which interviewed couples facing this problem.
The broadcast also featured a study by Karen Lawson, head of the University of Saskatchewan’s Department of Psychology and Health Studies that found “25 per cent of those surveyed had decided to wait until they were at least the age of 35 to have kids, mostly because of the cost.”
Additionally, one-third of respondents said they never wanted to have children based on “a cost-benefit analysis.”
There is a clear correlation between Canadians’ financial stability, access to housing and their desire to have children.
An Abacus Data study from 2023 found that 55 per cent of millennial Canadians said the housing crisis affected their decision and timing to start a family.
“Some are choosing to have fewer or no children (27%), while others are temporarily postponing family planning (28%),” it said.
A survey from the Angus Reid Institute published last year found similar results, with 33 per cent of those aged 35 to 44 responding that their top reason for not having children or delaying their decision was due to Canada’s housing affordability crisis.
Global News published an article titled “Men have biological clocks too” in 2017 which featured studies from multiple medical schools that men’s feterility “takes a hit” by age 40 to 42.
CTV News also published an article titled “Younger Canadians are not having children” in 2023 which reviewed different reasons for this problem, which cited the “price of homes in Canada” as a prominent factor.