What replaces it will likely be shaped by the same mix of necessity, crisis, and innovation that pushed us off the gold standard... not a single plan, but a gradual shift toward something new.

It won't be simple, and no country has the full answer yet. Like every system before it, the current model will hold until the pressures it creates force change.

Fixing or moving away from a debt-based economy is an entirely different challenge.

Their approaches differ, but the goal is the same: to close the gap between supply and demand by building as much as possible.

Most politicians fully understand that Canada’s economy now depends on continued population growth. Every major party is promising aggressive action to increase housing supply.

Over time, the system protected homeowners and investors while pushing younger Canadians and newcomers further out of reach.

Zoning restrictions and development bottlenecks, often left unchallenged by all levels of government, made it harder to build dense, affordable housing where people needed it most.

Tax policies rewarded real estate investment, capital gains went largely untaxed on primary homes, and mortgage lending rules expanded access to credit, driving up demand without matching supply.

For decades, both Liberal and Conservative governments shaped policies that turned housing into a wealth-building tool rather than focusing on affordability. Funding for social and affordable housing was cut or offloaded to provinces.

It was the failure to build enough housing to support that population growth.

The failure was never immigration.

Without continued immigration, Canada would face a shrinking workforce, declining tax revenue, and growing pressure on healthcare, pensions, and other services. Over time, that would accelerate economic stagnation and increase the risk of collapsing the very programs people rely on.

By the early 2000s, immigration officially became Canada’s primary driver of population growth and a necessity to keep the workforce growing, fund social programs, and maintain economic stability.

As birth rates fell through the 1980s and 1990s, it became clear that natural population growth would no longer be enough to sustain the system.

Over time, this created an economic model that needs constant expansion to stay afloat.

Since then, debt has become central to economic growth, with governments, corporations, and individuals relying on it to fund rising living standards, public services, and expanding markets.

This change gave countries the freedom to borrow based on expected future growth rather than what they physically held.