This article originally appeared in the Financial Post. Below is an excerpt from the article.
By Jack Mintz, August 15, 2025
Polls in the U.S. and Canada show that the cost of living remains the top concern for voters. Pew Research Center reports inflation and the affordability of health care are rated as “big problems” by almost two-thirds of Americans surveyed, while three-fifths of Canadians list the cost of living as the top issue in an Abacus July poll.
The affordability agenda opens the door wide for far-left politicians to win elections. Zohran Mamdani, leading contender for New York City mayor and backed by 107 left-wing politicians and organizations, makes this crystal clear on his website: “The cost of living is crushing working people but Zohran believes that government can lower costs and make life easier in our city.”
Like any good socialists, Mamdani’s affordability agenda delivers a host of freebies to the broad public, paid for by taxing the rich and corporations. Sounds familiar, no?
He will freeze rents in stabilized apartments and spend $100 billion on 200,000 new social housing units over the next 10 years, 70 per cent financed by municipal debt. (All dollar amounts are in $US.) Another $800 million will enable New Yorkers to ride buses for free in new priority lanes. A new Department of Community Safety (cost $1.1 billion) will address subway and street safety, mental health, gun violence and hate. It will deploy outreach workers at 100 subway stations to greet people.
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Jack Mintz is the President’s Fellow at the University of Calgary’s school of public policy and a distinguished fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.
