Honestly, what better place to start a housing-affordability discussion than with the two-part headline in the June 24 Globe and Mail real estate section: “CMHC gives up on goal to reduce prices to 2004 levels” and “Home of the Week.”

The Home of the Week is a cozy, five-bedroom job at 25 North Dr. in Toronto, which, friends tell me, is a large Canadian city east of Oak Bay. Don’t you just love the setting and the mood? Anyway, the place is yours for $14,995,000.

CMHC’s failed housing affordability goals and 25 North Dr. — flawless juxtaposition, yes?

If you connected all the Victoria housing affordability handwringing — from authorities, the media, the public, community interests and various advocacies — the bracelet of concern could ring the equator at least nine times. It wouldn’t produce another unit of affordable housing, but never mind that.

Producing affordable housing locally often seems on a par with achieving world peace. Why is it so hard here?

Yes, we’ll talk numbers in a moment, but let’s start with this: If the community really wanted affordable housing, lots of it, as one of its highest priorities, there would be lots of affordable housing.

There’s no question that the numbers are a challenge to affordability, but their impacts can be blunted, and........

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