I didn't address your point about housing. You're right that low interest rates have exacerbated the problem, but the bigger upstream causes are more that:
- It's political suicide to run on a platform of reducing housing prices. People who vote are, disproportionately, homeowners who don't want numbers to go down.
- The missing middle. We're building the wrong kind of housing, and zoning bylaws are preventing unit densification where people want to live.
- The lack of non-market-rate housing options. Affordable housing options have a disproportionate effect on housing costs. Canada hasn't invested in, basically, any affordable housing since the 70s, and we have some of the lowest non-market-housing rates in the developed world.
- Housing being held as investments first, and housing second.
To be affordable, housing needs to drop 50%. Interest rates being low contribute, on the margin, but don't account for that big of a difference. You'll notice that housing prices barely dropped at all, and even continued to rise in some areas, when rates skyrocketed 4 years ago.