I'm saying your claim that "people increasingly can't afford to live in the cities" is an easily refutable, broad stroke statement that fails to acknowledge regional nuances. The same would be true of any single, monolithic measure that attempts to quantify such a claim.

Moreover, if you take the time to drill into the actual numbers, you'll find housing affordability is about average relative to historical figures (in terms of percentage income spent on housing) in most urban areas, with the exception of a few major centers (Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto) that are pulling up the national average:

http://www.rbc.com/economics/economic-reports/pdf/canadian-h...