Bruce Firestone once called me a magician.
It happened during a conversation we were having about real estate development, entrepreneurship and some of the difficult projects we have both encountered over the years.
Bruce said I reminded him of someone constantly pulling rabbits out of a hat.
I appreciated that.
But I also disagreed with him about one thing.
It isn’t magic.
It’s persistence.
That difference is important because if solving difficult real estate problems required magic, we would be in serious trouble.
Persistence, on the other hand, is something we can actually use.
And when you look at Canada’s housing crisis, I think we are going to need plenty of it.
Real estate rarely follows the script
Development looks wonderfully organised when presented in a spreadsheet.
Acquire the land.
Get the approvals.
Arrange the financing.
Build the project.
Welcome the tenants or owners.
Done.
Real life is considerably messier.
Bruce knows that better than most.
He was involved in bringing the Ottawa Senators into the NHL and developing the arena originally called the Palladium, now the Canadian Tire Centre.
The approval process for that project took roughly five and a half years.
The building itself took about 28 months.
Imagine working on something for years before you can properly start building it.
You learn persistence.
When the obvious options don’t work
During our conversation, I mentioned an old Star Trek story.
Captain Kirk is presented with a test designed so that every available option leads to failure.
He succeeds because he refuses to accept those options.
In simple terms, he creates another one.
That is entrepreneurship.
Sometimes the choices you are given are not the choices you need.
You have to find another route.
Bruce agreed and talked about the creativity entrepreneurs often show when they are backed into a corner.
That is not unique to real estate, but real estate certainly gives you plenty of opportunities to practise.
The housing crisis needs creative thinking
Canada’s housing crisis is a perfect example of a problem where repeating the same approaches and expecting dramatically different results is unlikely to get us very far.
We need housing.
We also have zoning requirements, approval processes, development costs and practical limitations on land.
So the useful question becomes: what else can we do?
One idea Bruce discussed is remarkably straightforward.
Use the space we already build more effectively.
What about the basement?
Bruce calls his broader approach “real estate animation”.
The idea is to find ways to add useful revenue streams and additional functions to real estate.
Consider a new two-storey home with a basement.
In much of Canada, basements are already a normal part of residential construction.
What if that basement were designed from the beginning so it could also function as an apartment?
Give it appropriate access and suddenly you may have room for a two- or three-bedroom suite.
That changes what one property can do.
Grandma and Grandpa might live downstairs.
An adult child could return home while still having an independent living space.
A family could rent the suite and use that income towards the mortgage.
And the community gets another housing unit without requiring an entirely separate property.
Is that going to solve the housing crisis by itself?
Of course not.
But that is not the point.
The housing crisis will probably be improved through many practical ideas working together.
Density doesn’t have to mean losing community
The same thinking applies to mixed-use development and smarter density.
We should be asking how communities can accommodate more people while still being good places to live.
That requires creativity rather than automatically assuming that housing choices are limited to detached houses at one extreme and massive towers at the other.
There is plenty of room between those options.
Good development can combine uses.
Existing properties can sometimes accommodate additional housing.
New homes can be designed with flexibility in mind.
The goal is not density for the sake of density.
The goal is making better use of the places we are already building.
Persistence matters inside the system too
Creativity helps, but you still need persistence.
A clever development idea is not much use if you give up the first time you hit an obstacle.
Bruce described real estate development as requiring moxie.
I would put it this way: you need to believe there is another way.
That doesn’t mean ignoring rules.
It doesn’t mean fighting simply for the pleasure of fighting.
It means staying engaged.
If one route does not work, understand why.
Then look for another.
Michael Ruge on why optimism matters
I am optimistic about the housing crisis precisely because I have spent so much time dealing with difficult real estate projects.
That might sound backwards.
It isn’t.
Once you have watched enough seemingly impossible problems get solved, you stop assuming the first obstacle is the final answer.
Canada has smart developers.
We have entrepreneurs.
We have builders.
We have people inside government who understand that housing needs to move.
And we have practical ideas for creating more homes from the land and buildings around us.
What we need is the persistence to keep bringing those pieces together.
Bruce may call it magic.
I’ll stick with persistence.
Because the good news about persistence is that you don’t have to be a magician to use it.
Michael Ruge’s new book “Building Hope in the Housing – How to Solve the Rental Affordability Crisis” will be realeased this fall (2026).
Links to Michael Ruge, Affordable Apartments and his Initiatives:
The Housing Crisis We Built – And How We Can Fix It Together
The Car is the Culprit – Michael Ruge on Walkable Wealth
Michael Ruge: The Visionary Entrepreneur Transforming the Cowichan Valley
Michael Ruge – Multi-Family Real Estate Development Manager
