On the contrary, historically home ownership was much lower than it is now. In Toronto home ownership peaked about 15 years ago, a shade under 70% (
source). In the late 19th century the rate was less than 30% (
source, see Table 1 on page 11; PDF). For the first 300ish years of European settlement of what we now call Canada, home ownership was overwhelmingly concentrated in the hands of wealthy landlords.