SHOCKER: Federal bureaucrats won't meet housing targets

Housing starts nationwide need to reach 650,000 yearly in order to build 3.9 million new homes by 2031, reported Blacklock’s. Only 227,697 homes were built last year.

Alex Dhaliwal
  |   February 06, 2025   |   News   |   1 Comment

 

Builders and bureaucrats acknowledged that Trudeau’s plans for affordable housing were doomed to failure, citing low investor interest and outrageous immigration targets.

“We expect housing starts to slow down over the forecast period,” wrote Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) in its 2025 Housing Market Outlook. 

“With more young families looking for family-friendly homes, developers will find it harder to sell enough [condominium] units to fund new projects.”

Housing starts nationwide need to reach 650,000 yearly in order to build 3.9 million new homes by 2031, reported Blacklock’s. Only 227,697 homes were built last year.

Housing Minister Nathaniel Erskine-Smith has yet to comment on the figures, though he acknowledged there’s a “short runway” to build 3.87 million homes.

“How realistic is this?” asked Conservative MP Tracey Gray last May 27. “Not a chance,” Richard Lyall, president of the Residential Construction Council of Ontario, told the Commons human resources committee.

Though housing prices are stabilizing in Alberta and Québec, affordability remains an issue elsewhere, predominantly in B.C. and Ontario.

“We expect sales in these markets to remain below their 10-year averages,” said Market Outlook. “This is due to ongoing affordability challenges and the more notable impact of new immigration targets.”

In recent remarks to the media, Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre says, “Liberal immigration policies have caused massive housing … shortages.”

“And now he’s [Trudeau] basically denouncing his entire immigration policy and expecting us to believe that he can fix the problems that he caused.”

The most recent Immigration Levels Plan will cut back the number of permanent residents Canada accepts through 2027 to address those concerns, with targets set for 395,000 people in 2025, followed by subsequent 15,000 person cuts in 2026 and 2027.

That lessened Canada’s expected housing shortage by 45%, according to a Budget Office report, though uncertainty remains.

According to documents obtained by The Counter Signal, Trudeau received a secretive memo from the Secretary of the Cabinet, Janice Charette, who claimed recent immigration plans made housing less affordable. 

The Prime Minister ignored her advice, dated for June 24, 2022. He waited until last September to table more conservative immigration targets.

“This rampant incompetence has caused human misery, both for newcomers and for multigenerational Canadians,” Poilievre said.

A statement from the Office of Immigration Minister Marc Miller acknowledged the report’s findings but refused to blame newcomers.

Had the Trudeau government maintained prior immigration levels over the next two decades, rent and mortgages would have rendered most Canadians homeless in major cities.

Builders have repeatedly warned MPs the target was unachievable, with Lyall expecting construction to “slow down.” 

Municipal development charges were 31% in the Greater Toronto Area and 30% across British Columbia, home to the most expensive real estate in the country. 

Layll iterated “that when cranes are coming down they are not going back up,” citing a “sin tax” for new builds “doesn’t make sense.”

“It particularly hits the first-time buyer the most.”

Alex Dhaliwal

Journalist and Writer

Alex Dhaliwal is a Political Science graduate from the University of Calgary. He has actively written on relevant Canadian issues with several prominent interviews under his belt.

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  • Bernhard Jatzeck
    commented 2025-02-06 21:38:34 -0500
    Well, isn’t that surprising…..