Will the Liberals' campaign promises help fix the housing crisis?
CBC
Mark Carney led the Liberals to a fourth term of government thanks to factors like U.S. President Donald Trump's trade war and annexation threats, as well as a campaign built on a few key promises such as a plan to solve Canada's housing crisis.
The plan that the Liberal Party described as "most ambitious housing plan since the Second World War" promises to "get the federal government back into the business of home building" by creating a new Crown corporation.
It covers financing, development charges and tax policies. It doesn't mention that Canada recognizes housing as a human right through a law passed in 2019.
Overseeing the Liberals' efforts on the housing file will be Gregor Robertson, the former Vancouver mayor who was named housing minister as Carney's new cabinet was unveiled on Tuesday.
CBC News spoke with a construction industry leader, an economist, a human rights advocate and an urban planner about the plan.
While there's support for new approaches and agreement that action is urgently needed to provide more housing, there are also concerns about the Liberal strategy.
First, some context.
A report from the the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness, a research and policy organization at York University in Toronto, estimated the number of unhoused people in Canada is 235,000 per year.
However, another report suggests the reality could be three times higher, and Statistics Canada says 11 per cent of Canadians (1,690,000 people) say they've experienced some form of homelessness in their lifetime.
According to Statistics Canada, 8.56 million Canadians — slightly more than one in five people — live in unaffordable housing, which is defined as spending 30 per cent or more of before-tax income on shelter.
Statistics Canada data shows renters are most likely to have unaffordable housing, although a fall 2024 Abacus Data survey reported that 57 per cent of Canadians "fear losing their home, whether owned or rented, if their financial situation were to change". For younger Canadians, that fear went up to 71 per cent.
The Liberals say they'll build nearly 500,000 new homes a year, double the current pace of construction, in part by creating a new Crown corporation called Build Canada Homes, "to build affordable housing at scale, including on public lands."
The idea is inspired by a Second World War program that built homes for veterans and other citizens in the 1940s and produced more 40,000 low-cost homes over a few years.
Dave Wilkes, CEO of the Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD) in Toronto, says while the intent is good, creating new bureaucracy is a bad idea.
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