The federal government has acknowledged its goal of building 500,000 homes annually is unlikely to be achieved this decade, with internal documents pointing to immigration-driven population growth and declining construction activity as major obstacles.Blacklock's Reporter says a June 17 briefing note prepared for Housing Minister Gregor Robertson warns that housing construction is expected to fall over the next several years, leaving Canada well short of the levels the Liberals previously said were necessary to restore affordability.“The government is paying close attention to housing starts across the country,” the department wrote in response to a question about whether Ottawa was concerned about construction levels.The briefing cited Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) forecasts showing housing starts declining from 247,000 in 2026 to 223,000 in 2027 and 216,000 in 2028.Those projections would leave annual construction at less than half the government's previous target of 500,000 new homes.The department acknowledged the country faces a substantial housing shortage, with demand continuing to outpace construction.“Various published estimates of the supply gap based on different methodologies indicate that millions of new homes need to be built over the next decade to meet the demand for housing,” the briefing said.It warned that developers are struggling with high construction costs, weaker demand and growing inventories of unsold homes.The department also pointed to a widening gap between household formation and housing completions.“In 2024 there were approximately 482,000 new households formed while only 276,999 housing units were completed,” the document stated.That represents a difference of more than 205,000 households compared with the number of completed housing units in a single year.The briefing identified immigration as one of the factors contributing to Canada's housing shortage.“Canada is facing a housing supply gap with the growth in demand for housing exceeding new construction,” the department wrote.“This has resulted in housing prices and rents growing faster than Canadians’ income. One of the drivers of the housing shortage has been the strong growth in housing demand driven by immigration.”The department acknowledged that rapid population growth following the COVID-19 pandemic placed additional pressure on an already strained housing market.“Canada experienced unprecedented population growth in the years following the Covid-19 pandemic which increased the demand for housing,” the briefing said.Asked what Ottawa was doing to address immigration's impact on housing affordability, officials pointed to plans to reduce immigration growth.“The government is committed to making housing more affordable, returning overall immigration rates to sustainable levels and attracting the best talent in the world to help build our economy,” the document stated..Cabinet is expected to release an updated Immigration Levels Plan by November 5.The briefing note's release follows a separate admission from the housing department that the government is moving away from using housing construction totals as a primary measure of success.In a September 21 response to Parliament, officials indicated the federal housing strategy would no longer focus exclusively on the number of homes built.“The framework is designed to move beyond measuring outputs such as housing counts,” the department wrote in an Inquiry Of Ministry tabled in the House of Commons.The response came after Conservative MP Jacob Mantle (York-Durham, Ont.) asked whether the government had established internal performance indicators to measure the success of its Build Canada Homes program.“Has the government established key internal performance indicators to assess the success of Build Canada Homes and, if so, what are they?” Mantle asked.The department's response did not reaffirm the previous 500,000 annual housing starts target.The latest projections suggest Canada will continue falling substantially short of the construction levels Ottawa previously identified as necessary to improve housing affordability, even as the government moves to reduce immigration growth and change how it measures progress on housing.
