The federal government is moving away from measuring its housing strategy by the number of homes built, despite repeated promises to reach 500,000 housing starts annually to address Canada's affordability crisis.Blacklock's Reporter says Housing Minister Gregor Robertson's department confirmed the shift in a written response to Parliament, saying the government's Build Canada Homes initiative will focus on broader measures of housing supply and affordability rather than specific construction targets.“The success of Build Canada Homes will be closely tied to improvements in broader thematics related to increasing housing supply and affordability,” the department said in an Inquiry Of Ministry tabled in the House of Commons.Asked whether the government had established annual or multi-year housing construction targets, the department said its new performance framework would look beyond the number of homes built.“The framework is designed to move beyond measuring outputs such as housing counts,” the response stated.The change marks a departure from Ottawa's longstanding commitment to dramatically increase home construction to restore affordability.The 500,000-home annual benchmark dates back to a 2022 Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) report titled Canada's Housing Supply Shortages: Estimating What Is Needed To Solve Canada's Housing Affordability Crisis By 2030.Federal officials repeatedly pointed to the half-million figure as a goal, although it would require construction levels nearly twice Canada's previous annual record of 273,200 housing starts, established in 1976.The latest departmental response was provided following questions from Conservative MP Jacob Mantle (York-Durham, Ont.), who asked whether Build Canada Homes had established internal performance indicators to measure its success.“Looking ahead, Build Canada Homes is developing a comprehensive results and performance measurement framework to assess the effectiveness of its programs and demonstrate progress toward achieving its mandate,” the department replied.Robertson previously defended the 500,000-home target during testimony before the Commons finance committee in 2025.“That is the longer term goal that we had,” he told MPs..Conservative MP Jasraj Hallan (Calgary East) pressed Robertson to identify when Canada would actually reach that construction level.“When is the first year Canada will build 500,000 homes?” Hallan asked.“The language we have used is ‘over the next decade,’” Robertson replied.“I think it's reasonable. It is still very aggressive and ambitious to get to 500,000 over the next decade. That's what we need to scale up to.”However, legislation introduced by Robertson on February 6 did not include any numerical housing construction targets.Bill C-20, An Act Respecting The Establishment Of Build Canada Homes, would establish the federal housing initiative as a Crown corporation.“We are in a housing crisis,” Robertson told reporters when introducing the legislation.A reporter questioned why the bill contained no specific target for the number of homes the new corporation would construct.“Why is there no target in terms of the amount of units that you want Build Canada Homes to build?” the reporter asked.“Build Canada Homes as a Crown corporation will clearly be accountable to Canadians and government,” Robertson replied.The department's latest response does not identify a replacement annual housing construction target or specify when the government expects Canada to reach the previously promised 500,000 housing starts.Instead, Ottawa says it is developing a broader framework to evaluate whether its housing programs are improving supply and affordability.
