The Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) have released their “Housing Supply Report,” providing a detailed analysis of housing supply and affordability across Canada. This report focuses on Canada’s 6 largest Census Metropolitan Areas, including Toronto & Ottawa. 

While we remain in the midst of a housing crisis, this report provides encouraging indicators of growth across our country.

Housing starts have struggled to keep up with population growth in some Census Metropolitan Areas (CMAs), especially Toronto. This can adversely affect centres such as Toronto and Vancouver, where affordability challenges are significant. 

• Apartments (includes units for rent or for ownership) dominate construction in large urban centres, such as Montréal, Toronto and Vancouver. In these CMAs, the various constraints (land, bylaws, etc.) may be more significant. In Calgary, Edmonton and Ottawa, meanwhile, starts of houses (includes single, semi-detached, and row) remain strong. 
• The proportion of rental housing starts increased in several CMAs under review, including Montréal and Vancouver. However, they remain low in Toronto. 
• Toronto prevails in the construction of high-rise apartment buildings with hundreds of units (includes units for rent or for ownership). For many other CMAs, a multitude of buildings with fewer units and floors dominate the urban landscape. 
• Residential construction expanded in Canada’s 6 largest CMAs in 2021 compared to 2020. Rising prices, declining inventories and strong housing demand sustained by low interest rates provided confidence to developers and homebuilders to move ahead with new projects.
• • Numerous challenges however still exist around the availability of labour, skilled trades, supplies and infrastructure needed to start projects and see them through to completion. 
• In absolute terms, Toronto, Canada’s largest metropolitan area, started the most housing units in 2021. It also recorded a 9 % increase in housing starts compared to 2020, fueled by more apartment and single-detached home construction. However, it didn’t start the most units relative to its population.
• The Ontario Housing Affordability Task Force report indicated that Ontario must build 1.5 million homes over the next 10 years to address the province’s supply shortage. This ambitious target needs to be met with innovative means of encouraging new supply — for both the ownership and rental tenures. 
• • OHBA encourages all orders of government to work collaboratively with industry to build the supply and variety of housing options that Ontarians are demanding. 

OHBA President Bob Schickedanz provided commentary to the Financial Post on this report: https://financialpost.com/news/economy/supply-is-the-biggest-issue-affecting-housing-affordability-in-canada-cmhc-finds

For additional questions please contact OHBA's Manager of Government Relations, Alex Piccini.