Canada's housing starts stuck at 1970s levels, while population growth has tripled, study finds
OTTAWA — A new study shows that, not only has the pace of homebuilding failed to keep up with Canada’s record post-COVID population growth, its been stuck at early 1970s levels.
The study, released on Tuesday by the Fraser Institute , shows that annual housing starts from 2022 to 2024 almost perfectly mirrored starts from 1972 to 1974, despite the country’s population growing more than three times faster.
Study co-author Steve Globerman says that, while housing is a hot topic of conversation nationally, local factors are a big part of why the supply of housing hasn’t kept pace with population growth.
“We know from other studies… that the rezoning and the various other kinds of regulatory constraints on on construction are a major drag on homebuilding,” Globerman told the National Post.
A total of 747,483 new home builds were started from 2022 to 2024, while the population grew by an estimated 3,018,427.
By comparison, there were 740,566 housing starts from 1972 to 1974, when population grew by 868,147.
The authors collected annual data from 1972 to 2024, calculating an average of 1.9 new residents for every unit started over the study period. This ratio exceeded three-to-one for the first time in 2022 and peaked at 5.1 in 2023, edging downward to 3.9 in 2024.
Canada’s population also grew by a record 1.2 million in 2023 .
Housing starts declined as population grew, dropping from 271,198 in 2021 to 261,849 in 2022 and 240,267 in 2023.
2021 was the second-busiest year for housing starts behind 1976, when they hit a peak of 273,203.
The study’s authors noted that these national trends in homebuilding were generally mirrored across all 10 provinces. They added that Canada’s housing affordability crisis will likely continue without accelerated homebuilding, slower population growth, or both.
The study comes in the thick of a federal election campaign where housing has been a key issue.
Conservative Deputy Leader Melissa Lantsman said that the numbers were a direct reflection of failed Liberal policies.
“The architects of the lost Liberal decade took a housing crisis and made it worse,” Lantsman said in an email to the National Post.
Lantsman said that the anemic housing start numbers “ speak for themselves,” noting that the slim pickings have led many Canadians to give up on their dream of home ownership.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has promised to roll out a homebuyers’ tax cut that he says will stimulate new home construction by 36,000 units per year , if he becomes prime minister.
He’s also said he’ll pay city halls to lower development fees for home builders .
The Liberal campaign didn’t comment directly on the study but referred the National Post to leader Mark Carney’s plan to double the pace of homebuilding to nearly 500,000 new units per year.
Both leaders have also said they’ll lower the intake of immigrants to lower the strain on housing, health care and other resources.
Canada’s post-COVID population boom has been driven almost entirely by immigration, according to government statistics .
National Post
rmohamed@postmedia.com
Get more deep-dive National Post political coverage and analysis in your inbox with the Political Hack newsletter, where Ottawa bureau chief Stuart Thomson and political analyst Tasha Kheiriddin get at what’s really going on behind the scenes on Parliament Hill every Wednesday and Friday, exclusively for subscribers. Sign up here.
Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our daily newsletter, Posted, here.