Canada can’t build enough houses to reach affordability target: CMHC

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Canada does not have the labour capacity to build the 3.5 million new homes that would be needed to achieve housing affordability by 2030 and Ontario is likely see more new households formed than houses built in that time, according to a sobering new report from the national housing agency.

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The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation had set the 3.5 million target figure in a report in June, but follow-up research unveiled Thursday found that there will only be enough labour to increase the number of starts in four major provinces — Ontario, Québec, B.C. and Alberta — by 30 to 50 per cent.

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While Alberta could meet its needs under such a scenario, the other large provinces would fall well short.

“Ontario, Québec and B.C. will have to double the number of starts that they can produce under best-case scenarios,” the report found.

If current rates of new construction continue, CMHC said the country’s housing stock is expected to increase by just 2.3 million units by 2030, reaching close to 19 million units in total.

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CMHC based its measure of capacity on how much the labour force could produce at current wage and skill levels. The agency then used the share of residential construction workers in the population and the minimum number of workers required for a housing unit under construction to come up with an estimate of labour capacity.

Ontario, the only province where projections show more new households than housing starts through to 2030, has the biggest skill shortage.

“These findings agree with what we have been seeing in the market in southwestern Ontario,” CMHC said in the report.

While other provinces might benefit from expanding the labour pool, in Ontario “the gaps are too large,” the report found.

The report concluded that building “up” in the form of apartments and converting existing structures into residential units were possible avenues to close the gap, as were programs to bring in more immigrants with construction-related skills and better pay for such workers.

• Email: shcampbell@postmedia.com