The construction industry has historically operated on very thin margins, and the pervasive inflation being experienced across virtually every industry has led to many construction companies facing even tighter margins, or even losses.

In the fall of 2022, the Ontario provincial government passed the More Homes Built Faster Act (Bill 23), which aims to meet the province’s ambitious goal of 1.5 million new homes over 10 years.

As part of the NHS research initiatives, CMHC has published a series of short-term findings in the early years of the Strategy’s implementation.

The NHS is the Government of Canada’s solution to their commitment to reduce the housing needs of 530,000 households across the country by 2028.

The NHS includes several funding programs for constructing new housing supply, funding for repairing and renewing existing affordable housing, resources for community housing providers, and funding for research and innovation.

The National Housing Strategy (NHS) was enacted in 2017, and its implementation is overseen by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC).

The Ontario government recently convened the Ontario Housing Affordability Task Force, meant to address the growing issue of housing needs across the province. Despite the slow decline in housing starts over the past several decades, and the exacerbating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, 2021 saw a sharp increase in housing starts, which sets an optimistic start to the push to increase Ontario’s housing supply. The Task Force recently published a report outlining 55 recommendations to spur on this progress, with the primary goal being to build 1.5 million new housing units over the next 10 years to close Ontario’s housing gap.

The 2022 Federal Budget was recently released, and affordable housing is a clear primary focus. Since 2015, substantial housing investments have been made through the National Housing Strategy, and the federal government plans to invest more than $72 billion into the Strategy by 2028 ($24.2 billion has been invested to date).

Affordable housing, both for prospective homeowners and renters, is in very short supply across the province. The rise in house prices has been outpacing income increases across Canada in leaps and bounds, with most young Canadians viewing homeownership as a pipedream at this point. The median household income before taxes in Ontario (as of the 2016 census) was $74,260. In the same year, the average Ontario house price was nearly $550,000. The disparity between household income and house prices has only deepened since then, with the average Ontario house price currently at roughly $750,000. The COVID-19 pandemic has further exacerbated the demand for housing across the province, and there is little indication that the market will cool in the short term.

On March 30, 2022, the Ontario Government tabled new legislation called the More Homes for Everyone Act, 2022, and published a technical briefing outlining the province’s plans to manage rising housing costs and to increase housing stock across the province.