Ottawa, ON – After eight years of Justin Trudeau, the cost of housing has doubled. Rent has increased by 107 percent and it now takes Canadians 25 years to save up for a downpayment.
Today, RBC confirmed that Canada’s housing crisis is only going to get worse under Justin Trudeau. They reported that Canada must build 320,000 homes every year just to ensure housing doesn’t get any more expensive. This is an increase of 50 percent from current housing completion rates, but under Trudeau, Canada continues to build fewer homes for Canadians to live in.
In 2023, Canada only had 240,000 housing unit starts, down from roughly 271,000 in 2021. On top of this, the CMHC has also forecasted that in 2025-2026, housing starts will still be lower than they were in 2020-2021. In the same report, the CMHC predicted that “rents will rise and vacancy rates will fall,” as more people compete for less housing.
As a consequence of Trudeau’s failure to build enough homes, the share of Canadians who can afford to buy a home has shrunk significantly, with RBC estimating that only 26 percent of all households can afford a single-detached home at today’s prices. That’s down from 49% two decades ago.
Meanwhile, the vacancy rate for rental apartments has plummeted to 1.5 percent. Thanks to this, Canadian renters paid $100 more on average a month last year. Nobody can afford this.
No wonder the CEO of the CMHC warned Canadians that the Trudeau Government had no plan to fix his housing crisis. Trudeau just isn’t worth the cost.
Common Sense Conservatives will build homes, not bureaucracies by linking federal infrastructure money to housing completions. Only Pierre Poilievre will bring affordable homes for Canadians.