February 17, 2026 – Current regulatory, financial, and structural barriers are constraining new housing supply, raising costs for both buyers and renters, and increasing long-term economic risks, according to a new report from the C.D. Howe Institute The Institute’s Housing Policy Working Group finds that Canada’s housing affordability crisis is being worsened by the way […]
The C.D. Howe Institute launched the Housing Policy Working Group in the fall of 2025 to examine the regulatory, financial, and structural barriers limiting Canada’s housing supply and to build momentum in support of actionable policy solutions. The Working Group includes a cross-sectional, nationwide membership drawn from the land development, finance, construction, real estate, and […]
Published in The Hill Times. Build Canada Homes promises to help transform Canada’s housing industry by supporting innovative building methods, such as factory-built housing. This is encouraging, but it requires a deeper understanding of the problem it seeks to solve. First, it is important to recognize that factory-built housing is a tool, not a cure-all for […]
Published in The Hill Times. As Canada races to fix its housing affordability crisis, one issue is consistently treated as an afterthought: how to close the housing supply gap without creating higher residential greenhouse gas emissions for decades to come. With the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) and the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) estimating […]
In Ontario, while Toronto accounted for a large share of housing starts in 2024, so too did mid-sized cities, including London and Kingston. As previous C.D. Howe Institute research has shown, making these kinds of cities more attractive places to work and live will have a dual benefit of also helping to contribute to alleviating housing affordability issues in […]
House price growth surged after the Bank of Canada cut the overnight rate to its effective lower bound in March 2020. As the Bank raised the overnight rate to 5 percent, house price growth fell, eventually leading to declines in house prices themselves. Despite a steady reduction of the overnight rate to 2.5 percent over […]
Canada and the United States are each other’s largest trade partners in prefabricated buildings and components. In recent years, the trade balance has shifted, with Canada now exporting more prefabricated buildings and components to the United States than it imports. This shift signals Canada’s growing competitiveness in prefabricated construction and its potential role in strengthening […]
Housing availability and affordability pose a notable barrier to recruitment in Canada, with about one in five businesses reporting “large or moderate” difficulties in the past year. The challenge varies across regions: businesses in the territories are most affected, while high-cost provinces like BC and Ontario also struggle. These constraints discourage workers from relocating, resulting in […]
Five years ago, many Canadians locked in mortgages when the Bank of Canada’s overnight rate was just 0.25 percent. Despite recent rate cuts, today’s five-year fixed mortgage rates remain about 25 percent higher than in 2020. As over a million mortgages come up for renewal in 2025–26, many households will face higher payments – raising concerns […]
From: Tasnim FarihaTo: Housing watchersDate: July 30, 2025Re: We’re Still Losing the Affordable Housing War Canada’s housing supply gap is widening, not narrowing. The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), which first sounded the alarm in 2022, has now quietly moved away from its 2030 target for restoring housing affordability. The agency has shifted to […]
July 29, 2025 – Canada is not building homes quickly enough to meet rising needs, and red tape combined with low productivity is intensifying pressure on the sector. A new report from the C.D. Howe Institute explores how innovative construction technologies could help accelerate delivery and improve efficiency – if supported by the right policy conditions. In “Building Smarter, Faster: Technology […]
Many countries are leveraging prefabrication technologies – such as modular construction, mass timber, panelized systems, and on-site 3D printing – to accelerate homebuilding, increase productivity in the face of tight labour markets, and improve sustainability.
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The C.D. Howe Institute launched the Housing Policy Working Group in the fall of 2025 to examine the regulatory, financial, and structural barriers limiting Canada’s housing supply and to build momentum in support of actionable policy solutions. The Working Group includes a cross-sectional, nationwide membership drawn from the land development, finance, construction, real estate, and […] 
Published in The Hill Times. Build Canada Homes promises to help transform Canada’s housing industry by supporting innovative building methods, such as factory-built housing. This is encouraging, but it requires a deeper understanding of the problem it seeks to solve. First, it is important to recognize that factory-built housing is a tool, not a cure-all for […] 
Published in The Hill Times. As Canada races to fix its housing affordability crisis, one issue is consistently treated as an afterthought: how to close the housing supply gap without creating higher residential greenhouse gas emissions for decades to come. With the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) and the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) estimating […] 
In Ontario, while Toronto accounted for a large share of housing starts in 2024, so too did mid-sized cities, including London and Kingston. As previous C.D. Howe Institute research has shown, making these kinds of cities more attractive places to work and live will have a dual benefit of also helping to contribute to alleviating housing affordability issues in […] 
House price growth surged after the Bank of Canada cut the overnight rate to its effective lower bound in March 2020. As the Bank raised the overnight rate to 5 percent, house price growth fell, eventually leading to declines in house prices themselves. Despite a steady reduction of the overnight rate to 2.5 percent over […] 
Canada and the United States are each other’s largest trade partners in prefabricated buildings and components. In recent years, the trade balance has shifted, with Canada now exporting more prefabricated buildings and components to the United States than it imports. This shift signals Canada’s growing competitiveness in prefabricated construction and its potential role in strengthening […] 
Housing availability and affordability pose a notable barrier to recruitment in Canada, with about one in five businesses reporting “large or moderate” difficulties in the past year. The challenge varies across regions: businesses in the territories are most affected, while high-cost provinces like BC and Ontario also struggle. These constraints discourage workers from relocating, resulting in […] 
Five years ago, many Canadians locked in mortgages when the Bank of Canada’s overnight rate was just 0.25 percent. Despite recent rate cuts, today’s five-year fixed mortgage rates remain about 25 percent higher than in 2020. As over a million mortgages come up for renewal in 2025–26, many households will face higher payments – raising concerns […] 
From: Tasnim FarihaTo: Housing watchersDate: July 30, 2025Re: We’re Still Losing the Affordable Housing War Canada’s housing supply gap is widening, not narrowing. The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), which first sounded the alarm in 2022, has now quietly moved away from its 2030 target for restoring housing affordability. The agency has shifted to […] 
July 29, 2025 – Canada is not building homes quickly enough to meet rising needs, and red tape combined with low productivity is intensifying pressure on the sector. A new report from the C.D. Howe Institute explores how innovative construction technologies could help accelerate delivery and improve efficiency – if supported by the right policy conditions. In “Building Smarter, Faster: Technology […]