the plan pledges to build 3.87 million new homes over the next seven years. or, about 552,857 per year.
if 183,000 of those homes are needed each year just to meet immigration growth, that leaves 370,000 per year to build down the housing shortage.
over seven years, that’s just enough to meet the 2 million threshold.
the only problem is that the housing plan is probably impossible.
it requires canadian homebuilding rates to more than double overnight, and then sustain that rate for the rest of the decade.
“achieving 550,000 new homes each year is an extremely daunting task,” was the muted assessment of td economists. when the head of the residential construction council of ontario was asked about the plan at a house of commons committee last month, he responded with laughter. “not a chance,” he said, when asked if homebuilders could expect to meet the federal projections.
cmhc’s own projections are already predicting that canada won’t come close to meeting the trudeau government pledge, and that housing starts are actually set to go down for the foreseeable future.
in their latest housing market outlook, the cmhc’s most optimistic projection was that just 241,659 homes would be built in 2026.