By Tom Parkin
April 17th, 2025
BURLINGTON, ON
There is no help on the way for the many Ontarians being financially crushed by high rent, high house purchase prices and the economic drag they exert.
On Tuesday, the Canada Housing and Mortgage Corporation reported Ontario workers started a record low 2,962 housing units last month.
The PCs’ own Housing Affordability Task Force found the province needs to spur 12,500 units starts every month for 10 years to bring price balance to the housing market.
CMHC data: Ontario housing starts
Last month’s starts were just 24 per cent of that target. Since the Ford government accepted the task force targets in February 2022 it has not hit its target in any month.
Workers in Alberta, with a population of five million, last month started construction on about 1,000 more units than in Ontario, where the population is 16 million. In Quebec, with nine million residents, 400 more units were started last month than in Ontario.
Ongoing affordability crisis brings economic malaise.
Alberta and Quebec show what can be done; Ontario has yet to figure that out.
Ontario’s ongoing housing affordability crisis comes with a drought in retail sales and consumer spending. Typically, consumers contribute about two thirds of the revenues fuelling GDP, but with high rent and mortgage costs, less money is left over for other purchases.
And when consumers aren’t buying, businesses aren’t hiring. Statistics Canada’s Labour Force Survey for March, released April 4, found Ontario now has the highest unemployment rate, 7.5 per cent, outside of Newfoundland and Labrador.
Doug Ford’s PC government has shown month after month it is not serious about addressing Ontario’s housing crisis, a disregard causing enormous drag on the province’s economy affecting everyone, not just renters and those searching to buy homes.
The refusal has a particularly hard impact on construction and trades workers, though for now several key construction unions have not wavered in their loyalty to the PC party government, which has paid them tens of millions in grants.
There is no fix to Ontario’s economic problems without a fix to the housing market, a step Premier Ford appears to be too beholden or narrow-minded to take.
Mean while back at the ranch we are in the midst of a federal election and housing is one of the key election issues.
As the federal Liberals spend and have spent billions on housing, the results are abysmal right across the country. While Carney proposes to build small modular with a new government agency that will be rented to Canadians. As they say, you will own nothing and be happy. And oh, by the way Brookfield owns a company that manufactures modular homes – you can not make this stuff up.
All at the same time the author of the op ed points ONLY at the provincial government.
I’m afraid that renting is the way forward from here. Private equity firms, in addition to purchasing residential properties in the US, have shifted their focus to even acquiring trailer parks. These firms have a frustrating tendency to buy properties, evict the tenants, renovate the buildings, re-rent them, and then sell for a profit before moving on to the next investment. Imagine the impact they could have if they owned an entire country.