By Gazette StaffThe frustration in Peter Turkstra’s post reflects what many of us are seeing firsthand.
When a multi-generational lumber supplier serving builders across Ontario says we’re in trouble, we should listen.
The math on housing simply is not working.
Today, government taxes and fees, including development charges, can add $150K to $200K or more to a new home.
That is often 25 to 30 percent of the total cost.
When a quarter of the price of housing comes from government-mandated costs, projects stall.
Trades lose work and jobs are lost.
If we want attainable home ownership and stable housing supply, we need:
– Immediate per-unit cost relief
– Alignment across all three levels of government
– A rethink of how infrastructure is funded without pricing out new housing
Our industry urgently needs structural change.
The math is broken. Until we fix it, supply will not return.
It clear that our three levels of government are still “asleep”.I am “done” trying to be nice and be “Canadian Polite”. Either those elected will support us (the industry, trades and the end customers/customers/taxpayers), or they should be “booted”.So far, all three levels have been an abject disappointment.If you watch the video (boring, I know), you will understand that you cannot add 150K to 200K, or more, to the cost of a dwelling (before fees and constantly changing rules and requests for never-ending studies) without consequences.
We called it – and we are now living it.
Almost a year ago (March 2025), we published two videos discussing the collapse of the Construction Industry – caused directly by the non-indexed HST (Provincial and Federal) and the “off the charts” increases in Municipal Development Charges.
We take no pleasure in calling the collapse, but of course, it was already happening. It started two years ago …
Now, trades are out of work, housing starts (of all types) are at a standstill, and, of course, government tax/tariff/revenue collections have collapsed.
The amount of damage to our industry will take a decade to unravel.
The amount of “pain” caused to our trades and builders cannot be measured.
And meanwhile, the cost of our three levels of government has continued to increase – trust me, their personal pay has not gone down – while they watch and hear of those out of work.
And, to be clear, this is not a result of the U.S. tariffs, or whatever “bull” they throw your way – the situation was Ontario/Canada made with an extra trophy for the Municipalities …
What we didn’t expect was the lack of understanding from our elected officials. It didn’t seem to matter if it was Mayors or Councillors, MPs or MPPs, it has been a struggle to get them educated on the history of the “new sources of government revenue” … many politicians avoided us completely, others called but were “less than informed” – to be honest, it was an eye opener.
We are now in a complete meltdown of the Construction Industry – a DIRECT result of adding from 150K or more to the cost of any dwelling – awful.
And, in case you don’t think it impacts you, now that they have CAUSED the crash, many politicians will likely blame others as an excuse to raise your property taxes …
There are solutions – but they will take the three levels to reverse the very policies that caused this collapse.
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