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2025 Federal Election

Housing starts unchanged since 1970s, while Canadian population growth has more than tripled

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From the Fraser Institute

By: Austin Thompson and Steven Globerman

The annual number of new homes being built in Canada in recent years is virtually the same as it was in the 1970s, despite annual population growth
now being three times higher, finds a new study published today by the Fraser Institute, an independent, non-partisan Canadian public policy think tank.

“Despite unprecedented levels of immigration-driven population growth following the COVID-19 pandemic, Canada has failed to ramp up homebuilding sufficiently to meet housing demand,” said Steven Globerman, Fraser Institute senior fellow and co-author of The Crisis in Housing Affordability: Population Growth and Housing Starts 1972–2024.

Between 2021 and 2024, Canada’s population grew by an average of 859,473 people per year, while only 254,670 new housing units were started annually. From 1972 to 1979, a similar number of new housing units were built—239,458—despite the population only growing by 279,975 people a year.

As a result, more new residents are competing for each new home than in the past, which is driving up housing costs.

“The evidence is clear—population growth has been outpacing housing construction for decades, with predictable results,” Globerman said.

“Unless there is a substantial acceleration in homebuilding, a slowdown in population growth, or both, Canada’s housing affordability crisis is unlikely to improve.”

The Crisis in Housing Affordability: Population Growth and Housing Starts 1972–2024

  • Canada experienced unprecedented population growth following the COVID-19 pandemic without a commensurately large increase in new homebuilding.
  • The imbalance between population growth and new housing construction is reflected in a significant gap between housing demand and supply, which is driving up housing costs.
  • Canada’s population grew by a record 1.23 million new residents in 2023 almost entirely due to immigration. That growth was more than double the pre-pandemic record set in 2019.
  • Population growth slowed to 951,517 in 2024, still well above any year before 2023.
  • Nationally, construction began on about 245,367 new housing units in 2024, down from a recent high of 271,198 starts in 2021—Canada’s annual number of housing starts peaked at 273,203 in 1976.
  • Canada’s annual number of housing starts regularly exceeded 200,000 in past decades, when absolute population growth was much lower.
  • In 2023, Canada added 5.1 new residents for every housing unit started, which was the highest ratio over the study’s timeframe and well above the average rate of 1.9 residents for every unit started observed over the study period (1972–2024).
  • This ratio improved modestly in 2024, with 3.9 new residents added per housing start. However, the ratio remains far higher than at any point prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.
  • These national trends are broadly mirrored across all 10 provinces, where annual population growth relative to housing starts is, to varying degrees, elevated when compared to long-run averages.
  • Without an acceleration in homebuilding, a slowdown in population growth, or both, Canada’s housing affordability crisis will likely persist.

Austin Thompson

Senior Policy Analyst, Fraser Institute

Steven Globerman

Senior Fellow and Addington Chair in Measurement, Fraser Institute

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2025 Federal Election

Poilievre’s Conservatives promise to repeal policy allowing male criminals in female jails

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From LifeSiteNews

By Clare Marie Merkowsky

The Conservative Party is pledging to ban male criminals who identify as female from being housed in women’s prisons, reversing the current Trudeau-era policy.

The Conservative Party platform is promising to repeal a Trudeau-era policy that allows gender-confused men to be housed in women’s prisons.

According to Pierre Poilievre’s Conservative Party platform released on April 18, male criminals who claim to be gender-confused and identify as female will not be sent to female prisons.

Under Poilievre’s pledge to restore public safety, his platform promises to “defend women’s safety by repealing Commissioner’s Directive 100, which allows male offenders to be housed in women’s prisons and ensure that women’s spaces and services remain protected in federal institutions and policy.”

Currently under the Liberal Party, the policy is to place prisoners according to their “self-identified” gender, not according to biology. As a result, male rapists and murderers can be sent to female prisons.

However, in December, the case of a brutal murderer caused an uproar on social media as many pointed out that putting the man in a women’s prison would pose a danger to female inmates.

At the time, Mohamad Al Ballouz, who brutally murdered his wife and two children, requested that he be sent to a female prison as he began identifying as a woman after committing the murder.

Crown prosecutor Éric Nadeau revealed that the murder took place in September 2022 when Al Ballouz slaughtered his family at their Brossard apartment. He stabbed his wife 23 times before suffocated his children and trying to set the apartment on fire. He then ingested windshield washer fluid, which is believed to have been a suicide attempt.

During the trial, Quebec Superior Justice Eric Downs described Al Ballouz, as having a “sadistic character” and being “deeply narcissistic.” He was sentenced to life imprisonment with no chance of parole for 25 years.

Throughout the trial, Al Ballouz, a biological male, claimed to be a woman and demanded that he be referred to as “Levana,” a change which was made after he was charged for his crimes. Notably, the Canadian Broadcasting Report’s (CBC’s) report of the case refers to the convicted murder as “she” and uses his fake name.

As a result, Correctional Services Canada recently announced that he will be “will be incarcerated in a men’s institution.”

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2025 Federal Election

Carney Liberals pledge to follow ‘gender-based goals analysis’ in all government policy

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From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

‘We will continue to update the GBA+ tool to ensure it reflects the identities and values of all Canadians, including diversity as a core value.’

Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberal Party is promising to effectively mandate that all government policies and initiatives be measured using “Gender Based Analyses” before being approved and implemented.

The Liberal’s “Canada Strong” election platform, under the Gender Based Analyses (GBA) tab, pledges to “ensure that every measure in this platform will be implemented with a full GBA+ analysis – so that we can continue to build Canada strong, for all Canadians.”

“A Mark Carney-led government will support and champion all Canadians, including by reviewing policies and programs using an intersectional lens. We will continue to update the GBA+ tool to ensure it reflects the identities and values of all Canadians, including diversity as a core value.”

The GBA tab also mentions “2SLGBTQI+ people” four times, three of which are related to funding promises.

It notes that a Carney-led government would protect “the values” the Charter of Rights and Freedoms was “founded on – which are under threat – and ensuring the protection of women, people with disabilities, racialized and Indigenous communities, and 2SLGBTQI+ people.”

Carney already stated his government would provide sterilizing puberty blockers to children “without exception,” calling harmful “transitioning” surgeries and chemical “treatments” a “fundamental right.”

While campaigning to become Liberal Party leader, Carney had also promised that his government would pursue an agenda of “inclusiveness” to counter U.S. President Donald Trump’s more socially conservative agenda.

His promise to promote “inclusiveness” in Canada in opposition to Trump’s agenda came only days after former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government promised an extra $41.5 million in taxpayer funds to advance 106 pro-LGBT projects “across Canada.”

Carney, whose ties to globalist groups have had Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre call him the World Economic Forum’s “golden boy”.

Canadians will head to the polls on April 28.

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