Business
CMHC rubberstamps $102 million in bonuses amid housing affordability crisis
From the Canadian Taxpayers Federation
Author: Ryan Thorpe
The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation dished out more than $27 million in bonuses in 2023, according to access-to-information records obtained by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
That pushes the total bonuses at the CMHC to $102 million since the beginning of 2020.
“Why is the CMHC patting itself on the back and showering staff with bonuses when Canadians can’t afford homes?” said Franco Terrazzano, CTF Federal Director. “If the CMHC’s number one goal is housing affordability, then it doesn’t make sense to hand out $100 million in bonuses during a housing affordability crisis.”
Ninety-eight per cent of the CMHC workforce took a bonus in 2023.
At least 2,283 CMHC staffers took home a bonus last year, costing taxpayers $27.2 million, with the average bonus coming in at about $11,800.
The CMHC’s 10 executives received $4.1 million in total compensation in 2023. That includes $3.1 million in salary (for an average of $311,000) and $831,000 in bonuses (for an average of $83,000).
The CMHC also paid executives $211,000 in other “benefits.”
More than 2,000 CMHC staffers, representing 89 per cent of its workforce, also got a pay raise last year. Not a single employee received a pay cut.
There are now 1,073 CMHC bureaucrats taking home a six-figure annual salary, a 15 per cent increase over 2022, representing nearly half (46 per cent) of its workforce. Those six-figure salaries cost taxpayers a combined $140 million in 2023.
“The CMHC could do more to end the housing affordability crisis by hiring a thousand carpenters, rather than paying a thousand bureaucratic pencil-pushers six-figure salaries,” Terrazzano said.
The CMHC is “driven by one goal: housing affordability for all,” according to its 2023-2027 corporate plan.
Polling from Ipsos and Global News in 2023 shows 63 per cent of Canadians who don’t own a home have “given up” on ever owning one. Nearly 70 per cent of respondents said home ownership in Canada is “only for the rich.”
In April 2024, the Royal Bank of Canada said it was the “toughest time ever to afford a home as soaring interest costs keep raising the bar.”
The RBC said ownership costs were propelled to a “new summit” in the fourth quarter of 2023, with a “household earning a median income (needing) to spend a staggering 62.5 per cent of it to cover the costs of owning an average home at market price.”
“Affordability worsened in all markets we track,” the RBC said, with the housing in Vancouver, Victoria and Toronto experiencing “the biggest deterioration,” and affordability in Ottawa, Montreal and Halifax being “at or near all-time worst levels.”
In the 2023 Budget, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said, “the government will also work with federal Crown corporations to ensure they achieve comparable spending reductions, which would account for an estimated $1.3 billion over four years.”
“The feds need to stop rewarding failure with bonuses,” Terrazzano said. “Freeland said she would find savings in Crown corporations and these bonuses should be the first thing on the chopping block.”
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By Thomas English
President Donald Trump’s Monday executive order establishing the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) presents a more modest scope for the initiative, focusing primarily on “modernizing federal technology and software.”
The executive order refashions the Obama-era United States Digital Service (USDS) into the United States DOGE Service. Then-President Barack Obama created USDS in 2014 to enhance the reliability and usability of online federal services after the disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov, an insurance exchange website created through the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Trump’s USDS will now prioritize “modernizing federal technology and software to maximize efficiency and productivity” under the order, which makes no mention of slashing the federal budget, workforce or regulations — DOGE’s originally advertised purpose.
“I am pleased to announce that the Great Elon Musk, working in conjunction with American Patriot Vivek Ramaswamy, will lead the Department of Government Efficiency (‘DOGE’),” Trump said in his official announcement of the initiative in November. “Together, these two wonderful Americans will pave the way for my Administration to dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess government regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies.”
The order’s focus on streamlining federal technology and software stands in contrast to some of DOGE’s previously more expansive aims, including Elon Musk’s claim that “we can [cut the federal budget] by at least $2 trillion” at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally in November. Musk now leads DOGE alone after Vivek Ramaswamy stepped down from the initiative Monday, apparently eying a 2026 gubernatorial run in Ohio.
The order says it serves to “advance the President’s 18-month DOGE agenda,” but omits many of the budget-cutting and workforce-slashing proposals during Trump’s campaign. Rather, the order positions DOGE as a technology modernization entity rather than an organization with direct authority to enact sweeping fiscal reforms. There is no mention, for instance, of trillions in budget cuts or a significant reduction in the federal workforce, though the president did separately enact a hiring freeze throughout the executive branch Monday.
“I can’t help but think that there’s more coming, that maybe more responsibilities will be added to it,” Susan Dudley, a public policy professor at George Washington University, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. Dudley, who was also the top regulatory official in former President George W. Bush’s administration, said the structure of the new USDS could impact the recent lawsuits against the DOGE effort.
“I think it maybe moots the lawsuit that’s been brought for it not being FACA,” Dudley said. “So if this is how it’s organized — that it’s people in the government who bring in these special government employees on a temporary basis, that might mean that the lawsuit doesn’t really have any ground.”
Three organizations — the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), National Security Counselors (NSC) and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) — separately filed lawsuits against DOGE within minutes of Trump signing the executive order. The suits primarily challenge DOGE’s compliance with the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), alleging the department operates without the required transparency, balanced representation and public accountability.
The order also emphasizes not “be construed to impair or otherwise affect … the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.”
“And the only mention of OMB [Office of Management and Budget] is some kind of boilerplate at the end — that it doesn’t affect that. But that’s kind of general stuff you often see in executive orders,” Dudley continued, adding she doesn’t “have an inside track” on whether further DOGE-related executive orders will follow.
“It’s certainly, certainly more modest than I think Musk was anticipating,” Dudley said.
Trump’s order also establishes “DOGE Teams” consisting of at least four employees: a team lead, a human resources specialist, an engineer and an attorney. Each team will be assigned an executive agency with which it will implement the president’s “DOGE agenda.”
It remains unclear whether Monday’s executive order comprehensively defines DOGE, or if additional orders will be forthcoming to broaden its mandate.
From Conservative Party Communications
The Hon. Pierre Poilievre, Leader of the Conservative Party of Canada and the Official Opposition, released the following statement on the threat of tariffs from the US:
“Canada is facing a critical challenge. On February 1st we are facing the risk of unjustified 25% tariffs by our largest trading partner that would have damaging consequences across our country. Our American counterparts say they want to stop the illegal flow of drugs and other criminal activity at our border. The Liberal government admits their weak border is a problem. That is why they announced a multibillion-dollar border plan—a plan they cannot fund because they shut down Parliament, preventing MPs and Senators from authorizing the funds.
“We also need retaliatory tariffs, something that requires urgent Parliamentary consideration.
“Yet, Liberals have shut Parliament in the middle of this crisis. Canada has never been so weak, and things have never been so out of control. Liberals are putting themselves and their leadership politics ahead of the country. Freeland and Carney are fighting for power rather than fighting for Canada.
“Common Sense Conservatives are calling for Trudeau to reopen Parliament now to pass new border controls, agree on trade retaliation and prepare a plan to rescue Canada’s weak economy.
“The Prime Minister has the power to ask the Governor General to cut short prorogation and get our Parliament working.
“Open Parliament. Take back control. Put Canada First.”
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