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.

Steven Globerman

Senior Fellow and Addington Chair in Measurement, Fraser Institute

From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

A Liberal government plan for pro-life and religious groups to be stripped of their tax charity status is an ‘assault’ on people’s faith, MP Leslyn Lewis said.

Canadian Conservative pro-life MP Leslyn Lewis said a plan supported by Mark Carney’s Liberal government that calls for pro-life and religious groups to be stripped of their tax charity status should be an election issue as it’s an “assault” on people’s faith.

“The Liberal plan to revoke the charitable status of religious organizations is an assault on people of faith across Canada,” Lewis wrote on X last week.

Lewis linked her post to an opinion piece published in the Niagara Independent by Lee Harding with the headline “Canada’s sleeper election issue: the loss of charitable status for religious organizations.”

Harding observed that the “potential loss of charitable status for religious charities might be the biggest sleeper issue in the federal election.”

“The Liberal government proposed the change and only Conservatives opposed,” Harding said.

Lewis noted that 40 percent of the 85,600 charities in Canada are religious organizations.

“These are organizations that feed the hungry, support the elderly, rally around people in crisis, provide addiction recovery services – and this is just the tip of the iceberg,” she wrote.

“It is quite honestly disgusting that the Liberals would try to sneak in this unconscionable attack in a Finance Committee report, just before Parliament prorogued.”

She noted how a recent Cardus study shows that if these charities lose their tax status “Canadians would lose $16.5B in services.”

Canadians will head to the polls on April 28. Harding noted how “One needn’t be religious to see the harm in such uncharitable changes to Canada’s charitable sector.”

“Fortunately, Canadians can vote down this misguided attack on religious charities. Whether they do so is up to them.”

Last month, the Conservative Party of Canada launched a petition blasting a recent finance committee recommendation supported by Carney that calls for pro-life and religious groups to have their charity tax status revoked.

The Finance Committee’s pre-budget report proposal released in December 2024 by the all-party Finance Committee suggested that legislation is needed to strip pro-life pregnancy centers and religious groups of their charitable status.

The legislation would amend the Income Tax Act and Income Tax. Section 429 of the proposed legislation recommends the government “no longer provide charitable status to anti-abortion organizations.”

All federal parties except for the Conservatives under Pierre Poilievre support the finance report’s recommendation.

Canada’s Catholic bishops have blasted the report’s recommendations and have urged the Liberal federal government to not proceed with any legislation that would target pro-life groups of religious organizations’ charity tax status.

The good news is that in light of former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s shutting of Parliament in order to step down from office, already planned legislation to strip pro-life pregnancy centers of charity status is on pause, at least for now.

Despite the reality that Poilievre is also pro-abortion, the former Trudeau now Carney Liberal government has in recent months ramped up his abortion rhetoric on social media in a seeming bid to rally its base, consistently boasting about his government’s desire to make killing a child in the womb easier than ever. Trudeau also repeatedly bragged about his pro-abortion record in the House of Commons.