“During June and July 2024, peak season for construction, fewer housing units were started than in the same months of 2022 or 2023. … Adjusted for size, British Columbia has outpaced Ontario every month since June 2022, sometimes delivering results doubling those from the Ford PCs.”
A News Release from Data Shows, a professional, non-partisan data gathering venue based in Ontario, Canada
Posted September 5th, 2024 on Niagara At Large
The Progressive Conservative government led by Premier Doug Ford in July again failed to spur the housing construction starts its own task force reported are needed to bring market balance, according to data from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.
In February 2022, a report by the PCs’ handpicked Housing Affordability Task Force found Ontario would need to start building 12,500 housing units every month until 2031 to bring balance to the housing market and restrain prices increases that have made home ownership impossible except for those with wealth or high incomes.
Ford PCs didn’t get it done.
Before the June 2022 election, the Ford PCs promised their housing plan would spur the needed 12,500 monthly housing starts. However, for 26 consecutive months since that promise, the Ford PCs have failed to hit construction targets, in some months delivering less than half the need.
During June and July 2024, peak season for construction, fewer housing units were started than in the same months of 2022 or 2023.
The conservative premier has recently blamed high interest rates [ https://link.sbstck.com/redirect/3e0a36c5-6557-4e4c-b03f-ff8c6dd9bd42?j=eyJ1IjoiM3g4b3BsIn0.gTyF7RtVaWrg4_JLvD63hvYzJPuyQCsAk-UibLfp0Ec ] and municipalities for his policies’ failure to fix the housing market. But other provinces are building at a much quicker and sustained pace than Ontario, despite the same interest rate headwinds.
Adjusted for size, British Columbia has outpaced Ontario every month since June 2022, sometimes delivering results doubling those from the Ford PCs.
Higher housing prices and lack of supply also adds upward pressure to rents, subject to rent control laws.
However, the PC government exempted new housing units from rental control and has continued the previous Liberal government’s policy allowing unrestricted rent increases on empty units, adding impetus for landlords to evict tenants.
View this post on the web at https://tparkin.substack.com/p/ford-pcs-spurred-just-71-of-needed
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Tom Parkin of Data Shows
Data Shows’ editor is Tom Parkin. Contact me with interesting data, data chart or a guest piece you’d like to submit to Data Shows: tparkin@impact-strategies.ca .
Tom Parkin@tparkin Canadian columnist and commentator with a bluntly social democratic perspective. I write a lot about data that matters to our everyday lives. But sometimes it’s just plain opinion.
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