The federal government has boasted of new investments in affordable housing. But the Parliamentary Budget Office, which provides independent analysis, calculates that those new investments will be more than offset by cuts made in the 2025 federal budget and the expiry of funding for existing housing programs. The net result is that total federal planned spending on housing programs is set to decline by 56 per cent from $9.8 billion in 2025-26 to $4.3 billion in 2028-29. The PBO estimates that this spending will result in 26,000 new homes being built over five years, half of them affordable to those with low incomes. That’s not much new housing.
Housing Minister Gregor Robertson said the PBO report ignores the impact of the $51 billion infrastructure fund (spread over 10 years) and of provincial and private investments the federal programs are intended to attract. The infrastructure fund is for hospitals, universities, colleges, roads and bridges, and water and transit systems. Only a fraction of those projects might help boost housing construction. And $5 billion a year won’t go far on those kinds of projects.
But let’s assume Robertson is right about attracting other investment dollars. For-profit investments won’t go into affordable homes because it won’t maximize profit. New provincial investments might, but only if provincial governments gave priority to affordable rental housing. If the provinces matched federal funding and outcomes, we might double to 52,000 new homes, half of them affordable at low incomes, over five years. However, as recent Affordable Housing Team posts have emphasized, we need about 2 million to 4 million homes, affordable for low- and moderate-income households, over a decade. Getting 52,000 new homes over five years would generate about 2 per cent of what we need. That would be appalling.