The federal government is eyeing Canada Post and National Defense unused land as a way to ease the country’s housing market and increase housing supply. In the federal budget announced on April 16, the government ordered the vacating of land occupied by the two institutions, allowing the number and construction of houses to accelerate at a pace not seen in generations. As well as bringing Canadian youth into the housing market.
It aims to provide 3.87 million new homes by 2031. Construction of 18 lakh 70 thousand units of new houses has already started or is in progress. Accordingly, the government has set a target of building 20 lakh more new houses.
This number indicates that the government thinks we need to build twice as many houses. I am not sure if this budget can give us that. But it will take us a long way.
To bring affordability back to 2003 and 2004 levels, we will need to build 3.5 million more homes by 2030, says the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation.
The Parliamentary Budget Officer said that an average of 181,000 units of additional houses will be required to be built every year till 2030 to reduce the gap between housing demand and supply. By this, the number of net new houses in the country will stand at 31 lakh units.
