Canada’s housing starts have been stagnant since the 1970s, despite the country’s population tripling in that time, leading to a housing affordability challenge, a new report says.
The report “The Crisis in Housing Affordability” looked at housing starts over the past 52 years, from 1972 to 2024. It was published by public policy think tank Fraser Institute.
The authors said that Canada’s housing starts have not been keeping up with population growth.
The number of housing starts peaked in 1976 at 273,203, and reached 245,367 in 2024, according to the report authors. Between 1972 and 1979, Canada’s population grew by 279,975 people per year, they noted, compared to 859,473 people per year between 2021 and 2024….