Budget office sees modest boost in housing supply from Build Canada Homes

OTTAWA — Housing Minister Gregor Robertson said the federal government’s new housing agency is just getting started after the parliamentary budget office said in a new report Tuesday that Build Canada Homes will only fill a small gap in the housing market.

The Liberals launched Build Canada Homes in September and tasked the new federal agency with boosting the total stock of affordable housing with an initial $13 billion in funding for loans, financing and land acquisition.

The budget office said in a report Tuesday that Build Canada Homes is projected to add 26,000 units to the total housing supply across the country over the next five years, half of which would be affordable homes for low-income Canadians.

That represents an increase of 2.1 per cent over the PBO’s baseline projection for new home construction over that period.

It also accounts for only 3.7 per cent of the roughly 690,000 units the PBO estimates are needed to restore housing affordability over the next decade.

Robertson told reporters on his way out of the Liberal cabinet meeting Tuesday that he hadn’t read the PBO report yet.

But he said he expects the office’s figures don’t incorporate the federal budget’s $51-billion local infrastructure fund and other efforts by Build Canada Homes to stimulate housing spending by the provinces and the private sector.

“This is just the beginning with Build Canada Homes. We will be scaling that work, bringing the capital to the table so we can build on affordable housing at an unprecedented scale,” he said.

While the Liberals have promised to double the pace of housing construction, the budget office noted in its report the government hasn’t released a complete plan to achieve that goal.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre spoke at length in question period Tuesday about the PBO report. He called it an example of Liberal “bait and switch” on housing promises.

He said after debate with Prime Minister Mark Carney that “the new housing bureaucracy will build only 5,000 homes per year, which is barely one per cent of the 500,000 homes that he promised during the election.”

“Construction is falling off the cliff,” Poilievre said.

Carney defended the Liberal housing plan by citing a footnote in the PBO report projecting Build Canada Homes will support the construction of 86,868 units with $5.4 billion of its funding.

But the PBO says that just 14,000 of those 86,868 homes would not be built without the agency’s support.

The PBO also warned overall federal housing spending is set to decline by 56 per cent over the next three years without renewed commitments to existing programs.

New funding for Build Canada Homes only partially offsets other programs that are set to expire or haven’t been publicly renewed yet, the office said.

The report flags expiring funding agreements for the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. under the Liberals’ national housing strategy. That includes the $4.4 billion housing accelerator fund — a flagship program under the Justin Trudeau government — which has funding set out to the end of 2028.

Interim parliamentary budget officer Jason Jacques told the Senate’s national finance committee Tuesday the government did not respond to his office’s questions about which programs are being cut or wound down in the context of spending reductions across the public service.

The PBO’s projections are based on public announcements, corporate plans issued by the CMHC and any details offered in the federal budget tabled last month, he said.

“If not addressed, the current public data indicates that we’re on track for a substantial decrease in … federal spending in this area,” Jacques said.

Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne defended “historical” housing spending in Budget 2025 on his way out of the cabinet meeting Tuesday. He told reporters he respects the PBO’s work but added that “sometimes you need a bit of nuance.”

Champagne said that future budgets will update spending priorities and no one should “prejudge” any of those commitments.

“You don’t take decisions for ‘29 in ‘25,” he said.

“We’re going to do the work now and we’ll take the decisions that are going to be needed as we go forward.”

NDP housing critic Jenny Kwan accused the government of inflating homebuilding expectations through its budget last month.

“The commitment on this new generational investment that the government’s talking about, it is barely a drop in the bucket to address the housing crisis,” Kwan said before question period.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 2, 2025.

Craig Lord, The Canadian Press