Affordable And Sustainable: Can Canada Solve Its Housing Crisis?
ForbesJAN 24
Canadian Election Issue: Housing
Above: A rental sign advertising a "Lovely Two Bedroom Suite For Rent" is displayed in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, on March 29, 2025. Image copyright: Artur Widak/Contributor/NurPhoto via Getty Images
The Spin
Liberal Party narrative
Mark Carney and the Liberals are proposing a stellar fix for Canada's housing crisis with the "Build Canada Homes" initiative. Aiming to deliver 500,000 affordable homes yearly, this public-private project uses federal land and prefab tech to cut costs and build fast. Backed by a $35 billion investment, it promises to cut red tape and development fees to get homes built faster — offering a forward-thinking alternative to the Conservatives' outdated reliance on tax cuts, which Poilievre peddles while ignoring his party's NIMBYism.
Conservative Party narrative
While Mark Carney’s Liberals propose yet another bloated government agency, Pierre Poilievre's Conservatives offer a realistic, effective solution to the housing crisis by cutting bureaucracy and taxes, like the federal sales tax, which will save $65K per home. Carney's plan repackages the same "affordable housing" promises that, under Trudeau, doubled home costs and sparked the current crisis. Poilievre, instead, is focused on cutting Liberal inflation and red tape, not on chasing prefab pipe dreams with costly government expansion.
New Democratic Party narrative
Jagmeet Singh's NDP offers a superior housing fix compared to both major parties, targeting 3 million homes in five years, 300,000 of which will be affordable housing. They will also fight the less-talked-about issue of corporate greed by enforcing national rent control — unlike the Liberals, who are tied to Brookfield Asset Management's renoviction past and Trudeau's failed promises; or the Conservatives, who cozy up to real estate tycoons and oppose rent caps.
People's Party of Canada narrative
Canada needs Maxime Bernier's PPC, which targets the real cause of this crisis: immigration. After millions of migrants entered with nowhere to put them, the PPC would finally halt immigration to ease demand. Toronto and Vancouver's crises prove that the old system overwhelms supply, yet the Liberals, NDP, and the Conservatives plan to welcome more. The free market will naturally fix housing, but only in a country that's not constantly importing unnecessary waves of people.