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Reviewing the Builder Alliance Pre-Budget Proposal: Part Two – Secondary Recommendations
The Large Urban Centre Alliance, representing home builders and rental providers from cities that account for more than 50 per cent of Canada’s annual housing starts, has presented a set of housing recommendations ahead of the federal government’s pre-budget consultations. The proposal includes four primary and four secondary recommendations. Last week, we examined the primary…
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Headline Inflation Improving, Core Inflation Remains High
Canadian consumer prices rose 0.3 per cent in July, bringing the annual inflation rate to 1.7 per cent. While the headline figure looks tame, core inflation remains sticky, with the Bank of Canada’s two preferred measures – median and trim – holding around 3 per cent for the fourth consecutive month. Median prices rose 3.1…
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Reviewing the Builder Alliance Pre-Budget Proposal: Part One – Primary Recommendations
The Large Urban Centre Alliance, representing home builders and rental providers from cities that account for more than 50 per cent of Canada’s annual housing starts, has presented a set of housing proposals ahead of the federal government’s pre-budge consultations. The proposal includes four primary and four secondary recommendations. The primary recommendations are: Provide a…
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A Noisy Labour Market Report: Making Sense of June and July’s Contrasting Data
The Canadian labour market gave back half of June’s surprising gains in July, shedding 41,000 jobs versus the consensus forecast of a 10,000 increase. Despite this decline, the unemployment rate remained unchanged as the labour force participation rate fell. Longer-term trends, reflected in the 3- and 6- month employment changes of 17,000 and 5,000 respectively,…
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Unlocking Affordable Housing in Plain Sight
Deeply affordable housing has not been built at scale in Canada for some time. Today, less than 5 per cent of the housing stock would qualify as deeply affordable, non-market housing. According to CMHC’s Social and Affordable Housing Survey (SAH), there are roughly 593,000 subsidized housing units across the country — most with rents supported…
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Behind the Jobs Report – The Word of the Day is Caution
The US Federal Reserve’s dual mandate – to balance inflation targeting and maximum employment – means that every shift in labour market data is closely watched for clues about the future path of interest rates. At first blush, the latest job report might appear to suggest the Fed is gearing up to ease rates. However,…
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Stick to Your Knitting: Why Government Should Focus on Its Core Competencies in Housing
During the federal election campaign, then-candidate and now Prime Minister Mark Carney pledged that the government would act as a developer to build affordable housing, spur innovation in the housing sector and offer low-cost financing to affordable-housing builders. He promised a “lean, mission-driven organization” focused on increasing supply by leveraging public lands and partnering with…
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