In 2017, CMHC presented a National Housing Strategy – a 10-year, $115 billion plan to “ensure everyone in Canada has access to housing that meets their needs and that they can afford.”
Eight years later, housing supply and housing affordability remain key election issues for Canadians. The Liberal plan harkens back to post-war efforts focused on building homes for veterans, centering much of its strategy around this image. They suggest that by getting the “government back into the business of building,” Canada can nearly double the pace of homebuilding to almost 500,000 new homes a year.
Omar Bradley, a US General during World War II known for his focus on planning, once said, “Amateurs talk strategy and professionals talk logistics.” For this housing strategy to succeed, the government must be able to execute.
It’s fine to commit to creating a new Crown corporation to support modular construction, but does the government truly have the core competencies needed to manage such an operation?
Canada Lands, the government’s existing land development entity, offers some precedent. Several of its housing projects have involved converting ex-military bases into residential property developments. The question remains: how effectively has it delivered on these initiatives?
While Canada Lands is making progress on these developments, the timeline has been moving at a snail’s pace. Take CFB Edmonton as an example. Canada Lands took over the Griesbach Barracks site in 2001. Development began in 2025 on the 155-acres site, with private builders expected to break ground in 2026. Full buildout is expected to take another 10 to 15 years. In other words, it will have taken nearly 40 years to fully develop the site.
Along the way, 518 affordable housing units – many originally constructed as military housing and later rented to the public at below-market rates – were torn down. This doesn’t look like an effective model for building 500,000 new homes a year.
The plan also calls for $25 billion in financing to support innovative prefabricated home builders in Canada. While CMHC does have an effective Apartment Construction Loan Program, it outsources loan administration and servicing to external firms. Managing this new and unique initiative would be even more complex, requiring expertise in not just housing construction but also in manufacturing processes. There isn’t a government agency equipped to manage this kind of operation.
Creating a new Crown corporation will require passing legislation and onboarding new staff – a process that could take at least 9 months to a year before anything is operational. A Crown corporation has the advantage of being somewhat insulated from day-to-day pressures from the Minister’s office. However, managing a $25 billion funding budget will inevitably invite significant regional political pressure. Responding to these demands will make it difficult to maintain a streamlined and efficient building process.
During my time in government, I worked on funding programs that supported federal debt programs and CMHC securitization activities. Even then, the biggest challenge in delivering these programs was ensuring they could work effectively. They are still in place a quarter century later because their design prioritized both implementation and operational effectiveness.
Donald Savoie delineates two types of public servants in Ottawa: “poets” and “plumbers.” Poets are the policy advisors, strategists, and back-office personnel; plumbers are the front-line workers who handle operations and service delivery. What’s missing are the people who can develop strategies and frameworks to support the plumbers in delivering programs effectively. Right now, we have way too many poets and not enough plumbers, with hardly anyone who can work across these domains.
I’m concerned we don’t have the right talent to execute the government’s housing program successfully. We’re placing a great deal of faith in the public service to get it right this time, but, unfortunately, I’m not confident that will happen.
Independent Opinion
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