Senator Martin: The average mortgage and rent payments have almost doubled since the Trudeau government took office. For example, in its 2022 review, CMHC said the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment reached an all-time high last year. At the same time, the number of housing units being built is not nearly enough to meet demand. A forecast released in April by CMHC says they expect new housing construction to decrease this year and remain well below recent levels.

Leader, the Trudeau government has already pushed back its target for building 100,000 homes from 2025 to 2027. What assurances do Canadians have that this target won’t be pushed back even further?

Hon. Yonah Martin (Deputy Leader of the Opposition): This question is for the Leader of the Government in the Senate. In a report last June, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, or CMHC, said that to restore housing affordability by 2030, we need an additional 3.5 million housing units beyond the current projections. That’s a total of 5.8 million units needed just to make housing affordable in Canada. CMHC also says that two thirds of this gap is in British Columbia and Ontario.

Leader, this information can’t be dismissed as being from a partisan source. It’s from a Crown corporation. The Trudeau government’s Housing Accelerator Fund has a goal of creating 100,000 new homes between when it opens for applications in June and when it ends in 2027. Leader, how will the Trudeau government address the massive shortfall between the amount of housing needed and the amount your plan is offering?

Hon. Marc Gold (Government Representative in the Senate): Thank you for the question and for underlining the ongoing challenges that Canadians are facing to secure affordable housing in the areas where they want to live.

The Government of Canada is doing its part. I won’t repeat what I’ve said many times in this chamber, but there have been serious investments and programs put in place on the federal side to assist and create incentives — top-ups to the Canada Housing Benefit, the Housing Accelerator Fund and so on. But, colleagues, as we know, the supply of housing is not exclusively a federal matter. It engages not only the provinces and territories but municipalities and their zoning and the private sector, of course, to say nothing of capital markets and the market more generally. The Government of Canada is doing its part, as many provinces, territories and municipalities are doing, in the hope and expectation that the housing crisis will abate and Canadians can find housing fit for their purposes.