Currently in Canada, the national housing crisis presents one of the country’s greatest social and economic challenges. Rent prices and the prices of houses have gone up, and many young Canadians struggle to find a home they can afford. As the Canadian population has grown, the construction of housing hasn’t kept pace. In 2017, Canada started investing in housing again for the first time in decades. The government invested in more housing for low-income and vulnerable Canadians, started incentivizing rental construction, and created programs to make it easier for people to buy their first home.

The federal government has outlined a plan to solve the housing crisis which comprised of three main points:

1. Building more homes
2. Making it easier to own or rent a home
3. Helping Canadians who can’t afford a home

Building more homes is a crucial part to help Canadians get homes that meet their needs at prices they can afford, although this was challenging. Restrictive planning policies prevented the construction of high-density housing near existing infrastructure and transit. Municipalities started charging extra fees to help meet budget demands. Provinces fell behind on supportive housing investments. These factors created higher costs, construction delays, and a lack of affordable housing options, all which further exacerbated issues of the housing crisis.

While new homes are struggling to be built, across Canada there are a lot of underused and even vacant properties—from unused basements, to empty office towers, to vacant lots. These spaces could be maximized to build more homes. By making it easier for homeowners to add secondary suites to their existing homes, and unlocking vacant lands and underused federal properties for housing, a new supply of homes can be built to make housing more affordable. On October 8th 2024, Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, alongside Jean-Yves Duclos, Minister of Public Services and Procurement, and Terry Beech, Minister of Citizens’ Services announced significant developments in the plan to unlock these vacant lots for housing. They outlined the following:

1. The Deputy Prime Minister announced technical guidance for lenders and insurers to offer mortgage refinancing for homeowners looking to add secondary suites to their homes, starting January 15, 2025. Specifically, allowing refinancing of insured mortgages for secondary suites and increasing the mortgage insurance home price limit to $2 million for those refinancing to build a secondary suite.
2. The Deputy Prime Minister launched consultations on the taxation of vacant land. By having provinces/territories implement taxing vacant lands, landowners would be incentivized to maximize the full potential of their land—hopefully by building homes.
3. The Minister of Public Services and Procurement announced that an additional 14 underused federal properties have been identified as suitable for building new homes. This adds to the total of now 70 federal properties that have been unlocked and are available to homebuilders as of today. This is part of the federal government’s work—as Canada’s largest landowner—to turn unused and underused federal properties into 250,000 new homes.

The federal government is making significant strides to meet its goal to build four million new homes by utilizing all tools and resources possible. The new developments announced on October 8th will maximize available land as part of the continual effort to give every Canadian access to an affordable home.