Ontario housing starts continued to shrink in February, with the province’s construction workers beginning seven per cent fewer housing units in February 2024 compared to twelve months earlier, data shows

The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation released its report for February on March 15.

Last month’s housing unit starts shrank eight per cent from February 2022.

Under the Ontario PC policy mix, only 6,488 new housing unit were started last month. And despite the Ford PCs’ focus on supporting single detached homes, new construction in that category fell nearly 50 per cent compared to February 2023.

Only 637 single detached homes were started last month.

In sharp contrast, British Columbia housing starts have grown 30 per cent from twelve months ago and 47 per cent from February, 2022. BC construction workers began work on 3,620 units last month.

A BC-scale effort transferred to Ontario would be yielding well over 10,000 unit starts a month, more than 55 per cent higher than output under the Ontario PCs. British Columbia has a population of about five million compared to Ontario’s 15 million residents.

How much – or whether – BC’s aggressive construction campaign can moderate housing costs won’t be known until the new supply comes to market, which will be more than a year for most units.

However, dramatically increasing BC’s housing supply puts renters and house buyers in a much stronger position than Ontario, where shrinking new supply amid strong demand indicates continued upward price pressures.

The Eby NDP government has also committed to a dramatically larger public investment in social and co-operative housing, a direction Ontario Premier Ford has blocked, comparing it to “Soviet communism.”