From the Fraser Institute

By Jock Finlayson

At a time when Canadians are grappling with epic housing supply and affordability challenges, the data show that homebuilding continues to come up short in some parts of the country including in several metro regions where most newcomers to Canada settle.

In both the Greater Toronto area and Metro Vancouver, housing starts have languished below levels needed to close the supply gaps that have opened up since 2019. In fact, the last 12-18 months have seen many planned development projects in Ontario and British Columbia delayed or cancelled outright amid a glut of new unsold condominium units and a sharp drop in population growth stemming from shifts in federal immigration policy.

At the same time, residential real estate sales have also been sluggish in some parts of the country. A fall-off in real estate transactions tends to have a lagged negative effect on construction investment—declining home sales today translate into fewer housing starts in the future.

While Prime Minister Carney’s Liberal government has pledged to double the pace of homebuilding, the on-the-ground reality points to stagnant or dwindling housing starts in many communities, particularly in Ontario and B.C. In July, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) revised down its national forecast for housing starts over 2025/26, notwithstanding the intense political focus on boosting supply.

A slowdown in residential construction not only affects demand for services provided by homebuilders, it also has wider economic consequences owing to the size and reach of residential construction and the closely linked real estate sector. Overall, construction represents almost 8 per cent of Canada’s economy. If we exclude government-driven industries such as education, health care and social services, construction provides employment for more than one in 10 private-sector workers. Most of these jobs involve homebuilding, home renovation, and real estate sales and development.

As such, the economic consequences of declining housing starts are far-reaching and include reduced demand for goods and services produced by suppliers to the homebuilding industry, lower tax revenues for all levels of government, and slower economic growth. The weakness in residential investment has been a key factor pushing the Canadian economy close to recession in 2025.

Moreover, according to Statistics Canada, the value of GDP (in current dollars) directly attributable to housing reached $238 billion last year, up slightly from 2023 but less than in 2021 and 2022. Among the provinces, Ontario and B.C. have seen significant declines in residential construction GDP since 2022. This pattern is likely to persist into 2026.

Statistics Canada also estimates housing-related activity supported some 1.2 million jobs in 2024. This figure captures both the direct and indirect employment effects of residential construction and housing-related real estate activity. Approximately three-fifths of jobs tied to housing are “direct,” with the rest found in sectors—such as architecture, engineering, hardware and furniture stores, and lumber manufacturing—which supply the construction business or are otherwise affected by activity in the residential building and real estate industries.

Spending on homebuilding, home renovation and residential real estate transactions (added together) represents a substantial slice of Canada’s $3.3 trillion economy. This important sector sustains more than one million jobs, a figure that partly reflects the relatively labour-intensive nature of construction and some of the other industries related to homebuilding. Clearly, Canada’s economy will struggle to rebound from the doldrums of 2025 without a meaningful turnaround in homebuilding.

Jock Finlayson

Senior Fellow, Fraser Institute

From the Fraser Institute

By Julio Mejía and Elmira Aliakbari

Simply put, despite trillions invested in the energy transition, the world is more dependent on fossil fuels today than when the United Nations launched its first COP. No wonder that ahead of COP30, leading voices of the net-zero-by-2050 agenda, including Bill Gates, are acknowledging both the vital role of fossil fuels on the planet and the failure of efforts to cut them.

On the heels of his first federal budget, which promises more spending to promote a “green economy,” Prime Minister Carney will soon fly to Brazil for COP30, the 30th United Nations climate summit. Like the former Trudeau government, the Carney government has pledged to achieve “net-zero” emissions in Canada—and compel other countries to pursue net-zero—by 2050. To achieve a net-zero world, it’s necessary to phase out fossil fuels—oil, natural gas, coal—or offset their CO2 emissions with technologies such as “carbon capture” or large-scale tree planting.

But after trillions of dollars spent in pursuit of that goal, it appears more unrealistic than ever. It’s time for world leaders, including Canada’s policymakers, to face reality and be honest about the costly commitments they make on behalf of their citizens.

For starters, carbon capture—the process of trapping and storing carbon dioxide so it’s unable to affect the atmosphere—is a developing technology not yet capable of large-scale deployment. And planting enough trees to offset global emissions would require vast amounts of land, take decades to absorb significant CO2 and risk unpredictable losses from wildfires and drought. Due to these constraints, in their net-zero quest governments and private investors have poured significant resources into “clean energy” such as wind and solar to replace fossil fuels.

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), from 2015 to 2024, the world’s public and private investment in clean energy totalled and estimated US$14.6 trillion (inflation-adjusted). Yet from 1995 (the first COP year) to 2024, global fossil fuel consumption increased by more than 64 per cent. Specifically, oil consumption grew by 39 per cent, natural gas by 96 per cent and coal by 76 per cent. As of 2024, fossil fuels accounted for 80.6 per cent of global energy consumption, slightly lower than the 85.6 per cent in 1995.

The Canadian case shows an even greater mismatch between Ottawa’s COP commitments and its actual results. Despite billions spent by the federal government on the low-carbon economy (electric vehicle subsidies, tax credits to corporations, etc.), fossil fuel consumption in our country has increased by 23 per cent between 1995 and 2024. Over the same period, the share of fossil fuels in Canada’s total energy consumption climbed from 62.0 to 66.3 per cent.

Simply put, despite trillions invested in the energy transition, the world is more dependent on fossil fuels today than when the United Nations launched its first COP. No wonder that ahead of COP30, leading voices of the net-zero-by-2050 agenda, including Bill Gates, are acknowledging both the vital role of fossil fuels on the planet and the failure of efforts to cut them.

Why has this massive effort, which includes many countries and trillions of dollars, failed to transition humanity away from fossil fuels?

As renowned scholar Vaclav Smil explains, it can take centuries—not decades—for an energy source to become globally predominant. For thousands of years, humanity relied on wood, charcoal, dried dung and other traditional biomass fuels for heating and cooking, with coal only becoming a major energy source around 1900. It took oil 150 years after its introduction into energy markets to account for one-quarter of global fossil fuel consumption, a milestone reached only in the 1950s. And for natural gas, it took about 130 years after its commercial development to reach 25 per cent of global fossil fuel consumption at the end of the 20th century.

Yet, coal, oil and natural gas didn’t completely replace traditional biomass to meet the surging energy demand as the modern world developed. As of 2020, nearly three billion people in developing countries still relied on charcoal, straw and dried dung to supply their basic energy needs. In light of these facts, the most vocal proponents of the global energy transition seem, at the very least, out of touch.

The world’s continued reliance on fossil fuels should prompt world leaders at COP30 to exercise caution before pushing the same unrealistic commitments of the past. And Prime Minister Carney, in particular, should be careful not to keep leading Canadians into costly ventures that lead nowhere near their intended results.

Julio Mejía

Policy Analyst

Elmira Aliakbari

Director, Natural Resource Studies, Fraser Institute