Ontario has achieved just 26 per cent of its annual housing target so far in 2025, as new data released two-thirds of the way through the year suggests hitting its goal may be impossible.
The latest figures from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation revealed just 5,149 new homes started construction in August, a drop of four per cent compared to the year before.
The running total means that housing starts are down 23 per cent in Ontario in 2025, compared to 2024. Ontario is now the only province in Canada where housing starts are worse this year than last.
“Doug Ford has dug a deeper hole for Ontario housing than any other province,” Ontario Liberal MPP Adil Shamji said in a statement. “He may be digging its grave.”
Last year, Ontario missed the target it set itself by tens of thousands of units, despite adding long-term care beds and student dorms to the statistics.
Recently, Housing Minister Rob Flack admitted homebuilding in Ontario was at a “standstill” and pointed to concerns about the cost of building.
Get breaking National news
For news impacting Canada and around the world, sign up for breaking news alerts delivered directly to you when they happen.
A statement from his office also blamed external factors.
“While we’ve made progress, we face challenges beyond our control — global economic uncertainties, supply chain disruptions, and with President Trump’s tariffs, it is not business as usual,” a spokesperson wrote.
Shamji, however, said other provinces were not struggling to build in the same way, despite facing the same tariffs from the United States, the same supply chain disruptions and the same global uncertainty.
“No other province is in decline,” he said. “Every other province, except for British Columbia which is unchanged, has increased the number of homes they are building this year, some by single digits, most by double digits, and Saskatchewan has seen a 50-per cent increase. Ontario is the outlier — the only province going backward.”
The Ford government won the 2022 election under a promise to build transit, highways and 1.5 million homes by 2031.
Despite introducing at least one housing law every year, the number of new homes in the province has stalled and starts are falling.
The province is yet to get near the 150,000 new homes it would need to hit every year for its target to be achieved.
This month, Flack’s office declined to say if it believed the goal could still be met.
In a statement sent to Global News, a spokesperson touted the one bright spot: the number of purpose-built rentals is up.
“From January to August 2025, Ontario saw 13,910 rental starts — a 23 per cent increase over the same period last year,” they wrote.
© 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
