By Beau Jarvis, President and CEO, Wesgroup Properties
Canada’s housing debate often gets stuck in ideology – who’s to blame, who should take responsibility, and whether housing is primarily a public good or a market product. These are important questions. But for those of us actually trying to get homes built (and in Canada, that’s overwhelmingly the private sector) the reality is far more practical and grounded in delivery.
The challenges are logistical, financial, and fundamentally industrial. If we want to build homes at the pace and scale Canada needs, we should treat housing like we do any other sector where government wants to see growth: with smart incentives, aligned systems, and targeted investment.
CMHC estimates we need to build 5.8 million homes by 2030 to restore affordability – more than double our current rate. That is a challenge that demands national collaboration. Yet we’re not treating it with the urgency or coordination we apply to other sectors when production needs to ramp up.
We wouldn’t ask the auto sector to lead an electric vehicle transition without supply chain financing, tax credits, and direct subsidies. We wouldn’t ask the clean tech sector to scale without R&D support and de-risked capital. These are sectors with national industrial strategies: deliberate, coordinated approaches designed to produce results at scale.
Yet in housing, we routinely expect the system to work on its own – despite rising costs, contradictory policies, delayed approvals, and escalating taxation that compound risk and stall delivery.
And unlike in those other sectors, policymakers often struggle to even consider direct support for housing delivery. There’s a persistent perception that the business side of housing is somehow at odds with the public good. But in nearly every other industry, we accept that viability matters. We design policies that support investment, reduce risk, and help businesses succeed – because that’s how outcomes get delivered. Housing deserves the same pragmatic approach.
The result of avoiding that reality? Projects that should be getting built… aren’t.
In Metro Vancouver alone, there are more than 70 development projects currently on hold – amounting to over 14,000 homes that will now be delayed or never built at all. These are not hypothetical units or distant ambitions. These are real homes that were planned, zoned, and in many cases ready to go.
And these failures have real costs. Today, housing providers aren’t just facing thinner margins – they’re questioning whether it makes sense to build at all. In some cases, returns are so marginal and timelines so uncertain that even a guaranteed investment certificate (GIC) starts to look like the smarter bet. A developer might currently earn 3 to 5 percent on their capital in a project over several years, if all goes well. A GIC offers nearly the same return with none of the risk, delays, or public scrutiny.
This isn’t because projects are speculative or misaligned. We’re talking about well-located, transit-oriented homes that check every policy box – and they still don’t pencil out. It’s not a question of ambition, capacity, or demand. The homes are ready to go. But the system says no.
Some have argued that if the private sector cannot deliver, the public sector should step in. But the truth is that public builders face the same delivery environment: the same construction costs, labour shortages, permitting delays, and financing conditions. The system is the system. Unless we fix it, no delivery model – public or private – can scale.
This is why the next federal government must go beyond ideology and focus on enabling delivery in real terms. If it is serious about housing, it needs to approach delivery the way we approach any other national priority: with coordinated intergovernmental action, the financial tools to make projects viable, and a clear industrial strategy for housing delivery.
That means shifting from a patchwork of punitive policies to a framework of practical enablement. It means expanding programs like CMHC’s Apartment Construction Loan Program. It means tying infrastructure funding to measurable housing outcomes. And it means supporting municipalities that are implementing pre-zoning and streamlined approvals to reduce uncertainty.
As Canadians head to the polls, every major party is promising to tackle the housing crisis. But the credibility of those big promises will not be measured by the size of their targets or the speed of their announcements. It will be measured by how many homes actually get built, and how quickly.
Because homes don’t just happen. They get built when the system supports delivery, and when policy treats housing as a sector to be scaled – not just a debate to be repeated.
