Federal Budget fails to support homeownership for next generation

NOVEMBER 5, 2025 – OTTAWA, ON – The Canadian Home Builders’ Association (CHBA) is raising deep concerns regarding the 2025 Federal Budget, and the excessive expectation being placed on initiatives for government-supported housing through Build Canada Homes – an initiative that will help homelessness and low-income households needing support, but not address homeownership for the middle class of the next generation.

Despite urgent calls for action, the budget presented no new measures to address housing affordability for the average Canadian who still wants to become a homeowner. It emphasized the promise of a GST exemption for first-time buyers—a measure announced months ago and still not legislated, which has left buyers on the sidelines and stalled new construction.

The budget was a missed opportunity to expand the GST relief to all buyers of new homes, and to renovations that create added housing units, such as additional dwelling units (ADUs) or secondary suites.

Extending the GST relief would help create the variety of housing types that Canada needs, including for seniors downsizing and freeing up family-oriented housing, and Canadians with growing families moving to their next home, in turn freeing up entry-level homes for first-time buyers. It would also cost much less than Build Canada Homes, which is focused on government-supportive housing that will build less than one percent of the homes needed to correct Canada’s housing supply deficit. The government needs to focus on the full housing continuum.

The budget unfortunately retreats from the Liberal platform’s commitment to work with municipalities to reduce development taxes by 50 percent. Over the past two decades, these taxes have soared by 700%, pricing countless Canadians out of the market. The budget does propose a new Build Communities Strong Fund, which will provide housing-enabling infrastructure funding to provinces that commit to substantially reduce development charges, but no details have been provided. CHBA is keen to see this come to fruition as quickly as possible.

The budget also missed the mark on supporting skilled workers that actually build and renovate Canada’s homes: it only announced training measures that support unions, when only about ten percent of residential construction workers outside of Québec are unionized.

Finally, from a first principles perspective, the budget paints a rosy picture that housing starts are doing just fine, but analysis of where those starts are coming from tells a troubling story. In 2021, 70% of housing starts were for ownership, but today, that has plummeted to 50%, with the other half destined for rental or government-supported (social) housing. The dream of homeownership is slipping, and the budget did not take further action to turn the tide. The result will be more jobs lost: CHBA’s Housing Market Index shows that nationally, 41% of builders surveyed have laid off workers, and in Ontario, that number climbs to 64%.

“The lack of focus on additional measures that will help Canadians who work hard and have good jobs move into the ranks of homeownership, which most still aspire to, is very troubling, especially in light of the fact that last year’s budget had good momentum with positive policy reform for market-rate housing,” said CHBA CEO Kevin Lee. “Canada can’t double housing starts if the country can’t tap into the investment power of individual Canadian families to buy their own home. The government needs to go back to including market-rate ownership as part of the housing affordability equation, and we will continue to make recommendations on how to do so.”

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MEDIA INQUIRIES
Journalists wishing to interview Kevin Lee, Chief Executive Officer of the Canadian Home Builders’ Association are encouraged to submit their request by email to media@chba.ca.

About the Canadian Home Builders’ Association
The Canadian Home Builders’ Association (CHBA) is the voice of the residential construction industry in Canada, representing some 8,500 member firms across the country. Our membership spans new home builders, renovators, developers, trade contractors, building material manufacturers and suppliers, lenders, and other professionals in the housing sector.