Since 2019, Canada’s population has increased by 10%, adding 3.7 million new residents—most of whom settled in major cities. To keep housing affordable, cities need to build 417 homes for every 1,000 new residents to maintain housing availability (assuming household size doesn’t change).
How well have different cities kept up?
In terms of straight-up construction numbers, Quebec City has excelled, building 631 homes for every 1,000 new residents. Montreal and Ottawa-Gatineau also stand out, both building more than 450 new homes per 1,000 residents, while Vancouver and Edmonton hover near the 417-home benchmark. On the other hand, Calgary, Toronto, and Winnipeg have fallen short, all building around 350 homes for every 1,000 new residents.
But some cities have seen more population growth than others. Calgary’s population has grown 18% since 2019, the highest of any Canadian city, and more than double that of Montreal and Quebec City. In fact, no other large city in North America has grown as quickly as Calgary over the past 5 years—or even come close.
Simply put, slower population growth makes it easier for cities to keep up with housing demand—and vice versa. It also explains why there are no cities in the top right corner of the chart; it’s pretty hard to build a lot of homes (per resident) when the number of residents is rising quickly. There’s a practical limit to how fast you can issue permits, build water lines and roads to new housing developments, and so on.
That doesn’t mean these things can’t be improved. Pro-housing policies help markets respond to population growth. But even a city like Calgary—with more pro-housing policies than another, like Toronto—can only build so fast.
Of course, housing supply and prices are influenced by more than the factors examined here. And this is just a single snapshot in time: cities that experienced population growth later in the period (like Calgary) may show more “catch-up” over the next year. Nonethless, this data gives us a glimpse into how different cities are keeping up, and why some might be falling behind.
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