[suburbanite]

All of the talk around the need for construction workers also misses the fact that land availability is a far bigger constraint on new home construction. No doubt that the fastest growing markets need additional labour and that there are constraints (especially in certain key trades), but at the end of the day doubling the labour force would lead to a disproportionately smaller increase in housing starts if it doesn't also come with significant land use policy changes. It's like saying I just need to buy new running shoes to win a marathon since mine are falling apart, while ignoring the fact that my ACL is partially torn.

For labour availability to be the key constraint it would mean that there are a be a bunch of shovel-ready sites that are sitting there burning through holding costs solely because they can't secure the necessary contractors. I hear lots of grumbling about labour prices (paying bonuses to trades so they don't walk away to other sites), and how things are moving slowly due to some of these bottlenecks, but I'm not aware of many instances were someone can't even start a large-scale project. Labour shortages in construction are much more likely to affect things like custom home building, renovations, and other small projects. That being said, given that we're actually making some progress on promoting development activities like multi-plex conversions, it should be a no-brainer for any government to make a concerted effort to get more immigrants into construction, target skilled labour abroad, work on a streamlined accreditation system, etc. Increasing the availability of labour long-term helps create an ecosystem that promotes homebuilding all the way down the pyramid from a 600 unit high-rise to a 3 unit rental project.