Statistics Canada Reports II

[vanatox]

Originally Posted by Taeolas

Looks like they are from the

"Housing Start Data in Centres 10,000 Population and Over (Metropolitan Areas)
January – October 2024 – 2025" table on the article linked earlier

Though the KW numbers don't quite match; the rest of them do. May just have been a transcription error.

Ok numbers were wrong for quite a few cities then and some cities were missing. Here is the revised list (2000 units +):

Calgary 23,951
Montreal 22,173
Vancouver 22,001
Toronto 21,574
Edmonton 17,989
Ottawa-Gatineau 9862
Quebec City 7666
Halifax 5893
Winnipeg 4914
Victoria 4129
KW 3656
Saskatoon 3275
London 2592
Kelowna 2314
Moncton 2212
Hamilton 2152
Abbotsford-Mission 2039

[MonctonRad]

Updated stats!

Moncton now at 2212 YTD (more than Hamilton)

[Changing City]

It's interesting to see how different the sequence is when looking at the numbers of dwellings under construction at the end of October.

Toronto 89,256
Vancouver 61,577
Montreal 32,702
Calgary 26,545
Ottawa-Gatineau 20,990
Edmonton 13,539
Halifax 13,206
Quebec City 9,676
Victoria 8,896
Winnipeg 7,974
KW 7,250
Hamilton 6,837
Kelowna 6,197
London 5,200
Saskatoon 4,113
Moncton 3,714
Abbotsford-Mission 3,006

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Drybrain

According to the CMHC's very detailed data information portal, only 690 of the Halifax starts were single-family detached. Of the remaining 5,200, about 2,200 were on the peninsula, downtown Dartmouth and Fairview (a mid-century suburb adjacent to the central city that's increasingly an extension of it).

It still seems like a lot for the inner city. 2,200 is perhaps housing for 4-5,000 new people just in one year, in an area that probably has something like 150,000 people total, or did not too long ago.

Another thing about Halifax is it's quite old with an unusually large inner city that had mildly decayed (especially around the North End). So if you add 1,000 units to some of those neighbourhoods it can have a really big impact. They go from rowhouses and parking lots without much else going on to rowhouses and apartments with lots of interesting businesses. The older street grid and finer-grained land ownership makes a big difference. It's interesting how there are some old quirks of the street system, like lanes, that became non-entities due to demolition but have started "re-emerging" (Ironstone, Pickard, Navy Lane, and the former Dundonald now called "Norma Eddy Lane"). It is too bad some more of the complexity around Cogswell wasn't brought back.

I'm a little surprised that more of it wasn't central, but there's lots throughout the inner and outer suburbs. There is also a big chunk (1,900) in effectively exurban areas. That's a bit different from the past several years, when growth was REALLY concentrated on the core, but it's still an overall urbanizing trend.

Another shift is that what were exurbs are becoming more like suburbs. I am thinking of areas like inner Hammonds Plains or the Elmsdale blob.

[ssiguy]

Originally Posted by Changing City

It's interesting to see how different the sequence is when looking at the numbers of dwellings under construction at the end of October.

Toronto 89,256
Vancouver 61,577
Montreal 32,702
Calgary 26,545
Ottawa-Gatineau 20,990
Edmonton 13,539
Halifax 13,206
Quebec City 9,676
Victoria 8,896
Winnipeg 7,974
KW 7,250
Hamilton 6,837
Kelowna 6,197
London 5,200
Saskatoon 4,113
Moncton 3,714
Abbotsford-Mission 3,006

Thanks for those stats as they provide info on what's actually happening on the ground.

Under construction means exactly that, shovels are in the ground. Housing starts, however, are very much a lagging indicator as a housing start is not registered until the building meets ground level. That's not a big difference with SFHs & town/row homes but is a very big one for apt/condo towers especially when they have underground parking. A 30 story building may take a year or more just to get to ground level and hence is not considered a housing start until it gets there.

[harls]

The area around where I own my second property (jesus, I sound like some other quebec forumer) has been non-stop construction for the last 10 years.

[Chocolite]

Originally Posted by vanatox

Ok numbers were wrong for quite a few cities then and some cities were missing. Here is the revised list (2000 units +):

Calgary 23,951
Montreal 22,173
Vancouver 22,001
Toronto 21,574
Edmonton 17,989
Ottawa-Gatineau 9862
Quebec City 7666
Halifax 5893
Winnipeg 4914
Victoria 4129
KW 3656
Saskatoon 3275
London 2592
Kelowna 2314
Moncton 2212
Hamilton 2152
Abbotsford-Mission 2039

Interesting...I got my numbers from this link, and they're a bit different than the ones from your link. https://www03.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/hmip-pimh/en#TableMapChart/1/1/Canada even though they're both from CMHC.

[Chocolite]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

Thanks for those stats as they provide info on what's actually happening on the ground.

Under construction means exactly that, shovels are in the ground. Housing starts, however, are very much a lagging indicator as a housing start is not registered until the building meets ground level. That's not a big difference with SFHs & town/row homes but is a very big one for apt/condo towers especially when they have underground parking. A 30 story building may take a year or more just to get to ground level and hence is not considered a housing start until it gets there.

Originally Posted by Changing City

It's interesting to see how different the sequence is when looking at the numbers of dwellings under construction at the end of October.

Toronto 89,256
Vancouver 61,577
Montreal 32,702
Calgary 26,545
Ottawa-Gatineau 20,990
Edmonton 13,539
Halifax 13,206
Quebec City 9,676
Victoria 8,896
Winnipeg 7,974
KW 7,250
Hamilton 6,837
Kelowna 6,197
London 5,200
Saskatoon 4,113
Moncton 3,714
Abbotsford-Mission 3,006

U/C numbers are interesting as they show more what's happening today, but also those numbers reflect differently depending on how type of housing being built. Looking at Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, and Ottawa the vast majority of the housing units built are apartment, so the the numbers for under construction will be higher as for those units the window from start to finish is longer as compared to SFH's, semi and rowhome, which are built in larger percentages for cities like Calgary, Edmonton or Winnipeg.

A good measure would be to see how many houses are built over a 2-3, or maybe 5 year period. If I find some extra time i might take that on, for the fun of it. Over the past 5 years, Toronto and Vancouver will be head and shoulders above the other cities, but I imagine Calgary and Montreal will have strong numbers as well.

[jc_yyc_ca]

Originally Posted by Chocolite

U/C numbers are interesting as they show more what's happening today, but also those numbers reflect differently depending on how type of housing being built. Looking at Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, and Ottawa the vast majority of the housing units built are apartment, so the the numbers for under construction will be higher as for those units the window from start to finish is longer as compared to SFH's, semi and rowhome, which are built in larger percentages for cities like Calgary, Edmonton or Winnipeg.

A good measure would be to see how many houses are built over a 2-3, or maybe 5 year period. If I find some extra time i might take that on, for the fun of it. Over the past 5 years, Toronto and Vancouver will be head and shoulders above the other cities, but I imagine Calgary and Montreal will have strong numbers as well.

Calgary has a fair amount of SFHs. but a large amount of semi-detatched and rowhomes. Calgary's the king of rowhome housing these days.
Calgary has a substantial amount of apartments (usually around 50% of the housing starts) but a lot of them are low rise wood-frame and they also get built quickly compared to the concrete highrises.

[KnoxfordGuy]

Population projections for up to 2049 in all growth scenarios was released by StatsCan today. Interesting to look at:

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/251128/dq251128i-eng.htm

[zoomer]

Thanks for sharing that KnoxfordGuy.

As per the usual sorting method of the Government of Canada, living in Victoria, or in BC I guess, I'm used to having to scroll.......... to the very bottom of the page as they always go from east to west in their documents. Which is weird because we read west to east (right to left). Anyways, after all that I couldn't even find Victoria. So I guess they're projecting we'll fall into the ocean - fair enough. I did a search and came across Victoria Nova Scotia and Victoria New Brunswick. Which reminds me about 1/3 of the time when I told people in Montreal I was from Victoria there was a blank look on their face.. so I had to say, in BC, near Vancouver. Ah, then they got it. Maybe Victoria Nova Scotia and New Brunswick are more popular than I realized or they assumed incorrectly I had an Aussie accent and I was referring to the state?

But I digress.. I found it. For some reason it's just called "Capital, British Columbia" - I suppose as they were busy typing up the ol' list someone forgot the name, they were finally getting near the end and they said screw it, I'll just put Capital. Says I as I look at my signature..

[Zeej]

Originally Posted by zoomer

Thanks for sharing that KnoxfordGuy.

As per the usual sorting method of the Government of Canada, living in Victoria, or in BC I guess, I'm used to having to scroll.......... to the very bottom of the page as they always go from east to west in their documents. Which is weird because we read west to east (right to left). Anyways, after all that I couldn't even find Victoria. So I guess they're projecting we'll fall into the ocean - fair enough. I did a search and came across Victoria Nova Scotia and Victoria New Brunswick. Which reminds me about 1/3 of the time when I told people in Montreal I was from Victoria there was a blank look on their face.. so I had to say, in BC, near Vancouver. Ah, then they got it. Maybe Victoria Nova Scotia and New Brunswick are more popular than I realized or they assumed incorrectly I had an Aussie accent and I was referring to the state?

But I digress.. I found it. For some reason it's just called "Capital, British Columbia" - I suppose as they were busy typing up the ol' list someone forgot the name, they were finally getting near the end and they said screw it, I'll just put Capital. Says I as I look at my signature..

Montrealers are stereotypically very worldly, but know generally very little about Canada West of Toronto and East of New Brunswick because of reasons.

Ah Vancouver, stunning metropolis on Vancouver Island.

[someone123]

I remember looking at old projections like these from the 60's to 80's. They were wildly off and inconsistent region to region (not consistently under or over, but huge error bars). I'd guess that in 2020, Statistics Canada had little idea of what the 2025 population would be.

I don't think they mean much in a country with immigration and arbitrary government policy that can wildly shift migration patterns, bubbly housing costs, etc.

[zoomer]

/\/\ haha, yes I concur with all that! And yes, the island thing is confusing, the odd tourist gets confused why the ferry info doesn't say "Victoria Island" as they leave Vancouver to go to Vancouver Island.

And to be fair in Toronto an older wealthy appearing woman's response was "ah,Victoria that's in the West isn't it?" She was just missing the English accent and a reference to peasants, haha.

[harls]

Originally Posted by zoomer

As per the usual sorting method of the Government of Canada, living in Victoria, or in BC I guess, I'm used to having to scroll.......... to the very bottom of the page as they always go from east to west in their documents. Which is weird because we read west to east (right to left). Anyways, after all that I couldn't even find Victoria.

Tsk, tsk zoomer, all things follow the rise of the sun.

[LeftCoaster]

Originally Posted by zoomer

But I digress.. I found it. For some reason it's just called "Capital, British Columbia" - I suppose as they were busy typing up the ol' list someone forgot the name, they were finally getting near the end and they said screw it, I'll just put Capital. Says I as I look at my signature..

Isn't it just done by Regional District in that list? i.e. Capital Regional District and Greater Vancouver Regional District?

Also am I reading it wrong or are the projections just outrageously conservative?

The medium growth scenario seems to show an annual growth rate of 0.67%. I know we're walking back the mayhem immigration of the past few years but that is very low. Even the high growth scenario is only 1.2% per annum.

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by LeftCoaster

Isn't it just done by Regional District in that list? i.e. Capital Regional District and Greater Vancouver Regional District?

Also am I reading it wrong or are the projections just outrageously conservative?

The medium growth scenario seems to show an annual growth rate of 0.67%. I know we're walking back the mayhem immigration of the past few years but that is very low. Even the high growth scenario is only 1.2% per annum.

If you look at the 2021 Census, Canada added 1.84m in five years. 1.33m of them were recent immigrants - landed immigrants or people with permanent resident status who arrived in the previous 5 years. So the 'natural increase', (without recent immigrants), was only about 100,000 a year.

Our fertility rate is now 1.25 children per woman in 2024, a record low. "The record low in 2024 marks the continuation of a general decrease in the fertility rate since 2009. [StatsCan]. Combined with the large cohort of boomers who will have almost aged out of existance between now and 2049, and a very low replacement rate, and with more modest immigration than we've seen in recent years, it's possible to project the country having fewer residents in 2049 than today. There are many countries where the population is falling (including China), so to project continued growth here assumes reasonably robust continuing immigration.

[ssiguy]

It's completely impossible to make population forecasts in Canada. We have one of the world's lowest birth rates and the lowest in the English & French speaking world. About 97% of all our population growth is due to immigration and immigration is a political decision and can change on a dime.

Just 2 years ago, Canada was growing at a numbing 3.2% a year, the fastest rate in the world outside of Sub-Saharan Africa. If we kept that up, Canada would be at 80 million by 2050. Now, the political decisions have done a 180 and we are looking at a no growth scenario for 2026 and very little this year.

One of the few things the Tories & Liberals have agreed upon in the last 30 years was to have an immigration, and hence population, growth rate of about 1% a year. It was good for the economy and yet manageable. Trudeau threw that consensus right out the window and now Carney is having to go completely the other way. Trudeau has damaged Canadian's views on immigration in a very profound way and it will be a long time before Canadians warm up to immigration again, even 1%. This makes forecasts nearly impossible as it also does for urban, social, economic, and financial planning.

[jamincan]

As others note, projections this far out aren't that meaningful. They are necessary, though, to help facilitate longer-term planning, which is why this is being done at a Census Subdivision/Division level which are meaningful divisions determined by the provinces.

I do find it interesting that in all growth scenarios, they seem to show Winnipeg moving well ahead of Quebec and Hamilton (I am looking at Quebec + Levis and Hamilton + Burlington, but it admittedly isn't a CMA to CMA comparison), and alongside Winnipeg they show Waterloo with a very comparable population and London close behind Hamilton.

[Innsertnamehere]

Those Burlington numbers are really odd. Burlington is already over 200,000 from what I recall, and definitely over 190,000.