By Craig Lord
Canadian Dwelling Builders’ Affiliation CEO Kevin Lee stated in Ottawa on Tuesday that the U.S. tariffs on Canada could have a “muted” influence on the business on their very own.
However he stated an anticipated slowdown within the economic system tied to tariff impacts might maintain the nationwide housing market again, dragging down housing begins.
Lee stated that, after weeks of President Donald Trump threatening to impose tariffs on Canadian exports, shopper confidence is already taking a success.
He stated fears about job insecurity tied to tariffs are doubtless filtering into the housing market, chilling funding demand and limiting hopes for a rebound this spring.
“We nonetheless have a little bit of a sluggish market even supposing rates of interest are coming down and we’d count on that’ll proceed to worsen because the commerce struggle continues, if it does,” Lee stated.
Conservative chief Pierre Poilievre stated Tuesday that the development sector is one business Trump “doesn’t management in Canada.” He stated it needs to be leveraged towards the influence of the commerce struggle.
He instructed reporters in Ottawa that Canada ought to chop gross sales tax and take away crimson tape on new building to “unleash the largest homebuilding increase this nation has ever seen.”
Lee additionally stated Friday that lowering the GST burden on new houses would assist to offset the influence of tariffs on builders.
Canada has responded to Trump’s commerce salvos with retaliatory tariffs focusing on $30 billion value of U.S. items, with billions extra in counter-tariffs set to observe in three weeks.
Lee stated that if these retaliatory tariffs hit vital building supplies coming from the U.S., they might drive up prices for builders.
The CHBA has requested the federal authorities to restrict the scope of counter-tariffs to both skirt building supplies totally or give attention to merchandise that builders can extra simply supply outdoors the U.S., Lee stated.
Trump’s tariffs arrived the identical morning the CHBA launched its third annual Municipal Benchmarking Examine, which tracks efforts to cut back homebuilding obstacles throughout Canada.
Cities in Ontario and British Columbia have been tagged because the worst offenders in the case of delaying new house building approvals and failing to cut back pricey growth costs.
Lee stated that whereas lowering these obstacles is essential to addressing Canada’s housing scarcity in the long term, municipalities might additionally “greater than offset” greater building prices tied to tariffs by slicing growth costs and dashing up approvals.
CHBA’s newest Municipal Benchmarking Examine provided a snapshot of growth processes throughout Canada as much as Might 2024, and doesn’t analyze the impacts of the federal authorities’s Housing Accelerator Fund aimed toward dashing up the tempo of native constructing.
Lee instructed reporters Tuesday that the CHBA has seen “fairly dramatic modifications” in some municipalities’ growth procedures, such because the elimination of restrictive zoning, because of the fund.
This report by The Canadian Press was first revealed March 4, 2025.
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Final modified: March 4, 2025