The

Parliamentary Budget Office

projects Canada’s new housing federal agency will

add 26,000 housing units

over the next five years.

This is a 2.1 per cent increase in housing completions relative to the PBO’s baseline forecast and will only address 3.7 per cent of the units needed to close the housing gap, according to a report released on Tuesday.

The

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation

(CMHC) estimates

homebuilding must nearly double

to between 430,000 and 480,000 units per year over the next decade, to

restore affordability

to 2019 levels. The PBO estimates 290,000 units annually would be needed to close the supply gap.

Build Canada Homes

, a federal agency launched by Prime Minister Mark Carney in September, has a mandate to scale the

supply of affordable housing

. The

federal budget

earmarked $13 billion over the next five years for the new agency.

The PBO said the agency has been promised as a means to double the pace of housing construction, but no such plan has been presented to achieve this.

Of the 26,000 housing units, the PBO estimates 13,000 will be affordable housing units available for low-income households.

The federal budget also introduced cuts to the CMHC’s housing programs, reducing funding by $2.4 billion from 2026-27 to 2029-30, and $860 million annually after that.

The PBO said funding will shift away from programs like the Canada Housing Benefit and funding for existing social housing.

“The 13,000 new units that are affordable for low-income households would contribute to housing affordability for residents,” the report said. “However, the addition of these units would only partially offset the

decline in overall affordability support

.”

In response to the report, Housing minister Gregor Robertson said the PBO did not highlight how the funding will attract private investment in homebuilding.

“We have just the initial capitalization in the budget of $13 billion. We also have $51 billion of housing-enabling infrastructure, so combined, a significant investment that’s designed to attract private investment,” he said.

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• Email: jgowling@postmedia.com