Transforming Canada’s Housing System: Building an Action Framework for Results

On June 22nd, the Canadian Urban Institute urgently convened government, industry, finance and community leaders to address the issues facing housing in Canada and chart a path through the housing crisis.

Transforming Canada’s Housing System:  Building a Framework for Results highlights key quotes, outlines discussions and brings together the many crucial perspectives voiced at the Canada’s Housing Future Summit.  

Canada’s housing system did not fail all at once, and no single actor, program, or order of government can repair it alone. It is the product of decades of policy discontinuity—programs launched, wound down, and relaunched under new names—layered onto the realities of a small, geographically dispersed market that has never generated the scale needed to support serious investment in modern manufacturing and construction methods.  

Canada needs a housing system that aligns roles, resources, incentives, and accountability across governments, Indigenous partners, public institutions, private capital, non-market providers, builders, and communities. It must preserve existing affordability, unlock new supply, strengthen Indigenous-led and non-market housing, restore confidence in market delivery, and mobilize investment at the scale required. 

The solutions highlighted in this document – ranging from approvals and financing tools to municipal process, preservation, and Indigenous-led delivery – are real and worth pursuing. Each should be understood as one part of a larger system, not a substitute for building it.