Publish the Housing Acceleration Ledger

PBO’s housing updates show why Ottawa must separate real acceleration from reannouncements, pre-existing reforms and unspent cash.

Ottawa’s housing message is built around acceleration: spend big, push municipalities to change rules, and get homes built faster. The Parliamentary Budget Officer’s July update asks the question taxpayers should ask before the next announcement: what did federal money actually cause?

The Housing Accelerator Fund is now allocated $4.44 billion over five years. CMHC has committed $4.37 billion across 230 agreements with sub-national governments, tied to a stated target of 112,000 additional homes by 2028 compared with what otherwise would have been built. Those are large numbers, and they deserve a public results ledger as detailed as the press releases.

The first receipt is cash flow. PBO says CMHC had initial reporting for many major cities in the first year of their agreements. Of $599 million advanced to those jurisdictions, only $93 million — 16 percent — had been spent by the end of that first year. If the program is meant to buy acceleration, Canadians should see why most first-year advanced money was still sitting unspent, which projects were delayed, and whether any targets were adjusted.

The second receipt is causation. PBO found participating jurisdictions issued permits for 31 percent more units and saw 5 percent more housing starts than their 2018-to-2023 average from October 2024 to April 2025. That sounds encouraging, but the same update says the gains were uneven: Quebec, Calgary and Edmonton increases were largely offset by decreases in the Toronto CMA and other Ontario areas. PBO also noted that major rezoning initiatives in Quebec, Calgary and Edmonton were already well underway or legislatively approved before their HAF agreements were signed.

That does not prove the fund failed. It does prove Ottawa cannot simply claim every permit or start as a federal win. A conservative accountability standard is straightforward: separate homes plausibly induced by HAF from homes produced by pre-existing local reforms, market conditions, provincial policy, or projects that were already moving.

The infrastructure side needs the same sunlight. PBO’s companion update says the Canada Housing Infrastructure Fund is allocated $5.7 billion over 10 years. Agreements had been signed with British Columbia, Atlantic provinces, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and the territories, but not with Ontario, Quebec or Alberta. If agreements are not signed, PBO says $3.0 billion allocated for those provinces — 63 percent of the provincial-territorial stream — would need to be reallocated to direct delivery.

That is not a clerical detail. Reallocating billions from unsigned provincial agreements to direct delivery changes who chooses projects, what conditions apply, and how the public can follow the money. If the government wants credit for housing infrastructure, it should publish the negotiation status, missed deadlines, reallocation rules, project-selection criteria and audit trail before the money moves.

The ledger should be simple: dollars advanced, dollars spent, initiative status, permit and start targets, induced-unit methodology, pre-existing rezoning credits, jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction variance, CHIF agreement status, and every direct-delivery project with cost, purpose, approvals and housing-enabling outcome. Housing announcements are easy. Receipts are harder. Taxpayers deserve the receipts.