Tying immigration to homes a ‘good’ idea but not a fix-all: Housing minister

Housing Minister Sean Fraser says he supports the idea of tying the number of immigrants to Canada with the number of homes built; something Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is also proposing.

But he suggests Poilievre’s pledge to link immigration and homebuilding in response to the country’s housing shortage doesn’t focus enough on where Fraser says the most impactful population growth is coming from: temporary foreign workers and international students, not permanent immigrants.

“Is the idea of tying the number of people who come to Canada to the number of homes available a good one? Yes. In fact, it’s one of the factors we have considered over the past number of years,” said Fraser during a housing announcement in Halifax on Monday.

“But we need to recognize that we have to bring other players to the table, not just provincial counterparts but the institutions who are dramatically increasing the number of study permits they request, sometimes at the personal financial gain of some of the people behind some of those private colleges.”

At a news conference in Winnipeg last Friday, Poilievre accused the housing minister of “failing to make the link between the number of homes built and the population growth” in his previous role as immigration minister.

“Obviously you need to build homes if you’re going to bring in people and right now, we’re not building enough homes,” Poilievre told reporters.

Internal documents from 2022 obtained by the Canadian Press show employees within the immigration department warned their deputy minister that boosting immigration would affect housing.

Ultimately, the Liberals decided to increase the number of permanent residents to half a million in 2025. They defended their decision, saying