Jake Fuss &Austin Thompson 卡尼大政府介入住房市场 重大风险
Carney wants big government to get into housing – a major risk to taxpayers
Jake Fuss & Austin Thompson MAY 12, 2025
杰克·福斯和奥斯汀·汤普森是弗雷泽研究所的分析师。
贸易战、美国总统唐纳德·特朗普对加拿大主权的威胁以及全球经济动荡在最近的联邦选举中占据了主导地位。然而，许多选民仍然关注一个更贴近自身的问题：住房负担能力。
2023年，在时任加拿大总理贾斯汀·特鲁多的领导下，加拿大新增居民120万，创历史新高，是2019年创下的纪录的两倍多，去年又新增了95.1万居民。总而言之，自2022年以来，加拿大人口增长了约300万人，大致相当于整个20世纪90年代的人口增长总量。
毫不奇怪，房屋建设未能跟上步伐。事实上，尽管自那时以来人口增长了两倍多，但住房建设率几乎没有超过20世纪70年代的水平。结果导致住房成本历史性飙升。
在最近的大选竞选活动中，自由党设定了每年约40万的移民目标，这一目标低于近期的最高纪录，但按历史标准来看仍然很高，并提出了一项计划，声称将在十年内将加拿大的住宅建设率翻一番，达到每年50万套新房。但这真的是一个好计划吗？自由党能兑现承诺吗？
首先是好消息。为了促进私人住宅建设，卡尼政府承诺推出税收优惠政策，包括租赁建筑补贴，这将有助于降低新建多单元租赁建筑的税负，以及为部分首次购房者提供商品及服务税（GST）豁免，这可能会降低新建住宅的成本，刺激更多住宅建设。
政府还计划扩大“住房加速基金”（Housing Accelerator Fund），该基金向市政当局提供联邦资金，以换取更灵活的市政建筑规则，并更新联邦建筑规范，从而缩短建设工期。
虽然很大程度上取决于执行情况，但这些政策旨在使私营部门建造房屋更快、更便宜、更具吸引力，这是理所当然的。
现在，坏消息来了。卡尼政府计划成立一个名为“建设加拿大房屋”（Build Canada Homes，BCH）的新联邦实体，以“让政府重新掌控建筑业”。根据卡尼先生的愿景，加拿大基础设施银行（BCH）将“充当开发商，建设经济适用房”，并为房屋建筑商提供超过250亿加元的融资，以及100亿加元的低成本融资和资本，用于建造“经济适用房”。
我们以前也见过类似的情况。2017年，特鲁多政府成立了加拿大基础设施银行（CIB），旨在投资“加拿大人需要的下一代基础设施”。自那时起，CIB已批准了76个项目，总投资约132亿加元，但截至2024年7月，只有两个由CIB资助的项目竣工，这促使下议院多党委员会报告的作者建议废除CIB。
管理BCH的官僚们既不具备私营部门在住房开发方面的专业知识，也没有同样的激励机制来降低成本。加拿大住房和城市发展委员会（BCH）的职责已因相互冲突的目标而变得混乱——它必须提供“经济适用房”，同时又优先考虑某些建筑材料（例如加拿大软木材），而这可能会增加建筑成本。
BCH数十亿美元的贷款组合计划包括大量“低成本”（即纳税人补贴）融资、对预制房屋建设的巨额押注，以及不确定谁将为任何失败的项目负责。所有这些加在一起，意味着纳税人的成本和风险将大幅增加，而他们本已背负着不断上升的联邦赤字和债务。
BCH还可能将有限的投资资金和建设资源从私人住宅建设（这些项目旨在满足加拿大购房者和租房者的需求）转移到受政治目标影响的政府支持的住房项目。BCH可能只会重新分配有限的资源，而不是促进整体住宅建设。而且，正如政府所指出的，加拿大严重缺乏熟练的建筑工人。
很难想象卡尼先生的住房计划能够使加拿大的住房建设速度翻一番——这是一个非常雄心勃勃的目标，不仅需要审慎的住房政策，还需要更大的国内储蓄，建筑业劳动力的难以置信的大幅扩张（过去十年仅增长了18.4%），以及承受在某些社区和公共土地上住房开发所面临的强烈反对的政治勇气。
加拿大联邦政府的领导将有利于解决澳大利亚的住房危机，但不应使其过度扩张。卡尼政府不应过度承诺无法兑现的承诺，而应重新关注其最擅长的事情：改革激励措施、简化法规，并推动各省市取消对住房建设的限制。试图同时充当住房开发商和贷款机构，风险要大得多。
Carney wants big government to get into housing – a major risk to taxpayers
Jake Fuss & Austin Thompson MAY 12, 2025
Prime Minister Mark Carney gestures to his hard hat at a lumber mill in Elmsdale, N.S., on March 25A trade war, U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats to Canada’s sovereignty, and global economic volatility loomed large in the recent federal election. Yet many voters remained focused on an issue much closer to home: housing affordability.
In 2023, under then prime minister Justin Trudeau, Canada added a record high 1.2 million new residents – more than double the previous record set in 2019 – and another 951,000 new residents last year. All told, Canada’s population has grown by about three million people since 2022, roughly matching the total population increase during the entire decade of the 1990s.
Not surprisingly, home building has failed to keep pace. In fact, housing construction rates have barely exceeded 1970s levels, even though the population has more than tripled since then. The result has been a historic surge in housing costs.
On the campaign trail for the recent election, the Liberals set an immigration target of about 400,000 per year, which is lower than the recent record highs but still high by historical standards, and tabled a plan that they claim will double Canada’s residential construction rate to 500,000 new homes per year within a decade. But is it a good plan? And can the Liberals deliver it?
First, the good news. To help boost private home building, the Carney government promised to introduce tax incentives, including a rental building allowance, which would help reduce the tax bill on new multiunit rental buildings, and a GST exemption for some first-time homebuyers, which may reduce the cost of newly built homes and spur more home building.
The government also plans to expand the “Housing Accelerator Fund,” which offers federal dollars to municipalities in exchange for more flexible municipal building rules, and to modernize the federal building code, which could shorten construction timelines.
While much will depend on execution, these policies rightly aim to make it faster, cheaper and more attractive for the private sector to build homes.
Now, the bad news. The Carney government plans to create a new federal entity called Build Canada Homes (BCH) to “get the government back in the business of building.” According to Mr. Carney’s vision, the BCH will act “as a developer to build affordable housing” and provide more than $25-billion in financing to home builders and $10-billion in low-cost financing and capital for home builders to build “affordable” homes.
We’ve seen a similar movie before. In 2017, the Trudeau government created the Canada Infrastructure Bank (CIB) to invest in the “next generation of infrastructure Canadians need.” Since then, the CIB has approved approximately $13.2-billion in investments across 76 projects, but as of July, 2024, only two CIB-funded projects had been completed, prompting the authors of a multiparty House of Commons committee report to recommend abolishing the CIB.
The bureaucrats who will run the BCH won’t have the private sector’s expertise in housing development, nor the same incentives to keep costs down. BCH’s mandate is already muddled by competing goals – it must deliver “affordable” homes while simultaneously prioritizing certain building materials (e.g. Canadian softwood lumber), which could increase building costs.
The plan for BCH’s multibillion-dollar loan portfolio includes significant “low cost” (that is, taxpayer subsidized) financing, a huge bet on prefabricated home building, and no certainty about who will be on the hook for any failed projects. Combined, this represents a major increase in costs and risks for taxpayers at a time when they already shoulder rising federal deficits and debt.
There’s also a real risk that BCH will simply divert limited investment dollars and construction resources away from private home building – where projects respond to the needs of Canadian homebuyers and renters – and toward government-backed housing projects shaped by political goals. Instead of boosting overall home building, BCH may simply reshuffle limited resources. And, as noted by the government, there’s a severe shortage of skilled construction labour in Canada.
It’s hard to see how Mr. Carney’s housing plan would double the pace of home building in Canada – a very ambitious target that would require not only prudent housing policies but greater domestic savings, an implausibly large expansion in the construction work force (which grew by only 18.4 per cent over the last decade), and the political fortitude to endure vocal opposition to housing development in certain neighbourhoods and on public lands.
Canada’s housing crisis will benefit from federal leadership – but not federal overreach. Rather than overpromising what it can’t deliver, the Carney government should refocus on what it’s best positioned to do: reform incentives, streamline regulations and nudge municipalities and provinces to remove constraints on home building. Trying to also act as a housing developer and lender is a far riskier approach.
