Voters in Canada's largest province head to the polls Thursday, and housing affordability is a major issue as the ruling Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario looks for a third majority.
A poll conducted for Royal LePage, one of Canada's largest residential real estate brokerage companies, found 69% of adults in Ontario say they will be influenced by a party or candidate's position on tackling the current housing supply shortage and lack of affordability .
"Since the onset of the pandemic-induced real estate boom in 2020, housing affordability has been a growing concern, particularly in the country's most expensive and supply-strapped markets, Toronto and Vancouver," said Phil Soper, president and CEO of Royal LePage, in a commentary, accompanying the survey. "With affordability challenges reaching a crisis level, it comes as no surprise that voters, especially younger Canadians, are prioritizing housing policies as they head to the polls.
Soper said that despite the Bank of Canada reducing the overnight lending rate, a move that helps consumers with variable-rate mortgages, the underlying issue in the market is supply.
Premier Doug Ford called the election on Jan. 29 for the province with a population estimated at over 16 million, including the country's largest city, Toronto, and the Canadian capital, Ottawa. He called for the vote about 2.5 years ahead of the scheduled election of June 4, 2026, citing the need for a strong mandate to negotiate with United States President Donald Trump's tariff threat.
Under Ford, the Progressive Conservatives won their first majority government in 2018 and were reelected to another majority in June 2022.
The party's platform promises to build homes faster with measures such as standardizing development study requirements across the province. It also calls for trying to improve certainty by developing a province-wide tool to accelerate land use planning and building code permit approvals and ensuring all municipal standards are in compliance with the Ontario Building Code.
Tariff threat
Ford has been aggressive throughout the campaign against the American president.
"As long as Donald Trump is in the White House, we'll be staring down the threat of tariffs and economic uncertainty," said Ford this week.
Liberal leader Bonnie Crombie has said housing costs are "out of control" and points to Ford as a culprit. She has promised to cut taxes on housing by eliminating the Ontario Land Transfer Tax for first-time homebuyers, seniors downsizing and non-profit homebuilders.
She would also scrape development charges on new housing, which the Liberals maintain costs as much as $170,000 for each new family-sized home.
The third-place New Democratic Party under Marit Stiles has promised to bring in a more comprehensive rent control regime that eliminates vacancy decontrol, a system the allows landlord to set rent at any price once a tenant moves out.
Rent control in Ontario covers units built before Nov. 15, 2018, but the established guidelines that restricted rent increases to 2.5% in 2025 only apply to existing tenants.
A survey from rentals.ca found almost 85% of people say housing affordability has worsened in the last five years.
The company's January report on asking rents across the country for all apartments dropped to a 17-month low of $2,109 per month. However, that compares with a pandemic low $1,708 in December, 2020.
Ontario closed out 2024 with asking rents for all properties at an average of $2,332 per month, down 5% from a year earlier. However, Ontario was still the second most expensive province after British Columbia which had an average rental rate of $2,487.