The $2.7 Billion Question: Who Really Benefits from Toronto's New Housing Push?

OPINION: On paper, a $2.7 billion injection into Toronto's housing stock looks like the lifeline the city's rent-burdened population has been desperate for. But as I dig into the mechanics of Prime Minister Mark Carney's announcement, the math reveals a troubling disparity between the rhetoric of affordability and the reality of the funding distribution.

As first reported by CBC Toronto, the federal government is pledging $2.7 billion over three years to support more than 18 housing projects. The goal is to create 5,600 rental homes, with Prime Minister Carney stating that 1,800 of these will be rent-controlled, supportive, or "deeply affordable." While Mayor Chow has framed this as a path toward housing security for those struggling with high rents, the structural divide of the funding suggests the private sector is the primary beneficiary.

Carney outlined two distinct channels for these projects. The first is the non-market, non-profit route managed by the federal agency Build Canada Homes. Through this channel, over $310 million will be used to move nine projects forward on land owned by the city, creating 1,900 homes. Of those, only more than 700 meet the definition of affordable housing. The city of Toronto is supplementing this with $530 million, including 99-year exemptions from school and municipal property taxes.

Then there is the second channel: market-rate housing. This is where the lion's share of the money resides. CBC Toronto reports that more than $1.8 billion in federal funding is earmarked for "attractive" low-cost financing for nine private-sector projects. While this will result in 3,700 new homes—more than 1,000 of which will be affordable—the sheer scale of the subsidy for market-rate developments is staggering compared to the non-profit allocation.

When you weigh $1.8 billion for private developers against the $310 million for non-profit projects, the priority becomes clear. We are effectively subsidizing the private market in the hopes that a fraction of the resulting units will remain affordable. For the thousands of Torontonians facing evictions and skyrocketing rents, a few hundred "affordable" units in a sea of market-rate rentals is a drop in the bucket.

Furthermore, the impact of this announcement is already being questioned. Conservative MP and housing critic Scott Aitchison told CBC Toronto that the plan is merely a "repackaging" of projects that were already announced or under construction, arguing it fails to address the broader need for homeownership.

Prime Minister Carney did note that these projects were previously stalled due to a lack of financing. He pointed to specific developments, such as a 16-story complex in Parkdale, a project at 158 Borough Drive in Scarborough, a sustainable timber and geothermal build at 1113-1125 Dundas Street W., and an Indigenous-led 100-unit development at 15 Denison Ave.

While these specific projects are welcome, the overarching strategy remains flawed. Without a shift in funding away from "attractive" private financing and toward permanent, non-market housing, we aren't solving the affordability crisis—we're just financing the developers who profit from it.