Yesterday, Statistics Canada released its building permits data for April 2026 and the ranked April 2025 to April 2026 growth rates reveal that Thunder Bay led the country's CMAs in growth in the value of total building permit values issued in April. Building permit values are an indicator of new investment both in terms of residential as well as non-residential construction (commercial, institutional). Canada as a whole saw a 7.6 percent decrease in the value of permits issued for the month of April - not exactly a good sign for a country that needs to up its investment game not to mention boost residential housing stock. The total for all CMAs was down 1.7 percent.
Figure 1 plots the percent change in the seasonally adjusted total value of permits issued between April 2025 and April 2026 for Canada's CMAs ranked from highest to lowest. At the top is Thunder Bay which going from $6.4 million to $25.6 million in value of permits issued had a 300 percent growth rate. It was followed by Peterborough, ON at 195 percent and then Brantford, ON at 87.3 percent. Of 43 CMAs, 16 saw an increase in the total value of permits while the remainder saw a decline with the steepest declines in Hamilton, ON and Red Deer, AB at 59 and 80 percent respectively. The other northern Ontario CMA also saw a decline at 48 percent. Essentially, two thirds of Canada's CMAs saw a drop in the total value of permits issued while one third saw an increase. Keep in mind that this is just a monthly performance and preliminary at that.
As well, these are total permit activity values and what is often of more interest given the high rents and housing affordability in general is what kind of growth has there been in residential housing. This is a different data series ( Statistics Canada Table 34-10-0293-01) and a look at the numbers paints a somewhat different picture.
Figure 2 shows the ranked percent change in the annual value of total residential construction between 2024 and 2025. At the top at 69 and 47 percent respectively are Brantford and Quebec City. About 80 percent of CMAs saw growth in the value of residential construction between 2024 and 2025 which bodes well for supply side fixes to housing affordability in those cities. Keep in mind that this is total value rather than the number of units which means that even those cities that saw a decline may actually be building more units per capita than cities with an increase in total value of residential construction given differences in building costs and prices. In Figure 2, Thunder Bay is near the bottom with a decline of 2.6 percent while Peterborough is last a -24 percent. However, one cannot really reach a firm conclusion as to what is going on given the comparison is between somewhat different variables as well as of annualized monthly data with annual totals.
Overall, still quite interesting numbers.
