Winnipeg housing starts collapse 46%, multi-unit starts down 67%

Mayor Scott Gillingham and his council recently took a victory lap, touting a “record number” of housing approvals in Winnipeg. But what they won’t tell you is that housing starts—the real indicator of building activity—are in sharp decline. CMHC data doesn’t lie. Winnipeg housing starts are down 46% overall compared to last year. Multi-unit housing starts? Down 67%. And when you stack us up against other Canadian cities, we’re among the worst performers in the country.

So how do the mayor and his council justify the celebration? They can’t. Because approvals mean nothing if shovels aren’t hitting the ground. A permit on paper doesn’t solve the housing crisis. Homes that don’t get built don’t house families. You can host all the press conferences you want, but the data tells a different story. And it’s one we can’t ignore any longer.

Let’s get specific. The cities with the biggest drop in housing starts this year include Peterborough, Kitchener, and Oshawa—but Winnipeg sits firmly in that bottom tier at number seven, with nearly half the activity wiped out compared to 2024. On a provincial level, Manitoba ranks dead last. Dead last. Housing starts across our province fell 39%, trailing even the Maritimes, where the declines were much smaller.

Meanwhile, Canada as a whole is moving in the opposite direction. Nationally, housing starts rose 14% year over year in communities with more than 10,000 people. Alberta, B.C., and New Brunswick are leading the charge with growth of 41%, 63%, and 35%, respectively. Cities like Victoria and Edmonton are doubling or tripling their output. Winnipeg isn’t just falling behind—we’re in freefall.

The question is why. Why is Winnipeg lagging while other regions are pushing ahead?

Part of the answer lies in City Hall. There’s too much red tape. Too many delays. Too many departments are pulling builders in opposite directions. Developers aren’t looking for a free ride—they’re looking for a fair, predictable, and timely process. What they get instead is bureaucracy that slows projects down, drives costs up, and ultimately makes housing less affordable.

We’ve seen it again and again. The Parker Lands development is still stalled. The Polo Park redevelopment—barely moving. Both have the potential to bring thousands of housing units online. Both have been choked by a system more concerned with control than collaboration.

Instead of removing barriers, this council is focused on infill projects that make for good press but do little to address affordability. Tearing down a $300,000 home in a single-family neighbourhood to build a triplex where each unit sells for $400,000 doesn’t solve the real problem. It just replaces one unaffordable option with three more.

The real crisis isn’t that we don’t have enough buildings—it’s that we don’t have enough homes people can afford to live in. That’s a big difference, and it’s one city hall seems unwilling to acknowledge.

We need to be honest about where this is headed. Interest rates remain high, and many homeowners are staring down massive mortgage renewals between now and 2026. Add to that the largest property tax increase in decades, higher water bills, and new garbage collection fees, and it's no wonder builders are pulling back. The math no longer works—not for them, and not for the people trying to buy or rent a home.

So what’s the solution?

We start by focusing on the kind of housing that actually addresses need—units with rent geared to income, not luxury condos or high-priced infill developments. That means putting a priority on fast-tracking affordable housing projects. It means clearing the backlog of applications that get bogged down in planning, zoning, and regulatory limbo. And it means listening to home builders instead of treating them like a problem to be managed.

We need a new relationship between city hall and the private sector—one built on partnership, not paperwork. Government should be setting the table, not standing in the way.

It’s time to stop chasing federal dollars by approving projects that look good in a press release but don’t meet the needs of working families. Let’s stop pretending that cramming fourplexes into quiet neighbourhoods is the same thing as addressing homelessness or building attainable housing for young couples, new Canadians, or fixed-income seniors.

What Winnipeg needs is a real plan. One that focuses on affordability, speed, and scale. A plan that cuts through the red tape and gets back to the basics: supply, demand, and cost.

That starts with admitting we have a problem. A council that takes a victory lap while housing starts collapse is out of touch with what’s happening on the ground. And if they’re not going to fix it, then voters need to demand leaders who will.

Winnipeg can do better. We must do better. But it starts by facing the facts—not rewriting them.