No Canadian Province Scores Above C+ on Housing Policy

A new report card from the University of Ottawa's Missing Middle Initiative graded all Canadian provinces on housing policy. The results aren't encouraging.

No province scored higher than a C+. Ontario got a D. BC managed a C+, same as Quebec and PEI. Alberta received a D+, the lowest grade in the country.

The report looked at 36 indicators across five categories. Things like approval speeds, development charges, whether provinces are implementing pro-supply policies, and whether they're avoiding harmful ones. It also measured outcomes like affordability, housing supply growth, and whether young adults can actually move out of their parents' homes.

The federal government received a B, the highest grade overall. But provinces control most of the levers that actually matter for housing. Zoning. Building codes. Development charges. Municipal compliance. Without provincial action, federal programs can only do so much.

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The Winners and Losers

PEI tied with BC and Quebec for the best score at C+. That might seem surprising for a small province, but Mike Moffatt, the report's author and founding director of the Missing Middle Initiative, says PEI "punches above its weight when it comes to housing policy."

What's PEI doing right? Not much that's complicated. Low development charges. No land transfer tax. Fast approvals. A clear housing strategy that lays out specific goals for the next five years.

"A lot of it is just not getting in your own way," Moffatt said in an interview. "One of the big take-aways for me is that it's not just about provinces doing the right things, but it's also them avoiding doing the wrong things."

Ontario landed at the bottom with a D. Toronto's approval times average about 25 months, the slowest in the country. The province has some of the highest development charges for both low-rise and highrise projects. Affordability is poor. Young adults can't form independent households at rates seen elsewhere.

BC got a C+ despite introducing what the report calls "the most ambitious reforms" in the country. The problem is execution. Municipal development charges keep rising. Approval times remain among the slowest in Canada. What looks good on paper gets undermined by how it plays out locally.

Alberta's D+ came with pushback from the provincial government. In a statement, the province called the report "politically motivated" and said it's "a report by a climate activist group that ignores reality in an effort to push their green agenda."

The report was commissioned by the Task Force for Housing and Climate, funded by the Clean Economy Fund. That gives Alberta a talking point. But the data on approval times, development charges, and housing starts is public. Whether you agree with the report's climate focus or not, the housing metrics are what they are.

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What the Grades Actually Mean

The report broke down five categories.

Legalizing density. This measures whether provinces allow duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, and mid-rise apartments. Most provinces have made some moves here, but implementation varies wildly. BC leads on paper. Ontario has made progress but caps density in ways that limit effectiveness.

Better building codes. This looks at whether provinces modernize codes to allow for faster construction methods like factory-built housing. Most provinces scored poorly here. Alberta got a D-, partly because the province rejected a $112 million modular housing proposal for Jasper after last summer's wildfires.

Accelerating factory-built housing. Modular and manufactured homes can speed up construction and reduce costs. The federal government got an A- in this category. Most provinces scored Ds and Fs.

Avoiding high-risk areas. This category evaluates whether provinces prevent development in flood zones and fire-prone areas. Quebec scored best with a B+. The province published draft regulations in June 2024 that expand flood protection areas by 30 to 40%. PEI scored poorly here, with a C rating, because it has no binding flood hazard regulation.

Filling in market gaps. This looks at whether provinces support affordable housing, address homelessness, and help people who can't access market housing. Most provinces scored in the B to C range here.

No province excelled across all categories. BC leads on pro-supply policies but was the only province with a failing grade on affordability outcomes. Alberta finished first on supply outcomes, meaning strong homebuilding relative to population. Newfoundland and Labrador scored best for affordability and positive societal outcomes.

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The Development Charge Problem

Development charges came up repeatedly as a major barrier. These are fees municipalities charge developers to pay for infrastructure like water systems, roads, parks, and transit. The idea is that growth should pay for growth.

In practice, charges have gotten so high they're adding 8% to 16% to new home prices in some markets, according to recent CMHC data. Developers don't absorb these costs. They pass them to buyers.

Toronto charges about $180,600 in development fees for a single-family home. For a two-bedroom condo, charges range from $39,600 in Ottawa to $121,500 in Markham.

Moffatt calls development charges "one of the biggest contributors to the crisis."

"Those development charges end up making it more difficult and expensive to buy homes or to build homes," he said. "Ontario and B.C. have kind of found a very expensive model to build infrastructure that places a lot of the costs on new homebuyers, which makes building new homes that much more difficult."

The charges don't just add to prices. They change what gets built. High charges make smaller projects less viable. If you're paying $50,000 per unit in development fees, you need large projects to absorb those costs. That's part of why we see so many highrise towers and so few mid-sized apartment buildings.

Apartment buildings also pay more proportionally than single-family homes. "In general, apartment buildings pay far more in development charges than infrastructure that they use," Moffatt told Global News. "For instance, a lot of apartments pay millions and millions of dollars in parks and library fees, but are put in neighbourhoods where parks and libraries already exist, no new ones are getting built. So a lot of those fees end up going to subsidize other parts of town."

That creates a situation where the most affordable housing type subsidizes infrastructure for less dense areas.

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Why Bigger Provinces Struggle More

Ontario, Quebec, and BC all scored poorly, though for different reasons. Moffatt says it's not entirely coincidental that the largest provinces face the biggest challenges.

"I don't think it's entirely a coincidence that the larger provinces have more challenges just because they grow faster, they have larger cities and so on," he said. "It shows that the larger you are, I think the more aggressive you need to be on housing policy to achieve the same outcome as say a P.E.I. or a New Brunswick."

Faster growth means more pressure on infrastructure. Larger cities have more complex planning processes and more stakeholders to coordinate. What works in Charlottetown doesn't scale to Toronto or Vancouver.

But that doesn't mean larger provinces are off the hook. If anything, it means they need to be more proactive, not less.

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BC's Specific Situation

BC introduced sweeping reforms in 2023 and 2024. Small-scale multi-unit housing is now allowed across the province. Most municipalities over 5,000 people must permit three to four units on single-family lots and six units near frequent transit.

The province shifted planning and zoning to happen upfront at the Official Community Plan stage. It phased out one-off public hearings for projects that align with community plans. It introduced amenity cost charges to make development financing more transparent.

Housing starts in BC jumped 37% in January 2025. Purpose-built rental registrations surged 61%.

But the report's C+ grade reflects ongoing problems. Municipal development charges keep rising. Approval times remain slow. Housing starts dropped 30% in BC in the first quarter of 2025 compared to 2024.

"Provincial reforms are often accompanied by poison pills, like height maximums, high taxes, and slow approval times, which render these reforms ineffective," Moffatt noted.

The province announced changes in July 2025 to give developers more flexibility on development charge payments. Builders can now pay 25% at permit approval and the remaining 75% at occupancy or within four years. That helps with cash flow but doesn't address the underlying issue of charges being too high.

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What This Means for Kelowna

Kelowna sits in a province that scored C+ overall but continues to struggle with high development costs and slow approvals in many municipalities.

Local development cost charges can reach $50,000 per home for certain projects, according to developers who've spoken to local media. Combined with high land costs, labor shortages, and rising interest rates, those charges contributed to a 40% drop in residential building permits in 2023.

Kelowna issued 242 permits in 2023, resulting in 1,379 homes. That's down from 2,253 homes permitted in 2022.

The city's Official Community Plan focuses on infill development rather than sprawl. Highrises downtown, fourplexes and six-storey buildings in the core, carriage houses, secondary suites. All aimed at increasing density without eating up agricultural land or expanding the urban boundary.

That strategy aligns with provincial goals. But developers say charges make even infill development challenging. Infrastructure costs get allocated between growth and the existing population, with the growth portion forming the basis of DCC rates. The rationale is sound. But when charges get high enough, they choke off the development they're meant to support.

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The Missing Middle Gap

The report's focus on missing middle housing reflects a structural problem across Canada. Most zoning allows either single-family homes or highrise apartments. Not much in between.

Duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, small apartment buildings. These housing types used to exist in older neighborhoods. They fit naturally into existing communities and provide options at different price points.

Missing middle housing starts declined 56% in Vancouver between 2018 and 2024, according to CMHC. That's in contrast to an average increase of 5% across six major cities and a 44% surge between 2023 and 2024 in Calgary and Edmonton combined.

Calgary and Edmonton led the way, accounting for 67% of missing middle starts across the six cities studied. CMHC attributes this to "abundant land availability and a lower regulatory burden."

Vancouver and Toronto face high land costs that reduce the viability of smaller projects, especially downtown. Both cities have enacted measures to improve the economics, but it's unclear how much impact those will have.

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What Happens Next

The report doesn't offer solutions beyond highlighting what's working and what isn't. But bringing attention to provincial performance creates pressure.

For years, housing policy discussions focused on federal programs and municipal zoning. This report shifts attention to provinces, which control most of the tools that matter.

Whether provinces respond is another question. Alberta's government rejected the findings outright. BC defended its record while acknowledging challenges. Ontario hasn't commented publicly.

The report calls for stronger federal leadership, including more transparency around the Housing Accelerator Fund and a nationwide hazard mapping initiative to prevent development in high-risk flood and fire zones.

It also urges provinces to act more aggressively. Not just implementing pro-supply policies, but avoiding harmful ones. Lower development charges. Faster approvals. Better building codes. Support for factory-built housing.

None of that is new. But having a report card that puts specific grades on specific provinces creates accountability that didn't exist before.

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The Local Impact

For buyers in markets like Kelowna, provincial policy matters. Development charges add thousands to new home prices. Slow approvals delay projects and drive up costs. Zoning restrictions limit what gets built and where.

BC's C+ grade reflects a province that's trying but struggling with implementation. Reforms look good on paper. Municipalities still have ways to slow things down or increase costs.

That means the housing you're looking at today reflects policies from years ago. What's being approved now won't be available for another two to three years, assuming projects move forward at all.

Understanding these broader policy dynamics helps explain why certain types of housing are scarce, why new builds cost what they do, and why inventory remains tight even as the province talks about building more homes. Whether you're buying your first place, upgrading to something larger, or evaluating investment properties, knowing that provincial and municipal policies are shaping what's available and at what price helps you make decisions based on market realities rather than government promises, and working with the team at Coldwell Banker Horizon Realty means getting guidance that accounts for these policy pressures and how they're actually playing out in the Okanagan.