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The Senate Committee on Banking, Commerce and the Economy is calling on each level of government to do its part and quickly take steps to tackle the nation’s broken housing system.

In a newly released report, the committee maintains the severity and urgency of the crisis requires “swift and co-ordinated action” from all stakeholders and levels of government as many markets face significant supply shortages and home prices remain out of reach for buyers.

Residential housing development has been shut down in certain regions due to home prices being so high that they are out of reach for most prospective homebuyers, the committee concluded, and young Canadians are losing hope that one day they could own their own home.

“All levels of government have contributed to housing unaffordability through elevated government charges on new housing, excessive delays in approvals, high regulatory burden and poor alignment of housing solutions,” the report concludes. “Consequently, each level of government must take responsibility and do its part to bring down prices, make co-ordinated and deliberate steps to increase housing supply, and ensure Canadians can access housing.”

The report, titled , makes a series of 12 recommendations to achieve key housing goals: lowering prices and increasing supply, cultivating a robust housing sector and improving access to housing for all Canadians.

The committee found shocking disparities between Canadian municipalities in the average fees and development charges on single-family homes. Additionally, depending on the city, it can take anywhere between five and 31 months for a municipality to render a decision on a development application. In the Greater Toronto Area, the full process – from a builder’s first meeting with municipal officials to homes being ready for occupancy – can take up to 11 years.

Senator Toni Varone, deputy chair of the committee, said he hopes the report will enlighten political leaders and serve as a blueprint to tackle the issues.

“This report is not an indictment. It hasn’t been written that way,” he explained. “It was written as a state of affairs – a path forward – of what we can do, what governments can do to make life more affordable for Canadians. So that is the context under which we released it.”

The committee suggests municipalities should be required to reduce municipal fees such as development charges (DCs) in order to qualify for and receive federal funds for infrastructure.

The average level of municipal fees on a single-family home in Toronto is $200,000 in Toronto. Officials from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) told the committee DCs have grown in their scope and are now being used to fund items that benefit a much larger group.

Varone said municipalities should ditch the DCs because they aren’t getting any funds anyways so they have nothing to lose.

“No one’s developing, no one’s building. So, I can’t see for the life of me why municipalities wouldn’t jump all over this. At the end of the day, they have no revenue last year, this year, next year.”

Under the proposal, municipalities could drop their DCs and make an application for funds for the infrastructure projects, said Varone.

Another suggestion is for the federal government to invest in a national housing data and accountability framework to track approvals, development charges, construction timelines, number of housing completions, fees, renovation outcomes and affordability targets.

Varone said the idea of better metrics is to keep housing supply and demand in equilibrium which, in turn, will keep prices down.

Yet another suggestion is for the federal government to provide support to help small and medium-sized enterprises modernize the construction sector with a focus on modular and factory-built housing by offering subsidies to create demand.

Officials from the CMHC told the committee construction is the second-least digitalized industry and Canada needs to adopt new technologies and less labour-intensive ways of building.

CMHC stated other countries have been using factory-built housing for decades and noted the Swedish government created demand for this type of housing using subsidies in the 1960s.

“This type of housing can play a role in decreasing construction costs and speeding up the delivery of housing,” the committee stated. “Furthermore, the participation of small and medium-sized businesses as well as other innovative companies in the construction sector, especially those that specialize in modular housing and green technologies, can help reduce the construction sector’s carbon footprint and support the local economy.”

The report also suggested providing a full GST/HST rebate on all new housing valued below $1 million and on a graduated sale for houses between $1 and $1.5 million.

“Canada’s housing system is broken,” said Varone. “To fix it, governments can start by removing the hidden costs of development charges from homebuyers, while exploring alternative municipal funding models and expanding the GST/HST rebate on all new housing. Improved housing affordability for all Canadians requires more transparency and less regulatory burden.”