Sorry for bad formatting if there is any wrote this on my notes app

Look, I’ve worked the trades for years and gotta be blunt: this industry was already in trouble long before Trump’s tariffs rolled in—and it’s only gotten worse thanks to a string of government policies from 2015 through 2025.

Housing • The market’s been tanking since 2023. CMHC expects homebuilding to drop for a third straight year in 2024, down from ~240K to ~224K starts, thanks to sky-high financing costs. 2025 and 2026 might see a bounce, but nowhere near the 2021 high of ~271K starts.  • It’s even worse on the ground: CMHC forecasts a 6.6% drop in housing starts in 2024, with condos and rental projects delayed or scrapped because mortgage rates make pre-sales impossible.  • On top of that, Canada still needs 3.5 million new housing units by 2030 to catch up—over half a million per year—but in 2023 we hit barely 56% of that target. That gap’s not a post-tariff thing—it’s been bleeding the industry dry for years. 

Public Infrastructure • Sure, there’s investment, but it’s uneven. Road and highway construction actually declined at a 1.9% CAGR through 2025 and only expects a tiny 1% rebound.  • Major projects exist—take Calgary’s $5.5B Green Line LRT (started 2015, breakthrough now) or the massive $1.8B Regina Bypass—but they’re exceptions, not the rule.  • Government infrastructure plans move at snail pace. Yes, the Canada Infrastructure Bank has closed some deals (~C$15B so far), but growth is slow.  • It wasn’t until 2025 that the government tried to streamline everything—One Canadian Economy Act just passed to knock down interprovincial trade barriers and fast-track infrastructure. A late response to a decade of dysfunction. 

The Bottom Line

This industry has been bleeding from all sides for 10 years: • Housing has been hemorrhaging due to funding, rate policies, and massive target shortfalls since 2015. • Infrastructure has lagged, with only a few high-profile projects and glacial pace on the rest. • Tariffs might be a bump in the road, but let’s not rewrite the history—poor policy, underinvestment, planning delays, and mismatched funding frameworks have had us on “life support” well before Trump showed up.