New numbers from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation show Calgary, Edmonton, Lethbridge and Red Deer were amongst the leading cities in Canada (with populations over 10,000) last year for the number of new housing starts.
In Lethbridge, the number of new housing starts — including single detached, condos, townhomes and other forms of housing — jumped by 194 per cent in 2024, compared to 2023.
The actual numbers show there were 715 new housing units built in Lethbridge in 2024, compared to 243 a year earlier.
Get daily National news
Get the day’s top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day.
In Red Deer, housing starts jumped from 189 in 2023 to 354 in 2024 — that’s an increase of 87 per cent.
In Edmonton, housing starts jumped by 39 per cent with 18, 384 new housing units being built in 2024 compared to 13,184 in 2023.
In Calgary, housing starts were up by 24 per cent, from 19,579 in 2023 to 24,369 in 2024.
Provincially, housing starts in Alberta increased by 32 per cent — behind only P.E.I. at 67 per cent and Newfoundland at 65 per cent.
Nationally, the CMHC said, decreases in the number of new housing starts in Vancouver, Toronto and Ottawa meant the total number of housing starts rose by just two per cent.
“While this annual increase shows some signs of progress, Canada still needs significantly higher supply growth to restore affordability in urban centres,” said CMHC chief economist Mathieu Laberge in a press release.
The national housing agency has said Canada will require an additional 3.5 million housing units by 2030, on top of the 2.3 million already projected to be built, to restore affordability to levels seen in 2004.
— with files from The Canadian Press.
© 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.