The Carney government is moving away from housing unit counts as a central measure of success for its flagship housing initiative while federal bureaucrats collect millions in taxpayer-funded performance pay.
Housing Minister Gregor Robertson’s department confirmed the shift for Build Canada Homes despite Ottawa’s 500,000 annual housing starts goal, according to Blacklock’s Reporter.
“The framework is designed to move beyond measuring outputs such as housing counts,” the department stated.
The revelation comes as separate records show the department paid $2,134,907 in executive performance compensation during the 2024–25 fiscal year, despite the ongoing housing affordability crisis.
Official departmental records show 109 executives received at-risk performance pay only. Another ten received both at-risk pay and bonuses, while two received neither.
Conservative MP Andrew Scheer blasted the government’s shift away from housing unit counts as a central performance measure.
“What do Liberals do when they can’t hit their own targets?” Scheer asked.
“Delete the target!”
He added that, “Instead of building 500,000 homes as promised, Mark Carney has decided to stop measuring housing unit counts altogether! While Carney is all talk, Conservatives are focused on REAL results.”
Robertson previously maintained that Ottawa remained committed to reaching 500,000 annual housing starts.
During 2025 testimony before the Commons finance committee, Robertson defended the timeline.
“It is still very aggressive and ambitious to get to 500,000 over the next decade. That’s what we need to scale up to,” Robertson said.
However, the department’s latest response indicates housing unit counts will no longer be the central performance measure for Build Canada Homes.
Conservative MP Jacob Mantle requested details on whether Build Canada Homes had established annual or multi-year housing targets, but the department pointed instead to a broader performance framework.
“The success of Build Canada Homes will be closely tied to improvements in broader thematics related to increasing housing supply and affordability,” the response stated.
Bill C-20, which established Build Canada Homes as a Crown corporation and received royal assent on June 18, 2026, did not establish a fixed annual construction quota.
Industry representatives had already warned that Ottawa’s construction ambitions would be difficult to achieve.
Asked by Conservative MP Tracey Gray whether the government’s housing construction targets were realistic, Residential Construction Council of Ontario president Richard Lyall replied: “Not a chance.”
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre also linked Canada’s housing shortage to immigration levels, arguing that population growth had outpaced home construction.
In a February 2025 interview with Juno News, Poilievre criticized the Trudeau government’s earlier plan to admit 500,000 permanent residents annually. Ottawa had already reduced its planned 2025 target to 395,000 in October 2024.
“It would be a lot more like the Harper numbers that were basically the same for 40 years before Trudeau took office — we were bringing in about 200,000 to 250,000 a year,” Poilievre said, proposing lower immigration levels.
Meanwhile, the housing department defended its executive performance payments as reflecting the importance of its work.
“The higher proportion of bonuses can be reasonably linked to the housing portfolio being a Government of Canada priority,” a May 25 departmental memo stated.
The compensation controversy extends beyond Robertson’s department.
Treasury Board estimates show the federal government spent $146.3 million on executive performance pay last year, with approximately 98% of executives receiving payments.
The payouts come despite Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne’s promises to rein in federal spending.
“Canadians have been tightening their belt for quite some time. They expect the federal government to do the same,” Champagne told the Senate national finance committee on March 10.
The housing department acknowledged concerns that widespread performance pay resembled routine entitlements but insisted the payouts were justified by performance reviews.