By Tara Deschamps
The federal government is eyeing underutilized Canada Post and National Defence properties as a way to deliver affordability and supply to the country’s housing market.
In its federal budget released Tuesday, it announced plans to free up lands held by both entities in order to build housing at a pace and scale “not seen in generations” and help younger Canadians get into the real estate market.
The goal is creating a supply of 3.87 million new homes — adding two million net new homes to the 1.87 million the country was already on track to build — by 2031.
Such figures signal that the government thinks we need to double housing construction, said Mike Moffatt, the senior director of the Smart Prosperity Institute, a University of Ottawa-based think tank.
“I’m not sure that this (budget) gets us there, but it…
