By any measure, Alberta is outperforming the rest of the country when it comes to getting shovels in the ground and homes built.
The numbers tell the story. Alberta recorded a surge in housing starts in 2025, rising sharply year over year, while Ontario moved in the opposite direction, with starts falling and expected to decline further.
The divergence is not accidental. It reflects fundamentally different approaches to how governments approach housing.
The lesson for Ontario is clear: we do not need to reinvent the wheel. We need to copy what works.
At the centre of Alberta’s success is a willingness to remove barriers that slow construction and drive up costs.
That approach has now been codified in the province’s Bill 28, the Municipal Affairs and Housing Statutes Amendment Act, 2026, which represents one of the most significant pro-housing legislative packages in the country.
The most notable feature of Bill 28 is its embrace of an “automatic yes” framework for development approvals. This concept is simple but powerful. If a project complies with established rules and is considered low risk, it should be approved quickly — or even automatically — rather than being subjected to months or years of bureaucratic delay.
Under the new framework, municipalities are empowered to use automated systems to process development applications and fast-track approvals for straightforward projects. The legislation explicitly supports digital permitting tools and standardized processes that reduce uncertainty and eliminate unnecessary back-and-forth.
This is exactly the kind of reform Ontario desperately needs.
In Ontario, the approvals process has become one of the single greatest barriers to housing supply. A report for the Ontario Association of Architects found that site plan delays alone cost the economy roughly $3.5 billion annually. On average, it takes about 23 months just to navigate the site plan approval stage.
These delays translate directly into higher carrying costs, increased financing expenses, and ultimately higher prices for homebuyers.
Alberta has chosen a different path. By creating a system where compliant projects can move forward without delay, the province is reducing costs at the source — and increasing the predictability that builders need to invest.
Municipal performance data reinforces the point. In Calgary, development approvals and building permits are processed in a fraction of the time seen in Ontario. Some residential approvals are completed in weeks or a few months, rather than years, and municipalities are required to publicly report timelines and performance metrics.
But faster approvals are only part of the equation. Alberta’s broader philosophy is equally important: housing is treated as a priority, and policies are aligned accordingly.
Ontario, by contrast, continues to impose costs that make housing more expensive and harder to build. Chief among these are development charges - fees levied by municipalities to fund infrastructure.
Originally intended to support growth, development charges have ballooned into one of the largest cost components of a new home. In many Ontario communities, they add tens of thousands — or even hundreds of thousands — of dollars to the price of housing. Reducing these charges is essential if Ontario hopes to restore affordability.
There has been progress. The new Development Charge Reduction Program (DCRP) is an important step in the right direction. The program provides up to $8.8 billion in funding over 10 years to support municipalities that reduce development charges by at least 30 to 50 per cent. Funding is tied directly to housing-enabling infrastructure.
This is smart policy because it recognizes that excessive fees are a structural problem, not a temporary one, and it gives municipalities a financial incentive to act.
But more must be done.
Ontario still faces a system where approvals can take years, where multiple agencies create overlapping requirements, and where regulatory complexity discourages investment. Modernizing development approvals is therefore critical.
That is why RESCON has joined a province-wide coalition led by One Ontario to advance an AI-enabled permitting platform. The goal is to create a single, standardized system that streamlines approvals from start to finish, reduces duplication, and improves transparency. That will make it easier and faster to build housing that already complies with existing regulations.
Presently, Ontario’s approvals ecosystem is highly fragmented. Hundreds of disconnected permitting environments operate across the province, each with its own processes, requirements, and data systems.
Municipalities adopt technology independently. Agencies maintain separate review frameworks. Applicants are required to navigate a patchwork of platforms and expectations, often repeating the same work multiple times.
Instead of navigating multiple systems, applicants would interact with a single digital dashboard that identifies requirements, prepares submissions, co-ordinates reviews, and tracks projects through to decision. The long-term vision is to have a single, province-wide permitting dashboard.
The importance of modernizing the system cannot be underestimated. Ontario cannot afford to fall further behind.
The solutions are on the table. Ontario just needs to embrace them — as Alberta has done. The challenge is finding the political will to act.
Richard Lyall is president of the Residential Construction Council of Ontario (RESCON). He has represented the building industry in Ontario since 1991. Contact him at media@rescon.com.
