Ford government sitting on housing start data for months, internal docs suggest [Video]

A final tally of which Ontario municipalities hit their housing targets and how many fell short last year has been finished since mid-February, according to government documents obtained by Global News, despite the province refusing to release the data for months.

For the past two years, the Ford government has set targets for new homes in towns and cities around Ontario, promising them extra cash if they meet those goals.

The numbers Ontario uses to assess whether or not cities have hit their goals are made up of new homes, long-term care beds and additional units like basements or garden suites.

The government set up a website to show which cities had hit their goals, which were on track and which had failed.

Around October 2024, however, with housing starts across the province stuttering, the government stopped updating the tracker. By the spring, the tracker had been removed altogether, with the web page telling users to “try again later.”

The information was …