No ‘silver bullet’ to fix housing as population rapidly grows: Trudeau

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says it will take all levels of government working together to address the housing crisis as Canada's population crosses the 40 million threshold.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he knows young people are frustrated with him, and chief among those frustrations is the high cost of housing, which has left many young people feeling home ownership is out of reach.

However, Trudeau denies critics who suggest the federal government only began taking the housing file seriously in the last few months.

“We’ve actually made commitments that are adding up to about 300,000 new units over the coming decade. These are the kinds of things we need to accelerate, and there’s no one way of doing it. What we’ve come at is not a single silver bullet,” Trudeau said in a year-end interview with Global News that airs on Christmas Eve at 11 a.m. eastern time.

The Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) pegged the average sale price of a detached home at $646,134 in November, up two per cent from the year prior.

In British Columbia, the average home price was $904,793 and it was $828,608 in Ontario in November.

The two most expensive provinces did see a year-over-year price decline, according to the CREA.

Trudeau says federal initiatives like the Housing Accelerator Fund and Rapid Housing Initiative are key to achieving these goals.

Canada added 430,000 residents between July and September, pushing the population past the 40 million mark, and the question remains of where people will live.