TOP STORY
BC and Alberta Lead a Permit Slump as Ottawa Quietly Drops Its Housing Target
Builders pulled back in September. Statistics Canada says the value of building permits fell 4.1% to $12.9 billion, and BC and Alberta led the slide: multi-family permits dropped $292 million in BC and $187 million in Alberta, and Alberta’s industrial permits gave back another $120 million. The third quarter was worse — non-residential intentions fell $1.7 billion, the biggest quarterly drop since the spring of 2020, and 71,300 housing units were authorized versus 78,500 a year earlier. The timing is awkward for Ottawa: The Canadian Press reports Budget 2026 dropped the Liberals’ promise to double homebuilding to nearly 500,000 starts a year for a target of 24,000 non-market starts a year, homes that need the same drywall, trades and permits as every private project. Add the Bank of Canada’s October hike to 2.5% and its own forecast that residential investment will stay “relatively weak,” and September looks less like a blip than a trend.
THE NUMBERS — STATISTICS CANADA
Building Permits, September 2026 — Residential intentions fell 5.8% to $7.8 billion on a $529 million drop in multi-family permits. Non-residential slipped to $5.1 billion; Alberta posted the country’s largest commercial gain (+$51 million) but lost ground in industrial and institutional work. Statistics Canada
Residential Renovation Price Index, Q3 2026 — Contractor prices for reno work rose 1.1% in the quarter and 3.1% from a year ago. Victoria is the priciest reno market in Canada at 120.0 (up 5.3% year over year); Edmonton is up 2.5%, Calgary 2.2% and Vancouver just 0.5%. Statistics Canada
Characteristics of Self-Employed Workers, 2026 — 27.6% of self-employed Canadians plan to grow their business over the next year, triple the share planning to scale back or close (8.0%). Fewer than two in five have private health (39.4%) or dental (33.3%) coverage. Statistics Canada
FROM THE ECONOMISTS
Bank of Canada — Summary of Governing Council Deliberations — Council weighed a hold at 2.25% before choosing the hike, and said there “could be a need to increase the policy rate further.” It expects business investment to pick up on oil and gas spending but sees housing held back by slow population growth and higher mortgage rates.
ATB Economics — Masters of Our Destiny: A Deeper Look at Budget 2026 — Ottawa’s “Investment Supercycle” rests on nation-building projects, and ATB says the biggest risk is execution: the budget projects 450,000 openings in industrial and construction trades by 2035, with few new measures to fill them.
Calgary Chamber of Commerce — 2027 Provincial Pre-Budget Submission — Thirty-one asks for Alberta Budget 2027, led by scrapping the 2% small business tax, coordinated federal-provincial major project reviews and a data centre framework.
WORTH WATCHING
October CPI, Monday November 16 — The Bank projects inflation at 3½% by year end and decides again December 9. A hot gasoline-driven print makes a second hike more likely, and every quarter point lands on floating-rate construction loans. StatCan release schedule
Carney’s Asia Tour — The Prime Minister left Wednesday for Dublin, Manila, Phnom Penh and APEC in Shenzhen, aiming to close the ASEAN trade deal and meet Xi Jinping next week. Canadian crude exports to China are already up 159% in a year, mostly from Alberta; watch whether Ottawa trades its Chinese EV tariff for canola and energy access. PMO
IN BRIEF
CNBC — Canada warns Trump tariff uncertainty is raising investment costs Ambassador Mark Wiseman told the B20 summit that “uncertainty increases your cost of capital”; U.S. duties on Canadian goods hit $10 billion in 2025, up from $400 million in 2024, and talks now centre on steel and autos.
COFFEE & CONSTRUCTION
Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, ICBA’s Jordan Bateman serves up a 10-minute rundown of the news facing BC and Alberta construction on the Coffee & Construction podcast. Catch the latest episode: The Count is Done | C&C #50. Subscribe free on YouTube (@ICBATV), ICBA’s socials, or wherever you download podcasts.