AI Analysis: Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, housing starts, under construction and completions in all centres of 50,000 and over for Canada and provinces

Executive Summary

Statistics Canada's Table 34100151 provides nearly 38 years of monthly housing data (June 1988 – February 2026) across 70,565 records, tracking starts, units under construction, and completions for all Canadian urban centres of 50,000 or more. The data reveals a strongly right-skewed distribution — with a median of just 231 units versus a mean of 3,898 — driven by large national and provincial aggregates, while all three housing pipeline stages move in close tandem (correlations of r=0.808 to r=0.951). Canada's housing activity shows clear cyclical patterns, peaking at 23,024 monthly starts in November 2021 during the post-pandemic construction boom, with Ontario and Quebec consistently dominating provincial totals.

Key Findings

• The dataset contains 70,565 records spanning 453 monthly periods from June 1988 to February 2026, organized across 165 unique data series combining 11 geographies, 3 estimate types, and 5 unit types.
• Housing values are heavily right-skewed: the median is just 231 units while the mean is 3,898, with 50% of all records falling between only 39 and 1,490 units, reflecting the dominance of smaller regional figures.
• Housing Under Construction has by far the largest average at 10,114 units and reaches a maximum of 348,767 — far exceeding the averages for Housing Starts (962 units) and Completions (888 units).
• All three housing pipeline stages are strongly correlated, with the tightest link between Completions and Starts (r=0.951), confirming that broad economic and policy forces affect the entire construction cycle simultaneously.
• No statistical outliers were detected in Canada's monthly total housing starts, which ranged from a low of 3,874 units in January 1996 to an all-time high of 23,024 units in November 2021, with a long-run monthly average of 13,232 units.
• Apartment and other unit types combined with 'Under Construction' or 'Starts' estimate categories dominate the largest cumulative values, reflecting Canada's growing reliance on high-rise and multi-unit housing.
• Ontario and Quebec consistently lead all provinces in total housing activity, driven by their large urban centres, while smaller provinces such as Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick represent the lowest-activity categories in the dataset.