![](https://www.ctvnews.ca/polopoly_fs/1.6977485.1721935249!/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_800/image.jpg)
LIVE UPDATES Rain reduces wildfire activity, aids firefighters: Jasper park officials
Jasper National Park officials said Thursday night that rain over the day resulted in "minimal fire behaviour and spread."
The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. (CMHC) says construction of new homes in Canada's six largest cities remains near an all-time high.
However, demand is still outpacing supply, with the spokesperson for the agency warning that the country needs a lot more, and fast.
"We need everything," Aled ab Iorwerth, deputy chief economist at the CHMC, told CTV News Channel on Wednesday. "More apartments are particularly helpful, they're essential for people getting into homeownership."
It comes amid a new survey of business leaders, who see the housing crisis as the biggest risk to Canada's economy, and after fresh pledges from the federal government to protect renters.
'We need a lot more'
Although the construction of apartments has hit an all-time high, which ab Iorwerth says is good news, it's not enough.
"Obviously these are relatively more affordable units," he told Todd van der Heyden in a one-on-one interview. "We just need a lot more."
ab Iorwerth also indicated that financing for new housing starts is becoming more complicated, partially because of high interest rates but also because of "labour shortages and the cost of materials."
That's leading to pressure on detached housing starts, according to ab Iorwerth.
"That's why the picture in Montreal doesn't look so good," he explained. "They tend to have these smaller structures."
Shift to condominiums is 'inevitable'
The housing crisis and lack of supply is also causing a shift in how Canadians are choosing to live, a change that ab Iorwerth characterizes as "inevitable."
"Single, detached, just simply too expensive," he said.
Even though the COVID-19 pandemic saw a surge of prospective homeowners moving to the "outer suburbs" where they could afford detached homes, ab Iorwerth warns that many are returning to city centres – and apartments are key to accommodating the influx.
"Frankly, we particularly need a lot more rental buildings to be built," ab Iorwerth says. "Home ownership … is just becoming out of reach."
'Interest rates are becoming an issue'
ab Iorwerth also raised a growing concern at the CMHC – the impact that high interest rates are having on housing starts.
"Our running hypothesis is that higher interest rates had a real effect on those single detached starts," he says. "Apartments are offsetting that."
However, that may not last, according to ab Iorwerth, who is worried that high interest rates are going to have the same effect on apartment starts in 2024.
He also warned that stagnating growth will have a spillover effect on Canada's housing crisis, which desperately needs "more condos, more apartments" and more density, "because it's just too expensive."
With files from the Canadian Press
Jasper National Park officials said Thursday night that rain over the day resulted in "minimal fire behaviour and spread."
The Canadian Olympic Committee has removed women's national soccer team head coach Bev Priestman over a drone scandal, according to a press release from the organization.
A woman in Yukon believes her hair clip helped save her during a bear attack.
Newly released financial reports show that William, the Prince of Wales, drew a salary of $42.1 million last fiscal year, his first since inheriting the vast and lucrative Duchy of Cornwall.
On Wednesday night, the owner of Maligne Lodge in Jasper, Alta., was shocked to receive a photo of her business engulfed in flames.
The Law Society of British Columbia says a DNA test shows a former judge and Order of Canada recipient accused of falsely claiming to be Cree "most likely" has Indigenous heritage.
Ismael 'El Mayo' Zambada, a historic leader of Mexico's Sinaloa cartel, and Joaquin Guzman Lopez, a son of another infamous cartel leader, were arrested by U.S. authorities in Texas on Thursday, the U.S. Justice Department said.
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris pressured Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday to help reach a Gaza ceasefire deal that would ease the suffering of Palestinian civilians, striking a tougher tone than President Joe Biden.
As fire threatened people in Jasper National Park, Colleen Knull sprung into action.
A Saskatchewan-born veteran of the Second World War was recently presented with France's highest national order.
A local First Nations elder and veteran is helping to bring the Ojibwe language to a well-known film for the first time.
A cat who fled her Montreal home nearly a decade ago has been reunited with her family after being found in Ottawa.
A woman in Waterloo, Ont. is out thousands of dollars for a car crash she wasn’t involved in.
A swarm of bees living in a lamppost in Winnipeg’s Sage Creek neighbourhood has found a new home for its hive.
Around 100 acres of Manitoba Crown Land near the Saskatchewan border is being returned to the Métis community.
Nova Scotia is suspending the licensed Cape Breton moose hunt for three years due to what the province is calling a “significant drop” in the population.
A well-known childhood prank known as 'nicky nicky nine doors,' or 'ding dong ditch,' has escalated into a more serious game that could lead to charges for some Surrey, B.C. teens.
It's been more than a month since their good friend was seriously hurt in an accident and two teens from Riverview, N.B., are still having a hard time dealing with it.