Non-residential permits rise 15% in August
By Adam Freill
Commercial Construction Industrial Institutional ResidentialStrength in the non-residential and single-family homes sectors paced Canada to gains of 3.4 per cent.
Building permits, August 2023. (Source: Statistics Canada, Table 34-10-0066-01, Building permits, by type of structure and type of work.)
A pair of hospital renovations, a new university building, a new correctional facility, and a new arena helped drive the value of non-residential permits into double-digit gains in August, pacing the consolidated Canadian permits figure to more modest growth as weakness continued in multi-unit construction intentions. The total monthly value of building permits in Canada increased 3.4 per cent in August, to $11.9 billion.
The total monthly value of non-residential permits rose 14.8 per cent, reaching $5 billion in August. Ontario and British Columbia led the growth. Ontario was up 28.5 per cent, a rise of $503.8 million, and British Columbia reported a rise of 45.5 per cent, gaining $326.2 million over July.
Notably high-value non-residential permits were issued for hospital renovations in Toronto and North Vancouver, a university building in Kelowna, a correctional facility in Thunder Bay, Ont., and an arena in Whitby, Ont.
The residential picture was not as rosy. The monthly value of permits fell 3.7 per cent, to $6.8 billion, led by weaker multi-unit construction intentions in Ontario, Manitoba, Quebec and Nova Scotia. Those declines were partly offset by monthly gains in the value of single-family home permits. Across Canada, this component was up 5.5 per cent, reaching $2.9 billion in August. That was the fourth consecutive monthly increase for the component and follows a year of trending decline in construction intentions for single family homes from May 2022 to April 2023.
