The COVID-19 pandemic, it seems, can’t play havoc with all construction.

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation reports that housing starts across the country actually increased—by 11 percent—in April. The news, however, comes with a caveat. Since residential construction was completely stopped in Quebec between late March and mid-April, CMHC did not record any housing start data in that province.

“Outside Québec, the national trend in housing starts increased in April, despite the impact of COVID-19 containment measures.” said Bob Dugan, CMHC's chief economist. “This reflects strong growth in multi-family starts in Ontario, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. We expect these provinces to register declines in the near term.”

In all other regions of the province in April, CMHC reported 166,415 housing starts. That was an increase of just over 16,000 units compared with March 2020. Those provinces with the greatest increases in activity included Saskatchewan (up 49 percent to 2,470 units), Ontario (up 42 percent to 93,628 units) and Manitoba (up 30 percent to 6,348 units).

Those provinces hardest hit by the pandemic (excluding Quebec) were Alberta (down 28 percent to 23,262 units), New Brunswick (down 21 percent to 2,284 units) and British Columbia (down 10 percent to 27,767 units).

Helping to drive demand across the country was the multi-unit sector. Output in that sector rose by 35 percent to more than 122,000 units in April, while demand for single-family homes dropped by 26 percent to just below 44,000 units.

The overall trend in housing starts, CMHC reports, was 199,589 units in April 2020, down from 204,899 units in March 2020. Excluding Quebec, the trend was 155,995 units in April 2020, up from 153,463 units in March 2020. The trend is a six-month moving average of the monthly seasonally adjusted annual rates of housing starts.

Data across various Ontario metropolitan areas show significant fluctuations. Toronto, for example benefitted from strong multi-family demand to post an overall increase of better than 142 percent between March and April. Toronto recorded nearly 61,000 total starts. Ottawa also posted gains—of 42 percent—thanks to an increase of 84 percent in multi-family construction. Demand for single-family homes in Ottawa dropped by 7 percent.

The news was less positive in Guelph (where starts dropped 82 percent to 255 units) and Kitchener-Cambridge-Waterloo (down 80 percent to 3,542 units). Guelph recorded zero multi-residential starts in April, while Kitchener-Cambridge-Waterloo’s housing market recorded significant losses in both single- and multi-family starts.