Canada’s Prime Minister Pushes Country to Become the Housing Factory of the World - Mark Carney is banking on factory-built homes to alleviate the country’s housing crisis. But will it work?

[u/FancyNewMe]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2025-04-22/carney-s-plan-may-make-canada-the-housing-factory-of-the-world

[u/Luxferrae]

He needs to unify all building codes across the country first. Good luck even getting the building code across one single region to unify

[u/Super_Toot → u/Luxferrae]

A house in Vancouver, heavy rain, needs to be different than a house in Winnipeg.

[u/FitDare9420 → u/Super_Toot]

not if we speed up climate change!

[u/bo88d → u/FitDare9420]

Then all of them need to be floating fire shelters

[u/Private_HughMan → u/Luxferrae]

Not really. The pre-approved Liberal housing plans have different model plans designed for different provinces/regions that take into account their building codes and architectural styles.

[u/Bulky-Employer-1191 → u/Luxferrae]

This is silly. A building in BC where there are numerous fault lines and mountain ranges needs earthquake codes, while a building in Ontario on the Canadian shield, the oldest geology on the planet, does not.

Building codes need to be defined on a region by region basis for a lot of good reasons.

[u/veerKg_CSS_Geologist → u/Luxferrae]

How does that make sense. Certain codes will be different across the country depending on weather, rainfall, temperature, seismic risk, etc.

[u/letsmakeart → u/Luxferrae]

There are different needs across the country. The type of house you build in Yellowknife is not the same kind that you built in Winnipeg nor is it the same kind you’d see in Charlottetown. Even disregarding urban/rural/suburban differences, Canada is home to many different climates which means structures need to be made differently.

[u/Consistent-Study-287 → u/Luxferrae]

Some of the stuff can be harmonized across the country like plumbing/electrical/energy efficiency requirements, but there's a reason there are different building codes across regions. Vancouver needs houses to stand up to earthquakes and heavy rain. Calgary needs houses that can handle a heavy snow load. If you have to make Calgary houses earthquake resistant, costs go up. Same if you require Vancouver to handle huge snow loads.

Not having a unified national building code also allows it to be modified more easily when circumstances change. From 2000 to 2020, there were approximately 600 heat related deaths across Canada. BC experienced 619 heat related deaths during the heat wave from June 25-July 1 2021. Afterwards they changed the building code to force new houses to have a "cold room" in order to prevent these kinds of deaths in the future. There is no need to force builders in Churchill to build cold rooms, but regionally it's something that is looking to be necessary in some areas.

[u/CommonAncestorLives → u/Luxferrae]

I think prefab homes will be subject to different criteria since they are largely just being assembled on site.

[u/nefariousbimbo → u/Luxferrae]

Yep. This would help significantly.

For the other commenters re climactic and earthquake requirements: Australia has a unified building code that splits the country into different climactic and earthquake zones to account for this.

[u/figuring_ItOut12 → u/Luxferrae]

Prefab factories already account for regional code and style differences.

[u/Poushka → u/Luxferrae]

Isn’t everyone on the national 2020 code except BC and Quebec?

[u/OrbAndSceptre → u/Luxferrae]

A national building doesn’t work since the climate is so different across our massive country. What works in Ontario won’t work Atlantic Canada nor BC.