Prior was +4.8%Non-residential -24.0%Residential +1.7%
This drop was mostly the result of quirks as institutional permits were halved in the month. Often times these are lumpy things like hospitals. When you look at commercial alone, it fell 8%, which also isn’t great.
The surprise is that residential continues to hold up despite high interest rates and falling home prices in much of Canada. More recently, the government proposed waiving sales tax on new homes and that could drop the price 8 percentage points, which will likely lead to a meaningful uptick.
A separate report released from StatCan showed travel and more Canadians are now flying overseas than to the US for the first time. Notably, Canadian auto trips to the USA were down 34.9% in March compared to 2024.
For background on the permits data, Statistics Canada’s building permits series is a key leading indicator of construction activity, capturing the value of permits issued for new buildings, renovations, and alterations across roughly 2,400 municipalities representing 95% of the national population. Because permits precede actual construction spending, the data offer an early read on investment trends in both the residential and non-residential sectors.
In January 2026, the total value of building permits rose $607 million, or 4.8%, to $13.3 billion. On a constant-dollar basis (2023=100), the increase was 4.3% month-over-month and 0.8% year-over-year. The gain followed a volatile stretch that included a 13.2% decline in November 2025 and a 6.8% rebound in December.
Non-residential intentions drove the January increase, rising 9.4% to $5.4 billion, led by a $356.8 million jump in the industrial component — the largest monthly gain since July 2024. Institutional permits also climbed, supported by a major medical-facility approval in the Toronto CMA valued at over $800 million. Commercial permits, however, fell $128.5 million.
On the residential side, permits edged up $143 million to $8.0 billion, with single-family values rising $222.3 million to $2.7 billion while multi-unit permits dipped $79.3 million. A total of 25,400 dwelling units were authorized in January, down 1.8% from December, though the trailing 12-month count of multi-family units authorized reached 256,500 — up from 241,800 in the prior period — a signal that the medium-term pipeline for higher-density housing continues to expand. Investors should note that permit issuance does not guarantee construction will proceed, particularly in an environment of elevated financing costs and trade-policy uncertainty.
This article was written by Adam Button at investinglive.com.