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By Ashley Lavallee-Koenig

ADVOCATING FOR GOV'T SUPPORT

BILD Central Alberta: Counter-tariffs more likely to impact home building industry

Mar 5, 2025 | 12:44 PM

While tariffs imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump have sparked concern in multiple industries, BILD Central Alberta says it’s Canada’s counter-tariffs that are more likely to impact home construction in the community.

On March 4, the U.S. introduced sweeping 25 per cent tariffs on Canadian imports, with a lower 10 per cent charge on energy.

Chris Windrim, Executive Director, BILD Central Alberta, explained that the U.S. tariffs will impact American consumer prices while the Canadian tariffs will impact Canadian consumers.

“The biggest thing we’re trying to make sure we’re monitoring is what are the countervailing tariffs being applied by Canada? We’re talking about glass, appliances, hardware, metals, drywall, HVAC systems —that’s the one that would have a greater impact on the industry, so we’re monitoring and assessing at this time,” Windrim told rdnewsNOW.

He added, BILD has local and provincial branches that, with the help of national representation from the Canadian Home Builders Association, are collectively advocating to all levels of government to support builders.

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“For residential construction, if we want to look at offsetting tariff costs, [we want] to look to reduce development charges, speed up approval process times and even remove interprovincial trade barriers,” said Windrim. “These are all great ways that municipal, provincial and federal government can help our industry offset these tariff costs to focus on housing affordability.”

This advocacy could be particularly important for Red Deer, which has been earnestly trying to improve a vacancy rate that was less than one per cent as of summer 2024.

“Over the past few years, Red Deer has done a great job with building back our vacancy rate. We’re currently sitting at 1.6 per cent as of October 2024, through CMHC data, leading to more supply for the rental market,” Windrim commented.

He said this should continue to grow as current projects finish being built and more doors become available, but BILD will continue to monitor this progress and the tariff situation over the next six months.

Related:

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• Red Deer District Chamber advocating for business-friendly solutions to tariffs