‘What Unaffordability? We Work for the Canada Mortgage & Housing Corporation (CMHC).’

A 2025 poll from Abacus Data identified housing affordability as “a crisis every Canadian feels.” It revealed that nearly 9 in 10 Canadians are concerned about the state of housing, and most occasionally worry about making their rent or mortgage payments.

Additionally, a Vividata study from early 2026 found that 49% of Canadians with debt live paycheck to paycheck, meaning nearly every dollar is spoken for before it arrives. Leger and other pollsters have reported similar findings in recent years.

This issue isn’t due to overspending. Instead, rising costs across daily life have outpaced incomes, leaving little margin for error. Even careful spenders find that their old budgeting strategies no longer suffice, a problem affecting nearly every income bracket, not just those at the lower end.

However, this doesn’t seem to concern the highly dedicated Staff at CMHC. They are occupied with a separate issue: how to spend the significant bonuses that landed in their bank accounts in 2025.

The Story:

While average Canadians were busy cutting optional expenses and redesigning meals to fit within tight budgets, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) distributed over $31 million in bonuses to 79 executives and 2,371 employees below them, according to information reviewed by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF).

The executives received a total of $3,545,057, averaging nearly $45,000 each, while employees below the executive level received $28,175,394, averaging almost $12,000 each.

Notably, CMHC reported that 77.76% of the total payout went to lower-level employees. The corporation did not disclose the percentage of executives who received bonuses, citing the Privacy Act and stating, “Certain information which could be used to identify a small number of individuals has been withheld because it constitutes personal information.”

However, CMHC had previously revealed that about 99% of its executives received bonuses in 2024-2025.

Franco Terrazzano, director at the Canada Tax Federation (CTF), highlighted the irony of such bonuses being awarded by an organization whose stated mandate is “to promote housing affordability while protecting the availability of adequate funding for housing at low cost and contributing to the well-being of the housing sector in the national economy.”

“If your organization’s goal is to make homes affordable, your executives shouldn’t be receiving millions in taxpayer-funded bonuses while Canadians struggle to afford homes,” Terrazzano stated. “The housing minister promised to review CMHC bonuses years ago, and since then, CMHC has increased taxpayer-funded bonuses each year.”

According to CTF, CMHC executives have a history of rewarding themselves with taxpayer money despite their organization’s failures. Executive pay at CMHC rose to an average of $697,667 per executive in 2022, up from $617,556 four years earlier, marking an increase of nearly 13%.

Terrazzano also pointed out the bold public promise on CMHC’s website: “We have ‘one heck of an aspirational goal‘: by 2030, everyone in Canada will have a home they can afford and that meets their needs.”

“If bureaucrats receiving bonuses made homes more affordable, every Canadian would own a home with an in-ground pool and a cottage by the lake,” he remarked. “Canadians need more homes, not more highly paid officials rubber-stamping bonuses for one another.”

Final Thought:

“Prime Minister Mark Carney needs to put an end to Ottawa’s government entitlement culture because year after year, government executives take taxpayer-funded bonuses even when their organizations fail,” Terrazzano added. “Bonuses should be reserved for those who go above and beyond; they shouldn’t be handed out like participation ribbons.” 

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