About Canada Permits

Canada Permits publishes municipal and metro building-permit readings drawn from Statistics Canada's Monthly Survey of Building Permits (SDDS 2802), principally Table 34-10-0292-01. Each city page reports recent residential and non-residential permit value, new housing units authorized where published, and the data tier used for that geography.

What the survey measures

Municipal and provincial permit-issuing offices report the information printed on permits for the reference month. Coverage is a near-census of issuing municipalities (on the order of 2,400 offices; about 95% of the population). Participation is mandatory for offices in the survey frame. Products release under the Statistics Canada Open Licence.

Permit value is nominal construction intention at authorization. It is not housing starts, completions, or construction-cost-adjusted investment. Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) Starts and Completions Survey sits downstream: authorization (StatCan) → start (CMHC) → completion (CMHC).

Methodology notes

Pipelines download the StatCan table, map census metropolitan area and related geography codes to the municipality list, and refresh on the federal monthly release schedule (typically about six weeks after the reference month). Prior months commonly revise for about two months. Where a municipality lacks a separate breakout, the page uses the enclosing CMA or agglomeration as a regional proxy and labels that tier. Calgary and similar cities may also cite a municipal open-data permit feed as a faster local signal; cross-city comparisons still rest on the federal survey.

Single-month spikes often reflect one large project. Multi-month totals and the residential / non-residential split are the safer comparative reads. Primer: How to Read Canadian Building Permit Data.

Limitations

Figures are for informational and comparative use. For decisions with health, tax, or construction consequences, rely on the issuing municipality or agency, a licensed professional, or Health Canada guidance where applicable. Corrections: [email protected].

Topic-specific ingest rules live on this atlas methodology and data sources pages. Plain-language primers for all topics are collected under guides.