The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation rubberstamped $30.8 million in bonuses in 2024, according to government records obtained by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

That pushes total bonuses at the CMHC up to $132 million since the beginning of 2020.

“Why are Canada’s housing bureaucrats showering themselves with bonuses when countless Canadians can’t afford homes?” said Franco Terrazzano, CTF Federal Director. “Canadians need more homes, not more highly paid pencil pushers rubberstamping bonuses for each other.”

A total of 2,398 CMHC staff (91 per cent of its employees) took $30.8 million in bonuses in 2024 – for an average of $12,865 each.

The records show that 12 CMHC executives took a combined $1 million in bonuses last year – for an average of $83,859 each.

The CMHC also issued 2,190 pay raises to staff in 2024, costing taxpayers $9.3 million. No employees took a pay cut, according to the records.

The CMHC has repeatedly claimed it’s “driven by one goal: housing affordability for all.”

In 2024, the Royal Bank of Canada said it was the “toughest time ever to afford a home.”

Last year, polling from Ipsos found 72 per cent of Canadians who do not own a home say “they have given up on ever owning” one.

Eighty per cent of respondents to that poll also said home ownership in Canada is now “only for the rich.”

The Canadian Real Estate Association, in its latest housing outlook report, predicted the average home price will “climb by 4.7 per cent on an annual basis to $722,221 in 2025.”

“The CMHC’s c-suite deserve pink slips more than huge bonuses,” Terrazzano said. “The federal government must stop rewarding failure with taxpayer-funded bonuses.”

Undeserved bonuses are a longstanding tradition in Ottawa.

The federal government has awarded $1.5 billion in bonuses since 2015, despite the fact that “less than 50 per cent of [performance] targets are consistently met within the same year,” according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer.