Setting goals is easy. Keeping them is the trick. When I was first responsible for a bigger project, the project plan was the be-all and end-all. So: Beginning and Blueprint. Eagerly I started breaking goals down into tasks and writing them all up. Task one is this and that and done. I was proud of the fat long list of tasks. Until someone on the team asked: “By when does this need to be finished?” Ah, timing is the trick. Give the task a time frame with a start and an end. Or put more simply: S and E. That’s exactly when the clock starts ticking. Backwards. You’ve got X days to finish Y.
So it’s that simple?
And then came the day of reckoning, when the timer counted down to zero. Well, task done? And then those two words that stop any project dead: “Not quite.”
Now, Ontario and its government wanted to put an end to the housing problem. Ergo: more housing, fewer problems. Ontario’s premier, a fellow named Ford (Ford, they get it done), was generous in wording the goal for 2025: build 150,000 new homes.
Start: January. End: December 2025.
Bravo, technically flawless project management wording, Mr. Ford.
Reaching such an ambitious goal would have helped a lot of desperate people find a decent home.
“Ford got it done!”
“Ontario reached a full 58 percent of the goal!” reads well enough at first glance. On second look: “Wait a minute, that’s barely over half.”
Did the land run out? The money? The appetite for building?
None of that. Something much simpler: the definition.
Someone took a look at this published nearly-sixty percent of housing supply, which was announced as “58 percent achieved.” What’s generous here, above all, is the government’s enthusiasm for redefinition. Under the magnifying glass, the achieved housing supply looks a teeny tiny bit different than the good people of Ontario likely expected.
The project portfolio doesn’t just list built homes — it also counts long-term care beds and student rooms. Since when did a student room or a care-home bed grow up into a full-fledged home?
Did they develop on their own, with a little help from AI?
“A good half done” is, after all, just a matter of interpretation. But the quiet disappointment among Canadians runs more like: “Where did the remaining 42 percent of homes go?”
Well, on closer look, that 58 percent lives in the portfolio of generous interpretation. Ontario’s own stated goal of 150,000 new homes for 2025 was clearly missed.
Global News wanted to get to the bottom of it. They filed an information request and read, in internal documents, that only 13 municipalities met the targets set by the Ford government.
And what did the resourceful administration come up with to make things look better? They redefined the goal.
You don’t change the construction site. You change the word “home.”
Alongside regular housing starts, basement suites, long-term care spaces, retirement homes, and student residences all got counted toward “goal achieved.”
“Have clear goals, kid” — nobody told me you’re also allowed to clearly redefine them afterwards.
