Interim Parliamentary Budget Officer Jason Jacques put out an updated housing report Thursday. Ottawa's fiscal watchdog is reporting significant progress in closing Canada's housing affordability gap — but the picture looks very different across the country. At 74 per cent, the affordability gap is widest in Halifax, while Edmonton's four per cent gap is the smallest of any major metropolitan area included in the analysis. Jacques on Thursday declined to answer many senators' questions about housing affordability, arguing it wasn't in his mandate to make policy suggestions. He pointed to the newly created Build Canada Homes, which has a mandate to increase the stock of affordable or non-market housing, as a means to close the affordability gap nationally.