Question Period Note: Build Canada Homes

What is Build Canada Homes?

• The Government of Canada is stepping up with a bold approach to increase housing supply and has launched Build Canada Homes — a new federal agency that will build affordable housing at scale.

• With an initial capital investment of $13 billion, Build Canada Homes will bring together financing and partnerships to streamline development timelines, leverage public lands, and reduce barriers to build affordable homes for low- and middle-income Canadians.

• This new federal agency will harness public-private collaboration, deploy modern methods of construction, and catalyze the creation of an entirely new Canadian housing industry.

• Build Canada Homes has a mandate to move quickly and will prioritize development on six federal sites to build 4,000 factory-built homes – with additional capacity of up to 45,000 units across its current portfolio.

• Build Canada Homes is a new federal agency that finances and builds large scale affordable housing developments.

• It works primarily with non-market housing providers to deliver affordable housing options that serve a large segment of the working population, as well as students and seniors living on fixed income that are priced out of the market. Build Canada Homes also acts as a developer, building on land, or working with other partners to develop underutilized public land.

• As it conducts these activities, Build Canada Homes will help transform Canada’s housing industry by generating demand for new and innovative methods of construction that reduce build time, cost per unit, or amount of resources (materials/workers) needed to get more homes built faster.

• Build Canada Homes will partner on and lead developments of affordable housing projects, and by using public lands, take land costs out of the equation. Build Canada Homes will leverage sites already listed on the Canada Public Land Bank and other federal sites from across departments.

• In its first six projects on federal land, Build Canada Homes will deploy a “direct-build” approach, overseeing and leading construction projects focused on affordable mixed-income communities. This first tranche of sites will be in Dartmouth, Longueuil, Ottawa, Toronto, Winnipeg, and Edmonton.

• To help protect existing affordable rental housing, the $1.5 billion Canada Rental Protection Fund will be launched under Build Canada Homes. This initiative will support the community housing sector in acquiring at-risk rental apartment buildings, ensuring they remain affordable over the long term. It also aligns with Build Canada Homes’ broader mandate to grow the supply of affordable and non-market housing – not only by building new homes, but also by preserving the ones on which Canadians already rely.

• Build Canada Homes will deploy $1 billion to build transitional and supportive housing for people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. It will collaborate with key provincial, territorial, municipal, and Indigenous partners to pair these federal investments with employment and health care supports.

• Build Canada Homes will partner with the Nunavut Housing Corporation to build over 700 public, affordable, and supportive housing units. Approximately 30% of the units are expected to be built off-site, using innovative construction methods such as factory-built housing.

• What makes Build Canada Homes different is how it works:

  • Unlocking multi-year pipelines of projects through the portfolio approach,
  • Leveraging modern methods of construction such as factory-built housing, and
  • Building on public lands to deliver more affordable homes faster.

• By combining flexible financing, access to land, and development expertise under one roof, Build Canada Homes will make it simpler and faster to get big projects off the ground. Introducing early federal financing will decrease project risk and incentivize private investment.

• Build Canada Homes will act as a one-stop-shop for proponents at every phase of the development process, working in close partnership with developers, investors, manufacturers, other orders of government and Indigenous partners to get housing financed and built.

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