Canada launches C$13bn programme to tackle housing crisis

Mark Carney, Prime Minister of Canada, says that Build Canada Homes will “transform the way government works with the private sector to build.” Image: Adobe Stock

The Canadian government has created a new federal agency called Build Canada Homes which will oversee affordable housing construction at scale and will use construction methods such as prefabricated modular methods and mass timber.

Much of the housing will be built on federal (government) owned land and to streamline construction, Canada Lands Company will be transferred into the Build Canada Homes portfolio. This will give Build Canada Homes access to the government’s land portfolio, including 88 federal properties suitable for housing listed on the Canada Public Land Bank, which span 463 hectares.

To start, Build Canada Homes will identify six sites to build 4,000 homes on federal land. 

It is estimated that, on average, between 240-270,000 new homes are built in Canada each year but that 500,000 new homes a year are needed to keep home prices affordable. 

“Canada’s new government is relentlessly focused on bringing down housing costs. Central to that mission is rapidly scaling up the supply of homes. Build Canada Homes will transform the way government works with the private sector to build,” said Mark Carney, Prime Minister of Canada.

Build Canada Homes will adopt the government’s new Buy Canadian policy and prioritise projects that use Canadian lumber and other Canadian materials. In doing so, the projects could avoid the increased prices that President Trump’s tariffs have added to US construction materials.

A central feature of the new federal agency is its focus on affordable and social housing. To help protect existing affordable rental housing, a C$1.5 billion (US$1.08 billion) Canada Rental Protection Fund will be launched under Build Canada Homes and the new agency will also deploy C$1 billion (US$726,000) to build transitional and supportive housing for people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness.

Gregor Robertson, Minister of Housing and Infrastructure and Minister added that, “Build Canada Homes will support new ways of building, leverage public lands, and accelerate affordable home building.”