Gregor Robertson Liberal
In committee (House), as of March 13, 2026
Subscribe to a feed (what's a feed?) of speeches and votes in the House related to Bill C-20.
This is from the published bill. The Library of Parliament has also written a full legislative summary of the bill.
This enactment establishes Build Canada Homes as a Crown corporation. The purpose of Build Canada Homes is to promote, support and develop the supply of affordable housing in Canada and to promote innovative and efficient building techniques in the housing construction sector in Canada. The enactment, among other things,
(a) sets out the powers of Build Canada Homes and its governance framework;
(b) authorizes the Minister of Finance to make payments out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund to fund the operations and activities of Build Canada Homes; and
(c) provides that the Governor in Council may transfer to Build Canada Homes the property, rights, interests and obligations held by any Crown corporation or subsidiary of a Crown corporation and may issue directives for measures to be taken in relation to the reorganization of Canada Lands Company Limited or any of its subsidiaries.
It also includes transitional provisions, makes a consequential amendment to the Financial Administration Act and contains coordinating amendments.
All sorts of information on this bill is available at LEGISinfo, an excellent resource from Parliament. You can also read the full text of the bill.
Bill numbers are reused for different bills each new session. Perhaps you were looking for one of these other C-20s:
This is a computer-generated summary of the speeches below. Usually it’s accurate, but every now and then it’ll contain inaccuracies or total fabrications.
Bill C-20 proposes establishing "Build Canada Homes" as a new federal Crown corporation. Its mandate is to increase the national supply of affordable housing by leveraging public lands, providing flexible financing, and promoting modern, efficient construction methods across Canada.
Liberal
Conservative
Bloc
Alexis Deschênes Bloc Gaspésie—Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Listuguj, QC
Mr. Speaker, the Bloc Québécois is concerned that Build Canada Homes will create a new point of federal-provincial friction and make things more complicated. I agree with my colleague on that.
I would like to hear my colleague's opinion. What does he think of our proposal, which is simply for the federal government to redistribute the billions of dollars to the provinces so that the provinces can manage the construction of new homes themselves?
Ned Kuruc Conservative Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON
Mr. Speaker, I would like to possibly explore it and we could talk about it. I have not seen anything cross my desk, but we on this side are open to many different decisions and collaborations. Maybe we could talk about that further.
Steven Bonk Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
Mr. Speaker, we already have three bureaucracies for housing in this country, and now the Liberals are wanting to add another one. We had my colleague from Calgary Nose Hill point out very clearly what exactly was on the CMHC website, which is exactly what the Liberals are trying to do with this new bill.
Is it not an admission of failure when they have three bureaucracies already in place to do a job but cannot do the job, and now they are trying to create another one? I was just wondering if my hon. colleague could comment further on that.
Ned Kuruc Conservative Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON
Mr. Speaker, there have been more examples of admissions of failure. We have heard them in the House. I have heard many 10-minute speeches that do not actually speak to Bill C-20. It is much like when I hold stakeholder meetings back in Hamilton, which I do regularly with the housing sector. I ask them whether they understand Build Canada Homes, and not one of our experts in the Hamilton-Wentworth and Niagara region can actually say what Build Canada Homes does.
We heard it about 20 minutes ago when the member across the way did not talk about Bill C-20. He blamed everything on the Conservatives and the right wing. I do not even know what it was. Like I said, I am more dumbfounded now, after listening to him, than I was before. There were no solutions coming from that. They do not even understand their own bill.
The rest of Canada and Canadians watching this want to know what Build Canada Homes would do because the stakeholders have no clue what it would do or how it would better Canadians. I do know that they have hired some bureaucrats north of $700,000 to start filling it out with employees. That is what we do know. However, there are no shovels in the ground. There are no homes built, and it will fail just like all the other ones did. As someone on the public accounts committee, I cannot wait to dig my teeth into this one when it comes across our plate.
Chris Bittle Liberal St. Catharines, ON
Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to be here. I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Acadie—Bathurst.
I appreciate the opportunity to speak about the importance of the Build Canada Homes act, which is truly a holistic approach to housing. Access to safe, affordable housing is the cornerstone of healthy, growing communities and economic opportunity. It provides people with stability and a place to raise their families.
Housing costs continue to rise, which is something we heard about on all sides of the House. It is consistent with what we heard while knocking on doors.
At the same time, I think it was the member for Sackville—Bedford—Preston who got up and talked about his private member's bill and having a plan for housing, and he was mocked by members of the Conservative Party: How dare he have a plan? How dare he bring something forward? He was laughed at and mocked. It was his first time being elected as a member of Parliament, and he was right at the top of the private members' list, but all he got was mockery from the Conservatives. When the Conservatives get up for their speeches, they say, “Well, there is no plan. The Liberals have no plan,” and then they mock someone who is stepping forward to lower housing prices for young people in his riding.
The Conservatives do not have a plan. All they have is obstruction. The last Conservative speaker, the member for Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, said something to the effect that they're not obstructionists and this is freedom.
I cannot believe it. I do not know if they hear themselves. All they do is delay. They talk about the government's plans and say that what the Liberals put forward in their platform has not come forward. Well, it is not just in the bill before us, but in the budget, which was tabled in the fall and I understand has finally gone through committee. There are other bills that have been delayed, such as affordability measures. However, this bill is not the entirety of the plan.
It is great for the Conservatives to cherry-pick and say that they are on the side of freedom, but all they are doing is standing here in the House of Commons, preventing people from moving forward. They can shout and say, “This is democracy,” but there is a difference between being the opposition and just being obstructionists.
Chris Bittle Liberal St. Catharines, ON
Mr. Speaker, they say that we are the government, but they know how the math works. They know it is a minority government. They know they can talk out the bill, and that is what they do on all the bills.
Chris Bittle Liberal St. Catharines, ON
Mr. Speaker, I am hitting too close to home, because all they want to do is chirp.
Let us go to the actual housing experts, because they see themselves as housing experts over there, but not many of them are, as I look across. However, let us talk about the Co-operative Housing Federation of Canada on Bill C-20. It said this:
Canada’s housing co-operatives welcome the federal government’s continued focus on housing in Budget 2025. As Canadians continue to face an unprecedented affordability crisis, today’s commitments are a positive signal; building more homes that people can afford is an essential part of remedying the crisis.
In particular, we are pleased to see the government recognize the value of growing non-market housing, including housing co-ops, through Build Canada Homes. With its robust pipeline of cross-country projects, the co-operative housing sector is ready and able to partner with Build Canada Homes to continue to build co-op housing at scale, as we have been doing through the Co-operative Housing Development Program and beyond.
Chris Bittle Liberal St. Catharines, ON
Mr. Speaker, again, the Conservatives are just heckling me through this speech, and they laugh.
This is an organization that provides co-operative housing throughout this country. I bet the members over there have not visited a co-op in their riding. This is fundamental housing that was built, but successive governments, both Liberal and Conservative, stopped building that housing.
The hon. member has a smug look on his face. He thinks it is so funny. Would the constituents back in Alberta find it amusing that he would stand up here and mock co-operative housing? It is unbelievable. I should not say that it is unbelievable, because it is truly believable. That is all we are seeing here today as legislation, again, is stalled.
The previous speaker said that there were no experts that side with this. The Canadian Housing and Renewal Association is an organization that provides affordable housing across the country. It said:
The Canadian Housing and Renewal Association congratulates [the Minister] and the Government of Canada on the creation of Build Canada Homes.
This new agency is an important step toward addressing the housing crisis—building homes at speed and scale, ensuring affordability, and listening to the community housing sector.
We also congratulate Ana Bailão on her nomination as Chief Executive Officer of the BCH agency. We look forward to working with Ana and the Build Canada Homes team to deliver the homes communities need most.
Together, we can build a stronger, fairer, and more resilient housing system for all Canadians.
The organization that wants to build more affordable housing in this country, true affordable housing, is saying this legislation is a great step forward.
The Conservatives laugh. The Conservatives delay, and the Conservatives obstruct. They talk about there potentially being problems with this bill. Let us send it to committee and end the debate right now. Let us send it to committee and see what the next step is. If these experts are wrong, because the Conservatives are saying that the people who want to build affordable housing in this country are wrong, then they are right and their leader, who built six homes when he was the minister responsible, is the person we should be listening to.
At the same time as they are stalling this legislation, they are going to stall affordability measures. They are going to stall funding for these particular programs. They are going to stall the billions of dollars through budgetary measures to ensure that there is meat on these bones. This is an agency that is going to be created.
The consistency throughout the speeches today is that we have heard from our constituents. We have heard there is a housing crisis and we have a government that's willing to step up and take action. It is the opposition's job to oppose and to hold the government to account, but what we have seen, not just in this Parliament but in previous Parliaments, is the opposition knowing that in a minority Parliament, they can just talk out the clock. They can keep talking and prevent these measures from seeing the light of day and getting to committee.
The Conservatives sit there amused at the notion that it is not them, that we should not look at them as being responsible for legislation not getting through. They say, as they have heckled to me before, that it is the government's fault.
The last time I was up on my feet, the member for Brantford—Brant South—Six Nations said the government is stalling its own legislation, which is impressive. It is impressive that they could even come up with something so ridiculous, saying the government is responsible for stalling its own legislation. The government wants to see the legislation get through. I would love to see this legislation get to committee, but the opposition does not want that.
We can read the experts who have said that they would like to see the bill go to the next step, but the Conservatives do not care. They offer no plan and nothing of substance to Canadians to take that step. They say it is a housing crisis, and it is a crisis. However, there is a government that is willing to step up and act, to work with the municipalities and the provinces, but at the end of the day, all the Conservatives have are their stall tactics. All they have is their obstruction. They get mad when we say that, and I can understand why. They do not like the spotlight on that.
All Canadians deserve a place to call home. Housing is a fundamental need, and the growing demand for housing across the country requires urgent action. The Government of Canada is implementing a new and innovative solution to bring down costs, cut red tape and build homes more quickly. I just wish the Conservatives cared enough to get onside.
Brad Vis Conservative Mission—Matsqui—Abbotsford, BC
Mr. Speaker, it is always amusing listening to the speeches by the member for St. Catharines.
In 2015, in the Niagara Region, the average cost of a home was about $270,000. Today, it is about $600,000. The same experts that the member referenced, and I will acknowledge they are experts and do a lot of great work in our community, also endorsed the plan in 2015 that was supposed to make housing affordable across Canada. The reality is that after 10 years of Liberal government, every viable metric on housing has only gotten worse.
Why should we give the Liberals any more confidence to address this crisis, which has hurt hundreds of thousands of young people and destroyed what their concept of Canada was because of the Liberals' bad policies?
Chris Bittle Liberal St. Catharines, ON
Mr. Speaker, the hon. member can cherry-pick the statistics that he knows are much deeper. He talks about young people, but the hon. member for Sackville—Bedford—Preston just talked about his bill on housing for young people, and the Conservative member voted against it.
Chris Bittle Liberal St. Catharines, ON
Mr. Speaker, the member said that he proudly voted against housing for young people. Shame on him.