Bill C-20

Build Canada Homes Act

An Act respecting the establishment of Build Canada Homes

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.

Build Canada Homes Act

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Ponoka—Didsbury, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I would love to revisit the Harper-era policies. Some of the main housing-related policies were the home renovation tax credit in 2009, which saw massive investments in Canadians to invest in their own home. It helped with expenses of over $1,000 and up to $10,000. There was $1,350 in tax relief for people to stay in their homes and keep those homes current.

The first-time homebuyers' tax credit in the 2009 budget was worth up to $750 at the time, helping offset the closing costs for the purchase of new homes. With the expansion of the homebuyers' plan, the government increased the amount Canadians could withdraw from their RRSPs from $20,000 to $25,000.

Economic action plan infrastructure spending invested in lots of community housing.

We tightened mortgage rules. We made sure that we did not get into a fiscal crisis. We regulated the environment, rather than try to do everything for everybody else. We built two million homes while the population grew by only 3.2 million. We kept up with the increase in population, which is something these guys have failed to do, miserably.

[Warren Steinley, Conservative, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Mr. Speaker, here is what really confuses me about this. I was part of a government in Saskatchewan that had a housing plan. It actually had numbers in it. This plan in 2011 by the Saskatchewan government said head start on a home would build 1,000 homes, the affordable home ownership program would build 600 homes, the rental construction incentive would build 2,900 homes, with $35 million for rental housing, and Habitat for Humanity would build 30 homes.

When someone actually has a plan, they put numbers in it. This plan promised to build 4,690 homes in five years. Why does the Liberal government not have the number of homes in its plan and the kinds of homes it would build?

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Ponoka—Didsbury, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I know my colleague knows the answer to this, but here is how the Liberals do it. They take whatever the global agenda happens to be. Financial markets and central bankers, like the current Prime Minister, create global scarcity for a certain product, drive up the demand for it by creating that scarcity and then come up with socialist-type deficit spending to solve the problem, which all of the insiders, their friends and their big corporate interests, then grift on. That is why we are in this mess. They can apply this to housing or any of the other aspect of our economy.

Have members ever noticed that nothing ever gets done in this country unless the government spends a bunch of taxpayers' dollars along with it? It does not seem to work, does it? All that happens is our deficit goes up and things get worse.

[Bardish Chagger, Liberal, Waterloo, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member's comments about really being there to meet Canadians with what they need and finding out ways to do it are not lost on me.

Just last month, the Government of Canada and the Government of Alberta stated in a press release that they are going to invest $323 million in affordable housing. There will be 41 projects in the province of Alberta. They will also build more than 70 new shelter spaces for Albertans in need. This press release, which was signed off on by both the Government of Alberta and the Canadian government, talks about Build Canada Homes.

I would like to know if the member supports the 41 projects in here, including the projects in Red Deer, Lacombe, Calgary and Edmonton. The list goes on.

Does he believe the federal government has a role to play—

[The Deputy Speaker, Tom Kmiec]

I have to cut off the member to give the member for Ponoka—Didsbury a chance to respond.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Ponoka—Didsbury, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I will tell everyone about an incident that happened in this House. It was the day the former prime minister announced the consumer carbon tax. The member opposite came and sat beside me, trying to pitch to me that my kids were going to love this new consumer carbon tax because it was the woke thing to do. Right now, my kids make great money and they are living in the basement in my house. They cannot afford a house because she has been a member of Parliament here for the last 11 years, making a total disaster of this country.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to Bill C-20, an act that seeks to establish the Build Canada Homes bureaucracy, at third reading.

As I mentioned during the debate at second reading, this bill is the latest attempt by the Liberals to solve a problem they created. Unfortunately, their solution is to create yet another Crown corporation, which they promise will deal with their housing issue. It is their third Crown corporation, no less.

Over the last 10 years, our young people have watched rents and the prices of homes double. Inflation has soared and swallowed up their ability to save for the future, and the prospect of owning a home has slipped away.

We all remember the promise the Prime Minister made during the last election to build at speeds not seen in a generation. This generation is losing out. He has invoked grand speeches since, reminding Canadians that for much of our history, our country was able to build vital projects and the housing it needed. I am deliberately saying “for much of our history”, because over the past 10 years under the Liberals, companies have been forced to downsize and lay off workers, businesses have had to shut their doors and our builders have been unable to build because of increasing costs and regulatory burdens.

After promising to deliver 500,000 new homes every year, the PBO estimates that Canada's housing completions will average only 222,000 per year, which is well below the number needed and the number promised. However, rather than delivering on their promise to build these homes, the Liberals are building yet another bureaucracy. This makes it their fourth attempt at using bureaucracy to try to fix the housing crisis they have created.

While the Liberal government continues to tell young Canadians that solutions are on their way, it is going to deliver and all it needs is more time, our young people are waking up each morning with less hope of making a down payment on a home, landing a career that will meet their needs or starting a family. After 10 years of getting it wrong, just how much time do the Liberals need to get it right?

Now we find out that their grand plan is to build yet another bureaucracy. It is completely out of touch to believe that doing the same thing over and again will somehow produce a different result. Rather than repeal overburdensome regulations or legislation, the Liberals' plan is to create yet another massive, multi-billion dollar Crown corporation to do what the private sector already does, except it would move slower, cost more and require more red tape.

The Liberals' record of overseeing Crown corporations is not stellar either. Let us consider Canada Post. This Crown corporation became insolvent under the government and has received not one but two $1-billion loans that taxpayers are on the hook for. This is all because the Liberals failed to act and approve its strategic plan for five years.

The Canada Infrastructure Bank, which is another Crown corporation, handed out a $1-billion loan to a Chinese shipbuilding company, instead of giving that work to capable, hard-working Canadians in B.C.

As for the Canada Lands Company, its responsibility to develop federal properties and convert them into housing units will now become the responsibility of Build Canada Homes. The six projects that were announced, as my colleague pointed out earlier, had already been approved and development was well under way. Only 49% of federal land commitments from the Canada Lands Company will be built by 2028. According to the Auditor General, federal property disposals take six to eight years per property. These delays are not one-off incidents. They are slow, repeat failures that demonstrate a true lack of will to address the issue in a meaningful way. There is no reason to believe that by transferring these properties to the new bureaucracy, things will speed up or be any more effective.

Reorganizing is not reform. Still, that does not seem to resonate. Believing that giving paycheques to policy advisers on bureaucratic boards will deliver results is a failure of imagination and a failure to recognize that a change in approach is needed.

Getting back into the business of building cannot mean being in the business of hiring consultants or layering on more delays. A new board of directors would not fix the supply crisis the Liberals have created. What builders need is for the cost of building to come down, and that means bringing the cost of government down. It means recognizing that the cost of government is more than just the development charges and it is more than the cost of GST on the sale of a home. It is the cost hidden in the complex rules that present the first barrier to a shovel hitting the dirt. These rules drive away competition, slow progress and gradually increase cost.

We do not catalyze an industry by competing with it, using $13 billion of its own tax dollars. We do not build homes by adding more process to the country's system that already has far too much of it. For greater clarity, the OECD has identified restrictive zoning permitting and fragmented approval systems across levels of government as a principal constraint on housing supply in Canada. Build Canada Homes will not fix this, and there is a real human cost to all of this.

Young Canadians are being forced to work longer in the hopes of entering the housing market later in life. We must also acknowledge the lost potential to our economy as construction workers are laid off and home builders stop building at a time when housing starts, job creation and affordability are needed the most.

Building has become complex. The regulatory burden has become expansive. It is not Canadians who need to be reminded of a time when we used to build here in Canada. It is the government here in Ottawa that needs reminding that there was a time when it did not stand in the way of letting people build. If the Liberal government is serious about wanting to tackle the housing crisis our country is facing, it needs to stop blaming outside factors and rather look inward to determine a new approach, which is needed in our capital. A new approach would deliver the results Canadians need.

The new is often uncomfortable. This would mean a departure from an “Ottawa knows best” mindset and a return to common sense, wherein young people are free to innovate, businesses are able to adapt and the market drives demand for growth. The government, as a customer, cannot drive demand forever, create the jobs we will need nor house every Canadian, and it should not want to. Canadians are the most capable people in the world, and the government needs to remember that.

Young Canadians should not be asked to sacrifice more than they already have. They deserve a fair chance to work hard and build the homes, lives and families they choose. The 500,000 homes a year that are needed to solve this housing crisis will not be built by a fourth housing bureaucracy with red tape that prevents shovels from hitting the dirt. Boardrooms have never built homes. Builders and capable workers do.

Canadians do not have to settle for a $13-billion project that will build just 5,000 homes a year. Better is possible, but it requires a change, not more of the same. The bill we are debating today is just more of the same.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence]

Mr. Speaker, I know we are talking about Building Canada Homes and creating this stand-alone agency, and the previous speaker mentioned that no homes have actually been built. I was at the inauguration of a building in my riding in March with 30 units for transitional housing, so I have seen in my own riding that we are building. We are building to make sure that we provide the supply to allow more Canadians to find a place to live and to buy their first home.

As such, I am not quite sure why the members opposite are saying no homes are being built, when I know for a fact that in my riding there have been. In fact, Longueuil was actually identified as one of the six projects initially announced.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I would just suggest this: My hon. colleague does not need to take my word for it. She does not need to take the word of my colleagues on this side of the House. Maybe she should go back and look at the Auditor General's report or the PBO's report that was tabled last fall. In her report last year, the Auditor General found a clear lack of transparency in reporting numbers on the government's housing initiatives, which further undermines the trust Canadians have in the government's ability to address the housing crisis. Under its own definition of housing units, the government refuses to be transparent with the kinds of housing it is building and whether it will meet the needs of families. I would remind the member that she needs to also take a look at what others are saying about this crisis and how they are doing.

[Dan Muys, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook—Brant North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek for a strong grasp of the numbers and the facts. I would note that 11 years ago, the average monthly mortgage payment was $1,432. The average monthly rent payment was $973 a month after 10 years of Conservative government.

Maybe the hon. member can reflect on the fact that now in Canada, a third of the cost of building a home is government taxes, fees, levies, delays and permits. In my community of Hamilton, Ontario it is actually 36%. This is driving up the cost of housing and it is preventing young people from entering the market.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague probably has a much better grasp on the numbers than I do. I would simply say this. I am a mom of four adult children who have recently bought homes, trying to get into home ownership, and the cost to do that is incredible. We know it is still the dream of young Canadians to one day own a home, and we know the government is losing valuable time by creating bureaucracies instead of actually doing something different and addressing the issue to get more homes built for our young people.

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Build Canada Homes bill is not a bad bill because we are in the midst of a housing crisis and any attempt to correct the situation is more than welcome.

However, the way the bill is worded, the federal government is encroaching on the jurisdictions of Quebec and the provinces, which always makes me feel a bit uneasy. Quebec and Ottawa made an agreement on a number of things, which should help close loopholes.

I would like my colleague to tell me this. In her view, would it not have been better to simply transfer money to the provinces by proposing that they look after housing in each province and in Quebec, according to the priorities and problems that each Canadian province is facing?

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Mr. Speaker, there is no doubt that partnerships between municipalities, provinces and the federal government are important when addressing this issue. Conservatives believe the goal for these partnerships where housing is concerned should be to reduce the costs and delays that prevent housing from getting built, and to be doing that in partnership with other orders of government.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would just like to say that I will be sharing my time with the ever-energetic member for South Shore—St. Margarets.

I want to talk about a recurring pattern with this government, one that I have observed since the beginning of this Parliament. There are two crises that are affecting us. I will focus on two major crises, although there may be more. The first is the housing crisis, and the second is the tariff crisis.

In a previous life, when I was studying philosophy, we were given a definition of “crisis” that was quite simple. It is when a body goes through a period that puts it on the brink of life or death. Responding to a crisis means ensuring the survival of a body. If nothing is done, then that body will die. That was a definition that I had in my philosophy courses.

What does that imply? Why do I raise this? It is because during a crisis, what is needed is prompt action that produces results. The best example is perhaps a heart attack. If someone has a heart attack, they would not be satisfied with me telling them not to worry and to keep breathing because it will eventually pass. They would want prompt action. They would want medical care to stay alive.

What I am seeing today from the government is precisely a lack of prompt action. Now we have Build Canada Homes, and I will give an example. Loge m'entraide, an organization in my riding that received funding from the Société d'habitation du Québec, or SHQ, to build social housing, was supposed to receive money from the affordable housing fund, or AHF, which was administered by CMHC.

That was at the beginning, in 2024. This organization received its SHQ funding. CMHC officials said that if SHQ funding was secured, then AHF funding would be coming. Several months passed. The affordable housing fund disappeared. The government said that it would reach a new agreement with the provinces and that it would then follow up to see whether SHQ projects would qualify.

Now, after 18 months, Loge m'entraide is still waiting for federal funding. The government scrapped the AHF, which was supposed to be refinanced by the government in the budget. However, what we learned from the budget is that there would be a new program instead. This new program was going to solve all the problems. This new program is called Build Canada Homes, but in the meantime, no social housing is being built in my riding because the federal government is unable to respond to the crisis.

Another point that strikes me as essential is that, throughout the election campaign and even afterward, I heard the Prime Minister and the Minister of Energy and Natural Resources say that there is one sector that has been particularly affected by tariffs since 2017, and that is the forestry sector. We were already dealing with U.S. tariffs even before the tariff crisis. These two people told us that they knew that the lumber sector was particularly affected, but that they were going to resolve this issue through a major initiative. The Prime Minister said that during the election campaign. The Minister of Natural Resources repeated it ad nauseam. They said they were going to resolve it through a major initiative that would allow homes to be built using Canadian lumber.

I am a guy who is all about co-operation. I thought to myself that we have been asking for this since I arrived here in 2019 and that this government may have understood that it had to support the forestry industry.

However, where do we stand today? If I look at the Build Canada Homes bill, is there anything that clearly states that Canadian wood has to be used? I do not know whether anyone else has seen that, but I have not. Apart from the Liberal Party's lip service, there is absolutely nothing to suggest that construction will be done with wood. This brings us to another major crisis, the softwood lumber crisis, which mainly affects Quebec, but also Ontario to some extent as well as British Columbia. However, there is absolutely nothing in there to suggest that the federal government wants to prioritize wood as a material, apart from the statements that have been made.

I say that because it is very important; I remember that in 2025, for the first time, a federal government said in response to the softwood lumber crisis that it would provide liquidity. In August 2025, the Minister of Energy and Natural Resources said that there would be a liquidity program for people in the forestry sector who are going through one of the worst crises they have ever experienced.

Eight or nine months later, people in my riding have contacted me to express interest in accessing the Business Development Bank of Canada, or BDC, program, but it is still vague and the rules are so hard to understand that no one I know can access it. Eight or nine months on, we are in a crisis, as I said earlier. If a person has a heart attack, they want an immediate response. Eight or nine months later, absolutely nothing has been done to support the forestry sector. Then, the federal government announces that it is going to launch a broad strategy to use wood in building construction.

How is it going to use wood in building construction when the majority of businesses, whether small sawmills or lumber producers, are shutting down?

How can the same momentum be recreated when companies in the forestry sector are being left to die?

We sat down and came up with proposals. We are in collaboration mode. It is true that we sometimes criticize the government's measures in the House. However, we gave the government a suggestion. The first thing that we did was to go and see people in the forestry sector to tell them that there will be business opportunities. The government wants to launch a major construction project, and so we asked business owners in the industry what they have to offer. These people told us that, before they can offer anything, they have to keep their companies afloat and get through the tariff crisis with the United States, and that the best way to do that would be for the government to cover some of the anti-dumping and countervailing duties at the end of each month.

Today, more than $13 billion is being held captive, in trust, at the border by the Americans. That amount belongs to the forestry sector. If we could inject that $13 billion into this sector, everybody would be thrilled. However, this $13 billion is being held captive. People in the forestry sector are accommodating. They do not want to get that money back right away. They want to exhaust all available recourse with the international trade tribunals. In the meantime, they are asking the government to take care of 50% of these countervailing and anti-dumping duties and tariffs at the end of each month. A 10% tariff brings the total tariff amount to 45%. Furthermore, this is not a subsidy, because this problem will eventually be resolved. The forestry industry is asking the government to adopt this proposal so that it can keep its ecosystem alive. When construction starts up again, forestry companies will be there and they will not have all disappeared.

The government rejected this proposal.

The government was given another proposal to maintain the ecosystem and the value chain that allows us to use wood in construction. The proposal was for the government to provide the equivalent of a wage subsidy, which would be an easy thing for the government to do.

The government also rejected this proposal.

Last week, the government announced with great fanfare what the task force strategy entailed. It is very interesting. The government talked about $10 billion over 10 years. Will this amount actually be distributed? I do not know, but it was announced with great fanfare.

Are there any conclusive solutions and results today that will allow the forestry sector to respond to what will be a vast construction site for the Build Canada Homes projects? There is absolutely nothing.

In closing, Build Canada Homes is a great strategy but, at the end of the day, absolutely nothing is being done. This government likes to talk about what it wants to do but is very slow to take action. That is what is disappointing.

I look forward to hearing my colleagues' questions on this matter. I also look forward to seeing their record so far.

[The Deputy Speaker, Tom Kmiec]

Before moving on to questions and comments, it is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Calgary Crowfoot, Finance; the hon. member for Courtenay—Alberni, Marine Transportation; the hon. member for York—Durham, Housing.