Oh, oh!
Gregor Robertson Liberal
In committee (House), as of March 13, 2026
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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
Chris Bittle Liberal St. Catharines, ON
Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives are laughing about voting against housing for young people.
This legislation is about getting housing that is more affordable for Canadians. That is what this legislation would do.
The hon. member talked about how the experts are wrong. I guess that is his right, but at the end of the day, the Conservatives have nothing on this file and do not care about young people. It is time to put their money where their mouth is.
Martin Champoux Bloc Drummond, QC
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my entertaining friend from St. Catharines for his speech and his enthusiasm. It is always enjoyable to listen to what he has to say and to ask him questions. I look forward to hearing his answer to my question.
At the beginning of his speech he talked about the holistic approach of Build Canada Homes. However, the words “holistic” and “Liberal government” do not go together at all. This approach seems more like a kind of computer virus. It is a bit like those old computer viruses that got into the system, slowed everything down and made it take hours to download something that is less than 10 megabytes. It reminds me more of that than of a holistic approach. There are plenty of examples in Bill C-20. Earlier, we talked about the fact that the bill infringes on the jurisdictions of municipalities and provinces, including Quebec, which is particularly well equipped to deal with this crisis. Quebec just needs funding from the federal government.
There is another point that caught my attention. I look forward to hearing my colleague's thoughts on this. Build Canada Homes would be designated as an agent of the Crown. For municipalities, this could mean that they would be deprived of property tax revenues. This is a real and entirely legitimate concern. I would like to know what my colleague thinks about that.
Chris Bittle Liberal St. Catharines, ON
Mr. Speaker, I miss my time on the heritage committee with the hon. member for Drummond. At the same time, he is right; we do need to work with the provinces. That is part of the holistic plan. As I said, not everything is in this bill.
The member talked about municipalities. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities says that it “welcomes the federal government's Build Canada Homes...initiative as a strong signal of leadership on the housing crisis.” I am sure the Conservatives will mock and laugh again at the experts and getting houses built. Let us not care what the mayors and the Federation of Canadian Municipalities say.
Chris Bittle Liberal St. Catharines, ON
Mr. Speaker, again the Conservatives are laughing about the mayors. They called them gatekeepers. That is why they are on the other side of the House rather than working to build homes for Canadians and young people who need them.
Braedon Clark Liberal Sackville—Bedford—Preston, NS
Mr. Speaker, first and foremost, I want to thank my colleague from St. Catharines for the shout-outs and plugs for my private member's bill. I appreciate it very much.
I want to say that the member really distilled the essence of what the bill is about. Bill C-20 is about affordable housing.
One of our colleagues across the way mentioned earlier that he was a home builder, and I respect that. Any home builder who is building private sector housing is in it to build homes but also to make a profit. That is fine and absolutely their prerogative. However, private sector builders will not build affordable housing unless they have some level of support from some level of government in order to make it economically viable.
I wonder if my colleague could touch a bit on the importance of the federal government in providing the scale of affordable housing that we need—
Build Canada Homes ActGovernment Orders
Chris Bittle Liberal St. Catharines, ON
Mr. Speaker, the market will build market housing. It is important for the federal government to step up. It is unfortunate the Conservatives will block it every step of the way.
Serge Cormier Liberal Acadie—Bathurst, NB
Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to get a chance to speak about Build Canada Homes. To begin with, I would like to say hello to voters in my riding of Acadie—Bathurst, who have probably tuned in to watch me this evening.
I think that the Build Canada Homes bill we are discussing today is an outstanding initiative. However, before I get to what we want to do with Build Canada Homes, I would like to talk about various programs that have been extremely beneficial to my riding of Acadie—Bathurst, in collaboration with the Department of Housing and Infrastructure. My colleague spoke earlier about mayors and municipalities.
Let us begin with the program known as the housing accelerator fund. It provides dedicated funds directly to municipalities. My New Brunswick riding was fortunate enough to have six such agreements. The funds go directly to the municipalities. Developers then contact them to inquire about construction projects, whether for affordable housing or for other types of housing. These municipalities far surpassed their objectives, and it shows on the ground, because there is construction going on everywhere. People can watch the housing be built from the ground up. Some of it is ready. Some people have moved in. The program has been extremely beneficial to municipalities in my region. As my colleague said earlier, the Leader of the Opposition called the mayors of some municipalities incompetent. I hope that people will remember that the mayors in my region were not incompetent. They created a tremendous amount of housing, including affordable housing, housing for young people and housing for young families. The program has been a huge boon to my region.
The other program I want to talk about is the Canada housing infrastructure fund. This fund still exists, and the federal government has signed agreements through it with the provinces, including my province, New Brunswick. Once again, we had great programs to ensure that municipalities could move forward with water and sewer projects, for example, to connect new housing developments to that infrastructure.
I recently had the opportunity to make an announcement with my colleague, the member for the provincial riding of Bathurst West-Beresford and New Brunswick's finance minister. To develop the former site of a mill that had been closed since the 2000s, we managed to secure funding through the Canada housing infrastructure fund, which enabled us to build more than 300 housing units there. Just recently, an announcement was made about housing for homeless people that has begun to be built on that land. This shows that these programs are working. There are also several other programs for which we want to partner with New Brunswick. In the coming weeks or months, we hope to increase our collaboration with New Brunswick to be able to build more housing.
Regarding Build Canada Homes, as members are aware, we want to make sure that we build affordable housing. I know opposition members often say that we create more bureaucracy. I disagree. We are going to make things easier for developers, whether they are private developers, community associations or housing co-ops. There are many of them in our regions, especially in rural areas. Every stakeholder I have talked to about what Build Canada Homes will look like is very excited. They hope that this will spark interest among developers.
In addition, we often forget about modular home developers and companies. There are two such companies in my riding: Supreme Homes and Trusko Inc. They are currently building modular housing and, once again, this type of housing is affordable. We see these homes going up day after day. People can feel it in the air, it is tangible. People are waiting for these units. Some of them have already been able to get into a home.
However, as we know, too many Canadians are still having a hard time finding affordable housing. Housing costs are rising, and unfortunately, supply is not keeping up with demand. By consolidating functions that were previously scattered across several departments, agencies and programs, we will strengthen the government's ability to deliver meaningful results. As my colleagues said earlier, traditional approaches need to be reviewed. We must accelerate housing construction. For example, under other programs, municipalities have amended their zoning bylaws to speed up housing construction. That will continue.
Build Canada Homes will be a developer, a funder, a facilitator and a catalyst for innovation in the housing sector. Canadians need more housing, and Bill C-20, the Build Canada Homes act, will make it possible to build faster and more efficiently at scale.
The global economy has recently undergone a shift that has profoundly transformed the traditional world order. Canada can no longer count on its most important trading relationship. Because of that, we are building our capacity here at home by building stronger relationships across all levels of government, including municipal, territorial and provincial governments, as well as with our indigenous partners.
We are making strategic investments to build a stronger, more sustainable and more resilient economy. We are working to cut red tape, eliminate internal trade barriers and sign new agreements that will stimulate local economies.
In these uncertain times, the Government of Canada is taking decisive action now to transform our nation and make it more resilient so that it can shift from reliance to resilience. The goal is to make Canada one of the fastest-growing and most competitive economies in the world and to usher in a new era of economic security and prosperity for Canadians.
The Government of Canada will achieve its goals by building on the strength of our industries and by implementing measures such as Build Canada Homes and the buy Canadian policy, which will enable it to invest in the future and stimulate economic growth.
The buy Canadian policy will have an impact on our softwood lumber industry, for example. There are several companies in my region, including two major plants, that process softwood lumber. They are delighted with the amounts being invested in Build Canada Homes. It will help them diversify their markets a bit if their wood is used to build the homes we need in Canada. During my meetings with these companies, it was very clear that they were about to go through a period of uncertainty because of what is happening with the markets, mainly in the United States. If we help them through Build Canada Homes, they will be able to sell their wood, and we will be able to build homes faster in Canada.
As a Crown corporation, Build Canada Homes will be funded by an initial $13-billion envelope announced in budget 2025. Build Canada Homes was created to centralize federal support for affordable housing in coordination with other departments and agencies. It will act quickly and leverage federal land, support innovative construction approaches and form partnerships across all sectors to build more housing.
Build Canada Homes is a key part of Canada's new industrial strategy. It will stimulate the residential construction sector and make it more productive. Build Canada Homes will revitalize the housing industry by enabling the construction of thousands of new homes. As construction ramps up, we will ensure the growth, training and support of Canada's skilled workforce, while creating well-paying jobs. In addition to building new homes, we will also support the development of essential housing infrastructure such as water and sewer systems.
With existing programs and with the creation of Build Canada Homes, I think Canadians will see that we believe in them. Canadians will see that we understand their concerns and that we understand that they need affordable housing. That is exactly why we are moving forward with a bill like this one while maintaining our existing programs. We are moving forward to build as many homes as possible for Canadians.
Tony Baldinelli Conservative Niagara Falls—Niagara-on-the-Lake, ON
Mr. Speaker, I recently met with the Niagara Home Builders' Association, and its members indicated to us that bureaucracy will not build homes.
One builder has laid off 60% of their staff. They used to build 300 homes but are now building only 30. Their one solution to the housing crisis, and they told us this, was to adopt the Conservative plan of removing the GST on all new homes, not just for first-time homebuyers.
Can the member explain to us why the Liberal government will not simply adopt that idea?
Serge Cormier Liberal Acadie—Bathurst, NB
Mr. Speaker, if we adopt the Conservatives' plan, we would probably end up with six housing units, which is what was built when the Leader of the Opposition was the minister responsible for housing.
The Conservatives like to talk about bureaucracy. We like to talk about building homes, and building homes by the thousands. The current programs we put in place are already getting it done, but with Build Canada Homes, we will do even more.
The Conservatives like to talk about bureaucracy but fail to see what is good about this strategy. Their strategy is always to delay the process and delay the construction of these homes. We see things differently.
We want to move forward to ensure that there are more affordable housing units for Canadians, and that is what we are going to do.
Mario Beaulieu Bloc La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC
Mr. Speaker, I think things would move faster if the government acted like a minority government instead of always trying to impose its solutions.
I would like to know something. All of this is going to result in a very centralized entity that impedes on Quebec's area of jurisdiction. However, not everyone shares the same vision.
Quebec and the municipalities are the ones who are most up to speed on housing needs. The federal government's idea of affordability differs wildly from Quebec's. I went to a building inauguration a few years ago. I was very pleased because we need more housing. However, it was deemed affordable housing when it was not affordable at all. Members can imagine the reactions I got when I posted it on social media.
Why not create a program that would allow Quebec to, first of all, have an envelope allocated—
Build Canada Homes ActGovernment Orders
The Deputy Speaker Tom Kmiec
I will give the member the opportunity to respond.
The hon. member for Acadie—Bathurst.
Serge Cormier Liberal Acadie—Bathurst, NB
Mr. Speaker, I think my colleague knows that we have always been able to collaborate with Quebec on plenty of files, including housing.
Ultimately, what we want to do is build as much affordable housing as possible for as many Canadians as possible. I think that residents of the province of Quebec will continue to benefit from these programs. It will always be a pleasure for us to work with the Government of Quebec. I even think that some discussions have led to agreements with the Government of Quebec. We look forward to continuing in this vein.
Our goal is to build as much housing as possible for all Canadians.