Let me go backwards. When we looked at the national housing strategy, we worked well with Minister Duclos. I should have said upfront that this government's commitment of $12 billion to affordable housing over 10 years is truly historic. It's the first time that mayors in big cities got exactly what they wanted. Now, it's a matter of figuring out the way we should be working with the provinces.
This really represents our top three requests. The first is clarity around timing of those flows, so we can do some long-term planning. The second is the development of a thoughtful way to work with or through the provincial governments to ensure that municipalities and non-profits that operate in cities actually have access to that funding. The third is the development of some guidelines regarding the allocation of that funding, and preferably local control, so that it can be used toward new builds versus rehabilitation of existing stock. Those are the three big things we want with respect to housing.
As for PTIF two, Calgary and Ottawa are in a different place with this, given the electoral commitments of this government, and the money devoted to the green line. We're very pleased with our relationship with Minister Sohi, and the work that has been done on the green line. As I was intimating to Member Kelly earlier, the federal government has fully participated at the table on all our discussions around the green line and its design, which has been great.
When it comes to PTIF two, we really do have to look at what happens in the long term. We've been asking for a while for permanent, stable, long-term financing, because for the cities in Canada that rely on rail-based transit, those projects, even the construction of those projects, long outlive the mandate of any government. The idea is to obtain long-term, predictable financing, so that we can borrow money if needed, and understand how to move forward on that.
The other thing we've talked about a lot has to do with debt vehicles. With regard to the green line, right now the city is carrying all of the debt. It may well be that the provincial and federal governments will cover the carrying costs of the city's financing, but the city still carries the debt. It's time for us to have a broader conversation at the federal level regarding financial mechanisms, and how we should manage the debt on big projects, especially rail-based transit projects. Using the Canada infrastructure bank might be a good starting point.