Finance Committee on Oct. 20th, 2025

[Gregor Robertson, Liberal, Vancouver Fraserview—South Burnaby, BC]

The affordable housing fund, the AHF, is administered by CMHC. It's getting an increase or top-up of $1.5 billion, which we announced recently, so that there is more funding available to the provinces and territories to build affordable housing as Build Canada Homes ramps up and takes over that.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Thank you.

I have 20 seconds left for a quick snapper.

This year, what percentage of young Canadians under 35 will be able to save enough for a down payment, without help from their parents or family, to qualify for the GST rebate?

[Gregor Robertson, Liberal, Vancouver Fraserview—South Burnaby, BC]

I don't have an exact number, but it could—

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Thank you, Minister. We're done with the time for that round.

Mr. Lefebvre, you have the floor for five minutes. I understand you're going to share your time with Ms. Cobena.

[Éric Lefebvre, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Yes, I am.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Good afternoon, Minister.

With regard to the establishment of Build Canada Homes, a $13-billion budget has been set aside to build only 4,000 housing units.

My question is simple: According to your calculations, what will the average cost of each of those units be?

[Gregor Robertson, Liberal, Vancouver Fraserview—South Burnaby, BC]

I'm not clear what the question is. Is it about the coverage cost?

[Éric Lefebvre, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

You told us that, as part of your project, you were going to build 4,000 housing units with a budget of $13 billion. What was the average cost you calculated to arrive at $13 billion?

By my math, that works out to $3,250,000 per unit. There's a whole list of contractors from back home who are ready to come work for you.

[Gregor Robertson, Liberal, Vancouver Fraserview—South Burnaby, BC]

Thank you for your question.

To be absolutely clear, the initial projects that were announced—4,000 homes on Canada Lands Company across six sites, and 700 units in Nunavut—are just the very beginning of the Build Canada Homes investments. We anticipate seeing at least 50,000 homes built with the initial financing across Canada.

[Éric Lefebvre, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Minister, what was the average cost per unit you calculated to come up with your budget? Earlier, you talked about a 30% of income factor, but that ultimately doesn't give us a figure.

[Gregor Robertson, Liberal, Vancouver Fraserview—South Burnaby, BC]

The average price to construct a unit does vary across the country in different markets. A ballpark is between $300,000 and $400,000 to construct a unit, but certainly we see a range of that. We need to bring that cost down with manufactured—

[Éric Lefebvre, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Thank you for that, Minister. I only have two and a half minutes.

[Gregor Robertson, Liberal, Vancouver Fraserview—South Burnaby, BC]

—or factory-built housing.

[Éric Lefebvre, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

You've brought in a number of public servants for Build Canada Homes.

Once again, growing the bureaucracy and having more public servants for bigger government is the Liberal way to go.

How many have you hired?

[Gregor Robertson, Liberal, Vancouver Fraserview—South Burnaby, BC]

I think at this point there are a few dozen who are, in most cases, seconded to Build Canada Homes as a special operating agency. They are people who have been working in many other agencies.

[Éric Lefebvre, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Thank you, Minister.

I'll turn it over to my colleague.

[Sandra Cobena, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Minister, per CMHC, Toronto is on track for its lowest level of housing starts in the last 30 years. Home builders, contractors and suppliers are struggling. Some are even considering shutting down. I have received a number of phone calls over the last few weeks. If we lose this capacity now, we risk losing the skilled workers and the businesses we need to actually boost construction.

The government had a chance to go all the way and cut GST on all new homes, but chose to go only halfway. Isn't this a time to support all housing starts and not just a few?

[Gregor Robertson, Liberal, Vancouver Fraserview—South Burnaby, BC]

Initially, our goal is to implement this first-time homebuyers' tax break. It does affect up to 47,000 homes per year. It's almost $4 billion in GST breaks, which is very significant right out of the gate.

We want to see this implemented ASAP. Then, if there are next steps needed, we will consider those.

[Sandra Cobena, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Minister, we have a housing crisis. Why go halfway and not apply it to all new houses?

We're trying to get new houses built for people to be able to buy them. Why go halfway?

[Gregor Robertson, Liberal, Vancouver Fraserview—South Burnaby, BC]

We don't have the data that demonstrates that this is only halfway. This is a targeted measure for the market to make it more affordable.

[Sandra Cobena, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

This is only for first-time homebuyers. It wouldn't help, for example, somebody who lost their house because of the affordability crisis. It wouldn't help a young couple who has a condo and wants to buy a house. It wouldn't apply to a senior who wants to downsize. It wouldn't apply to all these groups of people who may want to buy a new house. It only applies to first-time homebuyers and at the limited $1-million mark.

Again, why go halfway on the GST rather than apply it to all new houses if we're actually trying to support and boost the industry to build more homes?

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Give a very brief response, please, Minister.

[Gregor Robertson, Liberal, Vancouver Fraserview—South Burnaby, BC]

This is a targeted measure for first-time homebuyers. We have several other tools. I've mentioned Build Canada Homes and the work Build Canada Homes is going to do to make housing more affordable and build at a scale that is unprecedented. We're going to see a number of different measures across the housing—

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Thank you, Minister.

We go now to Mr. Sawatzky from the Liberals.

Thank you.

[Jake Sawatzky, Liberal, New Westminster—Burnaby—Maillardville, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Minister Robertson, for coming today and for all of your work so far on housing.

Housing is a foundation of health and a productive economy. I'm glad to see it's a priority right now with the current government. For example, in my riding, there's a lot more investment needed for people who can't afford housing or who don't have housing at all. Shelters are over capacity, affordable units are disappearing faster than they are being built and there are a lot of people living without stable homes.

This is a social issue, but it's also an economic one. It's straining our labour market, our health systems and local communities. Housing is also deeply connected to things like mental health, public safety and the toxic drug crisis. This doesn't exist in isolation.

You mentioned earlier the $1 billion earmarked for transitional housing. I'm wondering if you could elaborate on the rollout and how that's expected to have an impact.

[Gregor Robertson, Liberal, Vancouver Fraserview—South Burnaby, BC]

Thank you to the member for the question.

We signalled that $1 billion of the initial $13 billion for Build Canada Homes will be focused on transitional supportive housing. We're looking at modular solutions that can be built within the next 12 months to get people from the street or from shelters into stable, supportive housing with wraparound health and social services. We need provincial partnership to deliver on those wraparound services. Those are critical to ensuring people are stable as they move into homes.

Ideally, we're transitioning those folks through the transitional supportive housing into permanent housing. I think that's been a proven path in many cities. In my city, we built 600 temporary modular homes in 2018 for people who were homeless or at risk of homelessness. There's a very successful track record of people transitioning into permanent housing from that.

We want to see that initial billion allocated, with those modular homes, with supports, up and operating before next winter. That's the big goal here. We are reaching out to partners across the country to deliver on that and to the provinces to fund the services that support the supportive housing. I think it will be a really important initiative for tackling homelessness and making sure we can help people get off the street and out of shelters.