Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Minister, welcome.
I'm going to pick up where Mr. Aitchison left off in terms of the accelerator fund.
The Leader of the Opposition was in Hamilton last week as part of his “make Canada great again” tour, and he went down the nonsensical path of talking about gatekeepers and demonizing municipal councillors and municipal mayors over the whole issue of their efforts to block housing development.
Anyone who has served for one budget cycle around a municipal council—we have, I think, three mayors in attendance here today, and a couple of former city councillors—knows that new assessment is the lifeblood of a municipality. It pays for the existing services and helps pay for new services that a municipality wants to provide. It is counterintuitive for municipalities to block any kind of development, whether it's residential, commercial or industrial, so this whole narrative in terms of gatekeepers and municipalities blocking and preventing us from building new housing supply is nonsensical.
As part of the 2024 budget, we topped up the accelerator fund to get at the whole issue of new housing supply and incenting changes at the municipal level. There are a number of municipalities, Minister, as you know, that want to take part in that program. Langley is one of them. In Sudbury, our colleague is fighting hard to ensure her municipality gets its fair share.
Can you share with the committee why it is important to work with municipalities rather than demonize them for their efforts in terms of trying to build new assessment in their municipalities?