I want to thank the honourable member for the important question with respect to the housing accelerator fund. He points to a really important perspective that we hope to bring to the housing accelerator fund, which is that it has to be deployed differently in different communities.
All communities, even larger cities, have challenges with respect to barriers around faster processing of development applications, permitting and so on. I think the capacity issues are even more pronounced in smaller communities, in mid-size cities and in rural Canada. My commitment is to make sure that, as we deploy the housing accelerator fund, we make sure that we bring a rural lens, a smaller community lens, a mid-city size lens and a regional lens to its execution, so that we have enough flexibility in the fund to address both the needs of large urban centres and smaller cities and communities.
My belief is that there are some common barriers between the two sizes of communities, but there are also some barriers that are unique to smaller communities. For example, one community of a large urban centre may have a barrier of moving towards digitization of its permitting system. A smaller community might not even have enough permitting officials, period, or they may lack the capacity to put together a plan. We have to make sure that the housing accelerator fund is used in all parts of Canada because housing is now a national challenge. It's not just a big-city challenge facing Canadians. The housing accelerator fund has to reflect that.
I want to emphasize once again that it's about investing in systems change, so that at the end of the life cycle of the funding, the changes will be sustainable and they will continue to unlock new housing supply, including affordable housing.