Human Resources Committee on Jan. 26th, 2026

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

I think a good standard that we see in European countries is roughly 10% of housing construction being at the affordable end of the spectrum. In Canada, we're below 5%. We're at about 4.5% that are non-market. European countries are typically two to three times that.

[Scott Aitchison, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

How many affordable units do you think we need to build in this country to catch up, then?

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

At this point, we need to be building tens of thousands of homes, going forward, that are affordable for Canadians. That gets us on the catch-up curve. I think the critical thing right now is having all types of housing scaled up. However, the focus of Build Canada Homes is on non-market housing, and it will leverage some middle-market and market housing, depending on the proposals.

[Scott Aitchison, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

That's great. I think it's important that we're building the non-market housing. It has absolutely been neglected. I have no doubt about that.

The problem I hear with all of your plans, though, is that there isn't enough attention being paid to market housing, specifically in those areas of the country where the gap is biggest. I'm talking about the GTA and, of course, the Lower Mainland.

I've talked to builders in Vancouver, your home city, who tell me there will probably be 20,000 units a year for the next two years that will get completed, but they're not digging any new holes. They're not starting any new projects, and they're laying off people. It's a similar story in the GTA, in Toronto, and the surrounding cities.

Also, of course, again we're back to the cost, the process and everything that adds to that cost of getting a unit built. Let's take Toronto, where there are hundreds of thousands of dollars in local government charges and fees. Collectively, cities in Ontario are sitting on $12 billion in reserve funds that have been collected in development charges.

I wonder if you have a plan to work with the Province of Ontario to unlock some of that money to build housing-enabling infrastructure right now, because the crisis is today, not 10 years from now.

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

Through the chair, I agree with the member. We need to see action in Ontario at the provincial level to make sure all the regulations are in place to ensure that cities and towns are using their development charges that they've collected already. If ever there was a time to use that funding, it's now, given the market conditions.

There are a lot of other factors right now, I think, that are affecting people's choices around homes. Obviously, the economic instability—the trade pressure from the U.S.—is having a really negative effect on our housing market in some markets. In other markets, we're booming. That's the challenge across Canada.

[Scott Aitchison, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

I would agree with you that the scale of the problem is absolutely massive. There's no doubt about that, and I appreciate that you understand that.

The builders in the GTA have told us loud and clear, though, that rebating the GST only for first-time homebuyers is not enough of a market to start projects again. They don't make up enough of the market. The builders have said over and over again, as have people like Mike Moffatt, that we need to cut the GST on all new home projects to help get the market going again.

You agree that the scale of the problem is massive. You've just told me that you agree. You think the municipalities in Ontario should tap into their development charge reserves. I agree.

I think we should cut the cost of government at all levels, including cutting the GST on all new homes. Why won't you make that move?

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

We are looking at all the tools that we can use as a federal government. It doesn't make sense to cut the GST on homebuilding in provinces where it's booming and where the numbers are up dramatically. That's Alberta and Quebec, for starters. We've seen an enormous lift in the number of homes that are being built there. It's not even across—

[Scott Aitchison, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

If housing is a human right, why do you think we should tax it the way we tax cigarettes and booze?

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

It's not even across the country. That's why the tools we use have to be precise and have to get the desired outcomes. Blaming it all on development charges is not accurate when we see the way the market is behaving right now—

[Scott Aitchison, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

I don't blame it all on development charges, Minister. I blame it on all levels of government that charge too much tax.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mr. Aitchison and Minister.

We'll now go to Madame Fancy for five minutes.

[Jessica Fancy-Landry, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Thank you very much, Chair.

Welcome, Minister. I think—you know me now—you probably know what I'm going to talk about.

We've talked a lot about one end of the spectrum, with urban housing. My colleague across the way talked very quickly about rural housing. The theme of my questions today would be access and infrastructure.

It was really neat to hear you say that, beginning today, we cannot build homes without infrastructure and accessibility. Build Canada Homes is a significant new tool—I'll give you that—to help accelerate housing here, but how will smaller and rural communities, like the ones in South Shore—St. Margarets, where I'm from, be supported to access programs?

I've talked to a lot of developers and non-profits in my riding. They're saying that it's really hard to gain access. I'm wondering if you could talk to us today about it and whether there's any rural-centric policy development with this big, shiny, new Build Canada Homes so that my developers and the people in my riding, the little guys, can get a fighting chance when they don't have 100 or 1,000-plus units.

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

Thanks for your question.

We want to see affordable housing built in communities of all shapes and sizes, and that is a challenge under the current set of programs. The plan with Build Canada Homes is to ensure that we're reviewing proposals from communities of all sizes. We are supporting rural projects, because a small project in a rural community can have a big impact on the success in that community by ensuring that people have an affordable place to live in rural Canada.

There are two things happening right now. Everyone is welcome to send in proposals through the public portal on the Build Canada Homes website, first and foremost. We are also seeing provinces and territories bundling rural projects together. We saw this from New Brunswick recently in their proposal to Build Canada Homes, with lots of projects included from small communities across that province. They will help, as a province, to ensure that projects get built and the details are managed, which I think is very helpful in terms of being more efficient with the whole review process and the financing.

That's the approach we're seeing from some parts of the country. I understand there are regions that are also bundling rural communities so that the process of going through the Build Canada Homes review and decision is easier, but it is possible for small communities, as well, to put their proposals forward. We're trying to be as collaborative as possible in the way we're approaching this.

I'd certainly encourage you to ask the CEO of Build Canada Homes, Ana Bailão, questions on how that's going and what that looks like for rural communities. I've visited rural communities in your riding. You can also ask about how it's supporting the manufacturing businesses that are in many parts of rural Canada, including yours. There are great innovative companies that are doing really good work to make building products that can be used in affordable housing. We're looking forward to supporting the construction side and getting the housing built.

[Jessica Fancy-Landry, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

That's awesome. Thank you for some concrete examples today, Minister.

In the little amount of time that I have left, I'll ask about infrastructure. In many rural and coastal communities like mine, housing development is very constrained, less by the amount of land—we have lots of land—but more by infrastructure, like waste-water and sewage systems.

How does the housing framework from budget 2025 align with federal infrastructure funding to ensure that these projects can move forward a lot faster, rather than be in silos?

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

Thanks for the question. We are prioritizing the build communities strong fund to invest in community infrastructure that enables housing to be built. There's no question that we have an infrastructure deficit across the country. In my former role as a mayor, we always talked about the infrastructure deficit that local governments could not solve on their own. I think the $51 billion in the new fund will help us start catching up on the infrastructure that's needed, particularly to build housing in rural communities.

At the same time, we need to be more strategic and more efficient with the land that is already serviced by infrastructure, and that infill development is going to be really important in small to large communities. That's where the housing accelerator fund has been helping to deliver. Anywhere we can build where there's existing infrastructure, we need to be pursuing that and making good use of that infrastructure.

The build communities strong fund is an unprecedented investment in housing-enabling infrastructure that will help communities of all shapes and sizes.

[Jessica Fancy-Landry, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Thanks.

Do I have any time?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

That concludes the round.

Thank you, Minister. Just before you go, I'm going to use my prerogative as chair. I have a question.

You referenced in your answer to one of the earlier questions understanding the needs of the new housing and the young housing entrants. If those people are watching today, how can you assure them that all the tools the government has and all the bureaucracy sitting around understand the dilemma they're facing, and that their needs will be a primary focus as we move forward on addressing this housing inequity?

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

Thanks, Mr. Chair, for the question.

I think it's a shared priority of everyone across Canada now. Affordable housing has reached crisis levels. We certainly see that on our streets. The homelessness challenge is the tip of the iceberg when there are this many people who don't have a home. That reflects that we don't have anywhere near enough housing that's affordable for Canadians.

I feel I speak on behalf of my colleagues when I say that we're extremely passionate about getting affordable housing built and the infrastructure that enables that to happen. We are a community-building department, and we'll be throwing everything at it to make sure that we build faster, build more affordably and build across the country, particularly in communities with the greatest need.

We will be redoubling our efforts. We are heartened by the new structure of Build Canada Homes, taking a more innovative approach, and also by the interest we are seeing from governments of all levels, developers, non-profit housing providers and first nations. We are seeing a ton of interest now in coming forward with great new proposals to build affordable housing. It's going to be our job to implement that and make sure that the financing is moving and that homes get built as quickly as possible.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Minister.

With that, we conclude the first hour of today's meeting.

We'll suspend for a few minutes while we move into the business portion of the meeting.

Thank you, Minister and your officials, for appearing today.

[Proceedings continue in camera]