Human Resources Committee on Jan. 26th, 2026

[Leslyn Lewis, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

Thank you, Minister.

Before approving that $10-billion increase to the CIB budget and before even producing those letters, what assessment was conducted on how AI-enabled infrastructure financed through the Canada Infrastructure Bank—or even the private sector—would affect workers, users and vulnerable Canadians?

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

If we look at the broader purpose of the Canada Infrastructure Bank, we see that it is to leverage private sector investment into sectors in Canada that enable our economy to grow and create jobs.

There have been many benefits to Canadians, particularly vulnerable Canadians, as we have been building housing infrastructure and funding it through the Infrastructure Bank, as well as broadband for remote communities across the north. The Infrastructure Bank has invested in energy infrastructure for remote communities to make them more energy-secure. Many investments to date have already achieved that purpose of growing our economy while also serving more vulnerable communities.

[Leslyn Lewis, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

Minister, as government services become more digitized and AI-enabled infrastructure is financed through the CIB, what protections exist for the public sector workers whose jobs may be automated, reclassified and eliminated because of AI tools?

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

At this stage, artificial intelligence obviously offers enormous opportunities for businesses across Canada to be more efficient and to scale. We see enormous growth in that industry alone. Obviously, the investment in AI globally and in Canada has been very significant. Canada needs to be a leading country in terms of the AI industry globally. We want to make sure we're part of that.

In this case, we want to make sure, as government, that we are leveraging all of the tools we have with public financing, but that public financing needs to leverage private capital to invest and grow the industries and benefit the many other industries that are deploying AI to make themselves more productive and efficient.

[Leslyn Lewis, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

Minister, my question was specifically related to the protections of workers when AI displaces them, but I'll move on.

We've heard a lot of complaints. Members of Parliament receive complaints from seniors who are having trouble even accessing benefits because of digitization.

Will AI systems financed through the Canada Infrastructure Bank be used for eligibility decisions on any benefits?

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

I'm not aware of the specific purposes and technologies that will flow from investments by the Infrastructure Bank into that sector. Those are down the line in terms of outcomes. Initially, it's about making sure that the infrastructure can exist and serve Canadians.

The whole purpose of this is public benefit. That is at the core of what the Infrastructure Bank is mandated to do, and we want to make sure they deliver.

[Leslyn Lewis, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

Speaking of serving Canadians and public benefit, can you point me to a legal guarantee in any statute or regulation that no Canadian will lose benefits, employment opportunities or access to services without a timely and meaningful human review of AI-influenced decisions? Is that something that your government has contemplated, Minister?

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

Through the chair, I would urge the member to take those questions forward with some of my colleagues who are working more specifically on delivering those services in the departments that do that work.

My focus with the oversight of the Infrastructure Bank, in this case, is in attracting private investment into Canadian infrastructure that serves the public.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Madame Desrochers, for six minutes.

[Caroline Desrochers, Liberal, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for being here this afternoon, Minister Robertson. I'd like to start by congratulating you on the agreement with Quebec regarding Build Canada Homes that was announced yesterday.

I'd also like to congratulate Mr. Halucha. It's a great agreement and a great first step.

I think the news is good regarding the number of housing starts in 2025 compared to 2024. Things are heading in the right direction, but everyone knows it's not enough. We know that Canadians' first concern is the cost of living, and housing costs are the main reason behind the rise in the cost of living. The news is good, but we need to increase the pace and build more housing units, especially affordable housing units. That's Build Canada Homes' first mission.

You talked about catalyzing the construction industry to reduce delays and build faster. Could you talk about how Build Canada Homes will use modern methods to help modernize the construction industry? How will Build Canada Homes be used to reach that objective?

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

Thank you for the question.

I'll respond in English.

With Build Canada Homes, we have an investment policy in place now that emphasizes the importance of modern methods of construction. We want to help our housing and homebuilding industry to modernize. In Canada, less than 5% of our construction is off-site in factories, which is far behind many of our peer countries, particularly in Scandinavia, where Sweden is approaching 50% of their construction happening off-site in factory-built components. We need to catch up to the front-runners.

Certainly that will benefit us in terms of having jobs that are more flexible. People can work 12 months a year in a warm factory, building homes and components of homes that can be assembled much more rapidly on-site. We anticipate this being a real benefit for affordability as the factories become efficient and productive. As the assembly process is accelerated, we expect to see real affordability gains on the construction side.

We also have great opportunities to use Canadian materials at the factory level. I've been in many plants across the country that are using all Canadian wood, basically assembling that wood into wall and floor panels that are insulated and then flat-packed and shipped to the site, where they can be assembled and bolted together quickly. There's a great savings in that process when it is efficient.

As a country, we have to become more efficient at this. We don't have scale with our production lines. Many of the producers right now are running one shift in their factories. We want to see that improve to help bring the cost down.

Also, I think there are great career opportunities in these factories, given the increased flexibility in work hours and being able to work 12 months of the year. You don't want to be building houses on-site from scratch outside here in Ottawa right now, when it's snowing and -20°C. There are some great workers endeavouring to do that, typically doing the interior work, but we think we can have a much more productive sector by investing in the companies that we see scaling up, and most importantly by driving the supply chains, making sure we're financing projects that prioritize these materials and create demand for the manufacturers.

[Caroline Desrochers, Liberal, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Thank you very much for this. It's very exciting to be part of this project.

With the little time I have left, two minutes, can we talk quickly about the build communities strong fund and how, as we're expanding the offer of housing, we're also thinking about building communities, making sure they have the community infrastructure they need, whether it's water or sewers, while also building climate resilience.

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

Certainly.

The build communities strong fund is not expressly included in this BIA package and the budget implementation act before us right now. That will be coming, as it's been in the budget through the budget process. With the blessing of Parliament, $51 billion is going to be available for communities to invest in housing-enabling infrastructure. Water, drinking water, waste water, stormwater systems, public transit, health and education infrastructure are included in this fund. We expect to see really strong uptake from communities across the country in seeking funding to enable them to scale, to grow their communities and to build more housing. That will be coming before us soon.

The infrastructure component here in this consideration is with the Infrastructure Bank. It is a component of the investment that they will make. If they're increasing it from $35 billion to $45 billion, there's a lot of housing-enabling infrastructure that they will invest in—again, water systems and waste-water treatment plants. There are lots of investments happening across the country at a community scale through the Infrastructure Bank, and importantly, they are attracting private investment as part of the condition of that investment. Those investments attract private investments and leverage the public capital that is going into community infrastructure.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Ms. Desrochers.

Welcome, Ms. Larouche. You have the floor for six minutes.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you very much, Minister Robertson, for appearing before the committee and answering questions on this priority issue for the Shefford riding, namely for the city of Granby, located in the heart of the riding, which is tackling this issue head on.

I want to underline the city's willingness to tackle the housing issue, because for years, it had the lowest vacancy rate. However, Granby is not the only municipality dealing with this issue. There are many other small municipalities in the area that find themselves in the same situation, but I'll come back to that.

The housing issue has been a priority since my election in 2019. That's why today, I've decided to ask questions from other stakeholders, namely the FRAPRU.

An agreement was signed last week with Quebec. Here's my first question: Since Quebec's share seems to be unknown, can you confirm the province will have its share of Build Canada Homes' funds, a share estimated at almost $3 billion? Can you confirm that?

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

Thank you for the question.

Affordable housing is a very important issue for all Canadians.

I was very happy to announce the agreement with Quebec last week in Quebec City around Build Canada Homes and our process for approving and getting housing built in Quebec. My thanks go to the minister, Minister Proulx, who was very keen to advance this partnership as well, along with our teams that negotiated the agreement.

The opportunity with Build Canada Homes is different from what we've seen with housing support from CMHC, as an example. It is not a program that requires applications. Build Canada Homes is an agency with an investment committee. The way we will work with Quebec will be that Quebec will be at a collaboration table with us, bringing forward opportunities for partnering together on financing housing projects. Those will be reviewed at the collaboration table and then advanced to the investment committee at Build Canada Homes.

The investment committee at Build Canada Homes will be reviewing all the proposals that come in. Right now, we have over 400 proposals that have come in through the public portal of Build Canada Homes. The investment committee will review those proposals, based on how they align with the investment policy. The Build Canada Homes investment policy is on the website currently. You can search it there.

Proponents like the city of Granby and other communities in your riding can advance proposals with Quebec. They can see the public criteria on the website for Build Canada Homes and basically work their proposal with Quebec. That will come forward to Build Canada Homes.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Minister Robertson, why did it take so long to reach an agreement on housing between Quebec and Ottawa? Would it not have been simpler, and more efficient, really, to transfer funds directly to Quebec? In fact, that's what the Quebec government and the Bloc Québécois were asking for.

Why insist on having the federal government impose housing-related conditions? It's counter-productive, since Quebec can best determine what its needs are and how to best meet them. Why not recognize that?

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

Once again, thank you for the question.

The good news is that the Government of Quebec has come to an agreement with the Government of Canada. We are very excited to be working together, collaborating around a table to advance affordable housing projects in Quebec.

It's important to think of Build Canada Homes as accelerating the Government of Canada's investment in affordable housing. That's the purpose here. It's to speed up the process. We've had a history of decades of not enough investment from the Government of Canada into affordable housing. We are catching up on that. We have to accelerate the process by which we review and finance affordable housing proposals that come from across the country.

I'm encouraged to see the Government of Quebec's enthusiasm and their support for this agreement and the collaboration we are embarking on. I think both governments are very interested in speed and in making sure that we achieve affordability in communities of all shapes and sizes.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

You talked about two levels of government, so I'd like to talk about the third one, which is municipal government. I'd like to take a moment to read a recommendation the Fédération québécoise des municipalités, the FQM, sent me. Last fall, and a few days ago, I met with some of my constituents from the rural areas, and they're worried. Let me read the recommendation from the FQM:That Build Canada Homes support remote communities as much as large-scale property development projects by adopting a tailored approach based on needs and the impact of projects on communities, rather than on the proposed number of housing units;That Build Canada Homes recognize local governments' jurisdictions;That the Build Canada Homes program have a separate stream for local communities, managed by local communities, to meet housing needs in Quebec regions;….

This recommendation comes from the FQM. Many municipalities in my riding have sent it to me, and I know you've also received copies of this recommendation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Your time is up, Ms. Larouche.

Mr. Aitchison, it's good to see you back. You have five minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's always a treat to be back under your wise leadership.

Minister, thanks for coming.

I'd like to ask you a little bit about housing starts. I would note that housing starts are up a little bit in Canada across the board, and that is good news. I heard the Liberal members talking about that. That's great news.

Interestingly enough, they've fallen off a cliff in places like the GTA and Vancouver. Of course, one of the main reasons is that those are two regions of the country that have particularly high development charges and local fees and charges.

One of the things that came up in the election campaign and that the Prime Minister promised to do was to address the issue of these outrageously high development charges, which we now know are halting starts. He promised to cut them in half, yet we see nothing about that. Why is that?

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

Through the chair, thanks to the member for the question.

On housing starts, I agree with you. We see some good results overall for Canada last year.

Some regions have been struggling. Their numbers are down. Toronto in particular is obviously significantly down. Vancouver was down 3% last year, but there are signs that it's soft for the coming years. We'll keep a close eye on that, but we've also seen good growth of housing starts in many regions across Canada, particularly in Quebec and Alberta.

We need to keep focused on seeing success there and on ensuring we're getting more affordable housing built. Development charges are certainly a part of the challenge, particularly in Ontario and B.C. The approach we are taking as a government is with the build communities strong fund and ensuring that a portion of that fund—there's $51 billion proposed there of investment into infrastructure—is for provinces and territories to match and then bring down development charges, to show that the development charges in those provinces are reduced by that amount.

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

Is that funding contingent upon those municipalities and those provinces cutting their development charges in half?

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

That funding is contingent on reducing their development charges by the amount of the funding that's being advanced and being matched by the provinces or territories.

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

When do you suppose that will occur?