Human Resources Committee on April 16th, 2026

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

I have a very quick question.

What I'm wondering, sir, is why you think we needed to create Build Canada Homes to do that when the Canada Lands Company has been doing that for quite some time already. What tools will Build Canada Homes be given that Canada Lands Company needed?

[Alexi White]

It's a good question.

There is a world in which Canada Lands Company could have been reformed to do something similar to that. Maytree's position has been that we needed an agency that was tasked with building homes on government land. Build Canada Homes obviously has a much more homebuilding-focused agenda, as its name suggests. It shifts the use of government land much more from the kind of holding disposition mindset that we've had in Canada for a long time around the uses and underutilized assets: Let's offload it and maybe give it away to someone else.

That's been the way we've been doing this for a long time. What we're saying is that, no, we need to hold onto these assets. We need to think of them as an opportunity to build. Build Canada Homes is changing the mindset so that land is deeply linked to the goal of building homes.

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

This is conjecture at this point, but do you think it would have been easier to slightly alter the mandate of Canada Lands Company than take a year to create a new agency to do that?

[Alexi White]

I don't know. The future will tell us more. If this results in significant at-scale development of land into housing in a way we were just not seeing through Canada Lands Company, then it will have been worth it. It is certainly hypothetical that you could imagine other worlds in which we achieve the same thing through other means.

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

Okay. Thanks very much.

Before I move on to the next witness, I will just say that it feels like wasted time to me. The crisis has existed in our country for a while, and here we are creating a fourth federal housing bureaucracy. I agree with your statement that we need to get it done, but we should have been on it earlier.

My next question is for Ms. Faiza.

Welcome. Thank you for being here.

Everyone should know this is her first committee appearance, and she's very excited to be here.

Nobody will be mean to you, including me.

You made a comment about what BCH will be able to do as identified in clause 20 of Bill C-20. I would agree that it's exciting and that it should be able to invest in community bonds. As you know, I like the work that you do. I think it's really good stuff.

I'm wondering, though, if you read further and you get to clause 21, if you have any concerns about the fact that, notwithstanding anything in all the parts of clause 20, loan guarantees and things like that require the approval of the Minister of Finance.

Do you think that may limit this thing's ability to operate like a Crown corporation—quick and fast—to get things done?

[Suzanne Faiza]

I'm not entirely sure, if I'm being perfectly honest. That is not within my realm of expertise.

I would say that being able to move flexibly as an agency as things happen and develop, though, is generally quite important for non-market housing to be developed at scale. It's whatever helps things move flexibly. If that does need to go through Minister of Finance approval, and if that is considered flexible enough to meet the timelines of actually getting homes built or getting properties acquired, then sure. If not, then I would maybe suggest something else, but it would not be within my realm of expertise to fully answer that question.

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

That's fair. Thank you.

You think it's important to be able to move fast. Is that correct?

[Suzanne Faiza]

Yes.

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

That's great. Thank you so much. Thanks for being here.

Next, I have a quick question for Dr. Moffatt.

I really appreciated the points you made in your statement about the importance of targets, things by which we can measure the success, failure or progress of what the government is doing.

I'm wondering if you might speak to the notion that other agencies that already exist have set targets and have spoken about the number of homes that we need to get built. Do you have a sense that some of the tools we're giving BCH could have been given to the other two Crown corporations that already exist and we could have been moving faster already?

[Mike Moffatt]

Yes, I do have concerns about that, and not just about speed.

We can imagine a situation where we have a builder that is going to work with BCH to build some deeply affordable units and some affordable units using modern methods of construction. That builder and developer would be working with BCH, but they may also want to apply for ACLP or MLI select. Now they're having to deal with two different agencies.

If they are using modern methods of construction and need to scale up a factory, they would have to go to ISED or some of the regional development agencies to get that funding, and maybe they would be going to the finance department for SR and ED credits. I do worry that, because so many of these levers are spread across different departments, that's going to cause delay and confusion.

When I was a chief innovation fellow for the Government of Canada in 2017, one of the things I advocated for was a single-window approach, and I would certainly like to see that at BCH. I do worry that we're asking those builders and developers to have multiple points of contact in the system that they're not comfortable navigating.

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

Thanks.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mr. Aitchison.

Ms. Desrochers, you have the floor for six minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, witnesses, for joining us.

We're here to talk about Build Canada Homes.

Mr. White, thank you very much for explaining what's being done elsewhere in the world. We certainly have to take that into consideration. I think Canada is a laggard in terms of the number of affordable housing units, with 4%.

One of the clear objectives of Build Canada Homes is to double unit construction in general. It won't be able to do that on its own. There needs to be incentives across the market.

Regarding affordable units, we want to go from 4% to at least 7%. I think that's a clear goal.

It goes back to what you said, Mr. Moffatt, about government agencies adopting a coordinated approach. We're trying to create that one-stop-shop with Build Canada Homes.

You also talked about loan programs in the construction sector. Obviously, we'll do that. To date, Build Canada Homes has received enough applications to build at least 10,000 housing units. Hundreds of applications have been received through the portal since it became available.

I'll be asking my questions soon. I just wanted to point these things out.

Build Canada Homes will definitely receive projects. It'll serve as a round table to help a company get what it needs to increase its production of prefabricated or modular housing, for example. We'll be able to get the necessary funds from regional development agencies or the Department of Industry. We'll be able to work with the Department of Industry on labour. We're currently working with the Department of National Defence. We're really implementing this one-stop-shop approach you talked about.

I thought that was worth mentioning here today.

Mr. White, in terms of the predictability and modern methods of construction, we do need to modernize our construction industry. It's not going to be one single approach. Traditional methods will continue to have their place, but we do have to modernize the industry.

To the point about needing homes for larger families, through what happened in Toronto, developers have seen what happens when we don't build what the market needs. I think we're in a different place now. Hopefully we're setting ourselves up for better in the future.

Mr. White, could you tell us your views on the approach of bundling projects into larger portfolios and how that could, in your opinion, provide the predictability that the market needs?

Thank you.

[Alexi White]

Theoretically, it is potentially a good way to generate a whole bunch of units with a lower per-unit administrative time. Obviously, when you're bundling a whole bunch or you're building at scale, you're going to get those kinds of efficiencies.

I think there are some real challenges with making sure that it doesn't exclude some players who might not be able to meet those kinds of expectations of Build Canada Homes. It's about finding that balance and making sure that, particularly, those non-profit developers and those people who are focused on building at the very low end of the housing market—those deeply affordable units that we so desperately need to address our homelessness crisis—are able to participate in this, and that it's not only people who are already building more at the market level at scale, who have typically benefited most from Canada's national housing strategy to date.

I think there are glimmers in the way that Build Canada Homes is talking about itself, as you said, with the focus on the low end and making sure that affordability is a bigger piece of the conversation than it has been previously. I think that's a good sign, but we won't know until we see exactly what the plans are moving forward.

To Mr. Moffatt's point, we don't have a great sense of what the goals are for Build Canada Homes in the longer term.

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

Thank you.

Ms. Faiza, thank you so much for being here today. I've had the chance to engage with so many community organizations over the last few months on Build Canada Homes and on the housing sector. The work that non-profits are doing to get projects off the ground is amazing.

I call it the obstacle course or the 12 labours of Hercules.

We're trying to address that with Build Canada Homes.

I'd like to hear how you're seeing that partnership shaping up, from the conversations you've had over the last few months.

[Suzanne Faiza]

Pardon me. Could you clarify the partnership? With whom do you mean?

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

Between Build Canada Homes and non-profits, and how the approach is translating for you.

On our side, we're really trying to make sure that we're creating that table and that space to hear from community organizations and understand what the barriers are to getting projects off the ground, and I'm curious to see if this is translating.

[Suzanne Faiza]

I think the best person to speak to this would, once again, be a non-market housing provider. We are more in the space of supporting non-market housing providers, but what I can share from the conversations we've had is that a lot of people are curious to see how Build Canada Homes unfolds.

Its design now seems to be critical to what people can expect. A lot of non-market housing providers, in my experience, have gotten very used to the CMHC and they know what to expect. I know some people are concerned about how current CMHC programs and Build Canada Homes programs might interface, and how that design.... You're still going to go to the CMHC to get your insurance, but how does that impact getting your financing from BCH, etc.?

Those are a lot of the technical questions. If this new agency is being created, how do we interface with this? I remember on one of the consultation calls for BCH, when the consultations were released last year, a lot of folks were talking, as Mike pointed out, about that single window and single entry point in that concierge system.

That would be my response to you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Ms. Larouche, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, witnesses, for joining us and helping us understand what the new Build Canada Homes agency, created by Bill C‑20, will look like.

Yesterday, a mayor asked me about what's coming up. For now, all we can say is once the bill is passed, there'll be a single portal. We also know that, afterwards, Quebec would have the final say. That's what we want to clarify today.

I'll go to you first, Mr. White.

Can the right to housing be respected without fully recognizing Quebec's jurisdiction?

[Alexi White]

Yes, I believe it absolutely can. Canada acceded to the the right to housing under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights 50 years ago this year. The anniversary is actually coming up next month, I believe.

In that time, unfortunately, we have not seen a huge improvement in the realization of the right to housing across the population, even though it committed us to a process of the progressive realization of this right and it is binding on all subnational governments within Canada. That includes all of the provinces and territories. I would say Quebec is actually one of those that has, by far, accepted and celebrated it, and has in place processes to recognize the right to housing and other human rights, especially economic and social rights that, in many other parts of the country, are just not as talked about and as embedded in the way the government works.

I think Quebec has figured out a way, and it's championing a lot of these human rights, including the right to housing. I think there are other provinces that should be looking to its work on international human rights and the domestic implementation of those rights for guidance on how to expand these elsewhere in Canada.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Actually, when we say Quebec would have the last word, we're talking about the Société d'habitation du Québec, or SHQ.

Are the SHQ's existing programs, for example, at risk of being fragmented by Build Canada Homes?

[Alexi White]

I don't think it would, but I'm not an expert on the specifics of the programs within the province of Quebec.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Okay.

My next question is for Ms. Faiza, but also for Mr. White. I'd like to hear from both of you.

Would Quebec's right to opt out with full compensation be supported?

[Suzanne Faiza]

I'll go first, and then I'll let Alex go.

In all honesty, Madame, I don't think I have the expertise to tell you one way or the other.