Human Resources Committee on April 16th, 2026

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mr. Joseph.

Ms. Larouche, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'll ask some more questions to try and better understand Build Canada Homes. There's a willingness to co-operate, and that's what I'm hearing from you as well, Ms. Faiza.

Is there still a risk financial decisions will be centralized with Build Canada Homes?

[Suzanne Faiza]

Just to clarify that, you are asking about financial decisions pertaining to what?

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

This organization, Build Canada Homes, will offer a single portal and be responsible for processing housing applications. Is there a risk financial decisions will be centralized?

[Suzanne Faiza]

Just knowing what I know from my friends and colleagues who are on the housing provider side, they're looking for simplicity and access, as well as clarity in understanding how to access the program. Roughly, as long as that is achieved, I think the risk of centralization, then, isn't as bad. I think the conversation is more about making things quicker, easier to understand and easier to access. That way, housing providers aren't trying to navigate, as Mike mentioned, multiple layers of government, funding departments, etc. I think that would be my answer.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

You talk about co-operation. I asked a question earlier about knowing the regions, the municipalities and the province. Ultimately, the Société d'habitation du Québec will have a say.

Given that context, does success in housing construction rest more on a federal structure, in this case Build Canada Homes, since that's how it's presented, or on local players?

We talk about co-operation, yes, but are we really going to find out what local stakeholders need?

[Suzanne Faiza]

Once again, my expertise on this would be limited. I think I will probably leave my answer there.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Ms. Larouche.

This concludes the first round.

I want to thank the witnesses and members for this informative round. We'll suspend while we transition to the second hour.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

The committee is back in session.

I would like to welcome the witnesses for the second hour and remind you of a couple of points.

For those who are appearing in the room, please make sure you have your headset on. That allows you to participate in the meeting in the language of your choice. If there is an interruption in translation, I will suspend while it is being corrected.

Please ensure your devices are on mute. Please, for the benefit of our translators, refrain from tapping on the boom of the mic.

In this hour I would like to welcome as witnesses Dr. Carolyn Whitzman, senior housing researcher at the University of Toronto's School of Cities; from the Canadian Housing and Renewal Association, Raymond Sullivan, executive director; and from Rental Housing Canada, Tony Irwin, president and chief executive officer.

We'll begin the five-minute open statements with Dr. Whitzman.

Welcome. You have the floor.

[Dr. Carolyn Whitzman, Senior Housing Researcher, School of Cities, University of Toronto, As an Individual]

Thank you.

I'd like to begin with two suggested friendly amendments to Bill C-20.

The first is that Bill C-20 be adopted with the following amendment: “The purpose of the Corporation is to promote, support and develop the supply of affordable non-market housing in Canada.” The added word would be “non-market”.

As a second suggested recommendation, as part of the renewal of the national housing strategy this year, the following standard definition of “affordable housing” should be adopted. This would include adding some words to the Build Canada Homes website to say, “Affordable housing means spending less than 30% of a household's pre-tax income on housing”—this would be the addition—“and energy costs, with a focus on very low- to median-income households.”

Furthermore, I recommend that the Build Canada Homes income bands be adjusted to be consistent with the federal government's recommended definitions in their municipal needs assessments.

I know these are very technical points. I'm happy to answer any big-picture questions.

I'm a senior housing researcher at University of Toronto's School of Cities. I'm also the author of Home Truths: Fixing Canada's Housing Crisis, which was published late in 2024. Among other recent work, I've written a number of reports for the federal housing advocate on a rights-based approach to calculating housing needs and evidence-based approaches to meeting those needs. I've been on the federal government's expert panel on Canada's homebuilding industry. I've written several other reports, including the report cited in the last hour by Maytree on finance, land and construction approaches. Housing, Infrastructure and Communities Canada consulted with me on the Build Canada Homes framework. However, all points expressed here are my own.

The establishment of Build Canada Homes reflects international evidence-based good practices, so Bill C-20 should be adopted. The use of government land to scale up non-market housing is a hallmark—as said in the earlier hour—of successful initiatives in Canada, from war-time homes in the 1940s to the heyday of public, co-operative and non-profit homebuilding in the 1970s and 1980s. It's been a successful land policy tool for affordable housing, along with long-term, low-rate financing and modern methods of construction, in the Netherlands, Sweden, France, Finland, Austria, Denmark, Singapore and many other countries.

Sweden, for example, was able to build a million low-cost homes from 1965 to 1974, in what was then a country of eight million people, using these mechanisms.

Canadian government leadership within a large public land portfolio, with the explicit promotion of non-market family housing, allowed 4,000 homes to be developed in the St. Lawrence neighbourhood in Toronto in the 1970s. Equally important was the explicit promotion of non-market housing. One-third was public housing, one-third was non-market co-operative and the remaining third was for two- and three-bedroom family-sized condominiums.

Vienna's Aspern Seestadt has a target of 25,000 homes and 20,000 jobs in a former airfield 10 kilometres from the city core, with 60% non-market housing. That's public housing, but it's also limited-dividend housing associations serving low- to median-income households. The project broke ground in 2009 and now has 11,000 homes and 10,000 jobs.

To address Canada's affordable housing crisis, Build Canada Homes must explicitly prioritize non-market housing for three reasons.

First, non-market development is one of the easiest ways to cut construction costs. There are non-market developers across Canada—from Habitat for Humanity to B.C.'s Community Land Trust—with strong track records of delivering large-scale, mixed-income projects on government land.

Second, evidence clearly shows that non-market housing is more likely to remain affordable over time than private development.

Third, non-market housing was a significant enabler of supply during Canada's building heyday in the early 1970s, when there were more home completions than there are today despite Canada's population having doubled in the last 50 years. Unlike private development, which slows down when profit margins dip—as we're seeing now—non-market, mission-oriented developers have an almost unlimited demand for their homes.

It's vital that Canada use consistent income bands for defining and addressing affordability. In 2023, I counted six separate definitions of affordable housing in federal housing programs that were part of the national housing strategy. Build Canada Homes provides a seventh definition, with its income bands differing from an eighth definition used by the City of Ottawa in its recent Build Canada Homes agreement.

The housing assessment resource tools project, which I've been affiliated with, uses a methodology based on proportion of area median household income, which reflects differences between Gander and Victoria—

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Can you bring it to a conclusion?

[Dr. Carolyn Whitzman]

—and has been used in the U.S. for 40 years.

Build Canada Homes will require much more capacity to take out long-term, fixed-rate mortgages guaranteed by the CMHC in order to significantly reduce homelessness and housing need across Canada. While this housing commitment doesn't need to be in the bill, it does need to be explicit. The emphasis on non-market development in Bill C-20 and a review of the definition of affordability need to be undertaken as part of the development of a renewed national housing strategy.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Dr. Whitzman.

We'll now move to Mr. Sullivan for five minutes.

I would ask the witness to stick closely to the five minutes.

[Raymond Sullivan, Executive Director, Canadian Housing and Renewal Association]

I'll do my best.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you committee members for the opportunity to appear this morning.

My name is Raymond Sullivan, and I am the executive director of the Canadian Housing and Renewal Association, or CHRA.

CHRA, the Canadian Housing and Renewal Association, represents the non-market community housing sector. Our members are the non-profit developers and housing providers working with Build Canada Homes—and before that, with CMHC, and before that, with anyone they needed to work with to get the job done.

I think all of us in this room agree that we need more affordable housing. While the government is working to shift the Canadian economy to improve productivity and increase economic security, this will not work while the lack of affordable housing drags our economy down and drags individual households down.

We all agree that we need more affordable housing, but the real question is, affordable to whom? This is where Build Canada Homes can play an important role. It's important that you set its long-term course now, through this legislation, to make sure we see that positive impact in decades to come.

Every home is affordable to someone, but for some households, particularly those with modest and lower incomes, the market is simply not able to supply them with the homes they can afford. Even while housing prices and rents are levelling off, as they currently are in many jurisdictions—even showing some small declines—housing remains unaffordable for the 50% of Canadian households with incomes below the median.

Build Canada Homes, as Dr. Whitzman has pointed out, has adopted an income-based measure of affordability, creating four income groups: median, moderate, low and very low. This is good, but what is BCH's mandate on affordability? It needs to publish clear housing targets based on those income groups. How many homes will it create for moderate-income households? How many homes will it create for households with very low incomes? The minister has set aside $1 billion for transitional and supportive housing. That's fantastic. How many supportive housing units will Build Canada Homes create?

It's also important because “affordable”, which is a very general term, is not enough. The right question is, affordable to whom? If, one year from now, BCH proudly reports having created 20,000 new homes, will that be a success? It will only if a majority of those homes are affordable to low- and moderate-income households that otherwise can't be served by the private market.

When the Prime Minister launched Build Canada Homes, he said it would “focus primarily on non-market housing”. Non-market housing is housing that operates outside the private market. It's housing owned by co-operatives, public housing agencies, indigenous governments and indigenous non-profits, and the non-profit community housing providers that are our members.

Non-market housing can be available at modest market rents, at below market rents and at substantially subsidized rents affordable to the lowest-income households. The important distinction is that it is non-market housing outside of the private marketplace, but that's not reflected in the Build Canada Homes legislation.

We've seen many government housing programs in the present—and in the past—that provide loan subsidies and grants to private for-profit companies in exchange for affordability. In fact, the single biggest spending envelope currently under the national housing strategy does exactly that. Those companies diligently meet the minimum definition of affordability for the minimum amount of time, and when the government agreement is over, that housing reverts to full market rents. That is not the case with non-market housing. Non-market housing is mission-driven and motivated exclusively by affordability—permanently.

Following the Prime Minister's launch of BCH, I was very pleased to see its mandate clearly stated on its new website: “Grow the proportion of housing that is non-market, mission driven and that produces housing that is affordable for low- and middle-income households”.

When I saw Bill C-20, I was disappointed not to see that mandate reflected in the legislation. This is not a five-year government program. This is a new Crown corporation, something that should be built to last to help our housing system and to help our economy. Where is that long-term mandate in the legislation? Where are the Prime Minister's and minister's directions to future leadership?

Bill C-20 should specifically include BCH's mandate to focus on non-market community housing. The legislation should also require BCH to publish targets and results on what levels of affordability it will achieve, to whom it will be affordable and how many homes.

Finally, as an important note, BCH has to exist within an updated national housing strategy. Build Canada Homes is only part of the solution and, in fact, maintaining a national housing strategy, with targets, is also a legislated requirement. These two things have to fit together for the right systems-level impact. I hope the committee will also soon turn its attention to updating and renewing Canada's national housing strategy.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mr. Sullivan.

Go ahead, Mr. Irwin, for five minutes, please.

[Tony Irwin, President and Chief Executive Officer, Rental Housing Canada]

Good morning, Mr. Chair and honourable members of the committee.

Thank you for the invitation to speak today on Bill C-20, an act respecting the establishment of Build Canada Homes. I'm honoured to be speaking alongside highly respected housing advocates, both those here now and those on the previous panel.

My name is Tony Irwin. I'm the president and CEO of Rental Housing Canada, which is the leading voice of Canada's private market housing sector. Our members build, own and manage purpose-built rentals across the country—the very homes that millions of Canadians call “home”.

It is fair to say that the question before us is no longer whether we need more homes, but how we deliver more diverse housing. That's why Rental Housing Canada sees the creation of Build Canada Homes as a significant opportunity for the federal government to lead, particularly in the delivery of affordable and non-market housing.

There is a clear and urgent need for deeply affordable, community-led housing. These projects often struggle to find traditional financing. Build Canada Homes has the potential to bridge that gap and move more projects from concept to construction, particularly if it operates with a clear and focused mandate as a single, dedicated window for the non-market housing sector.

Rental Housing Canada members have had encouraging conversations with Build Canada Homes regarding its priorities and investment policy framework with the goal of identifying and advancing projects that are ready to build, utilize modern construction methods, meet affordability and sustainability targets, and are scalable.

Strong policy design must be matched with effective implementation. In that regard, I'm confident in the leadership of Ana Bailão. She's been a long-time friend of the housing sector and has a deep, practical understanding of what it takes to get homes built.

There are several announced elements that we find especially encouraging. Incorporating the Canada lands bank into Build Canada Homes will help ensure that underused federal land can be brought forward more quickly. This approach can reduce barriers and support the delivery of more affordable homes.

We are already seeing how partnerships can accelerate progress. The recent collaboration here in Ottawa between the city and the federal government is a strong example. With federal land contributions and municipal fee relief, more project capital can go directly into construction, which helps get homes built sooner.

While Build Canada Homes can play a leading role on the affordability side, the government is also taking steps to support the private sector through its recent agreement with Ontario on development charges. We see this as a positive development that reinforces the importance of partnership.

The private sector must continue to be enabled to do what it does best, which is deliver market rental housing at scale. To support this, the role of CMHC should be clarified and better aligned to focus on enabling private rental supply, while Build Canada Homes focuses on social and community housing. This includes modernizing existing CMHC programs, particularly MLI select, so that they are designed to support financial viability and timely delivery. A more responsive and commercially focused CMHC can play a critical role in accelerating new supply.

Ultimately, all parts of the housing continuum need the right tools to succeed. Rental Housing Canada is ready to be a partner in this work. This is not a choice between public or private approaches. Both are essential. With Build Canada Homes leading on affordable housing and a strengthened CMHC supporting the private sector, we can create a more coordinated system that delivers the scale of housing Canadians need.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mr. Irwin.

We'll now begin the six-minute round of questioning by members, beginning with Mr. Aitchison for six minutes.

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

Thank you to all the witnesses who are here. It's great to have you all. You are indeed all experts in your field. I appreciate the work you've done.

I quickly want to start with Mr. Irwin.

You mentioned MLI select, but you didn't mention the ACLP program, for example. I'm surmising that your members might be more interested in expansions of programs like the ACLP and MLI select versus something like Build Canada Homes, which is really not related to your members.

[Tony Irwin]

I think it's fair to say that we're not the primary stakeholder group for Build Canada Homes, but we're certainly supportive of what it is trying to achieve.

To your point, we certainly have lots of discussions with CMHC about its programs, which are good, but we think they can always be better.

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

It's safe to say, like you said in your statement, that your members recognize the importance of non-market housing as well, the need for more social and supportive housing, and that both need to be lifted up at the same time.

[Tony Irwin]

Absolutely.

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

Fair enough.

Dr. Whitzman, thank you for being here.

I wanted to talk to you a little bit, if you wouldn't mind, about the points you made about the ridiculous number of definitions that we have in this country for what affordable housing is. I wonder if you could elaborate on that a little bit more in terms of the number of definitions, what you would propose as a definition and how that complicates everything we're doing.

[Dr. Carolyn Whitzman]

I think you've just answered the question as you asked it.

Obviously, we need a clear and consistent understanding—as we've all said, I think, all of the deputants so far—of who needs what housing where and at what cost. In order to do that, in order to make intergovernmental agreements with provinces and territories and municipalities and regions, we need to be talking the same language. A lot of definitions of affordability, including definitions used in the NHS-CMHC programs, have used a proportion of market rent, but unfortunately market rent has very little to do with what people can afford to pay. The definition of affordable housing that has been in place in Canada for four, five or six decades has to do with the 30% rule: no more than 30% of before-tax household income on housing costs, including energy, so that's rent, mortgage and energy costs.

It's not a perfect definition, but it's a solid definition. It's a definition used internationally. It should be a definition that's used, and it's mentioned in Bill C-20. The problem with Bill-20, as my colleague Mr. Sullivan has said, is that it isn't explicit about affordable to whom. All housing is affordable to someone. The definitions we've been talking about at the housing assessment resource tools project focus on the majority of Canada—the bottom three income bands: low, moderate and median. We include, as Build Canada Homes does, an unfortunate category, which is very low income. At the moment, those who are on fixed incomes, like pensions and social assistance, quite often don't have enough money to rent a room, let alone a self-contained home, and that's a problem.

We need to look at those four income bands in terms of, I would argue, any form of government subsidy. We don't right now. We give a lot of money to programs that deliver...and I'm sorry but ACLP is one of them. In terms of the vast majority of housing, we don't know, actually, because CMHC doesn't keep track of it, whether those are apartment units that can be afforded only by the top two income quintiles or not, so that is a problem. It's a problem in terms of the efficiency and effectiveness of government subsidies.

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

Thanks very much for that. There's lots to dig into there and a lot more work to be done, clearly. I thank you for making that statement here.

I would like to move on to Mr. Sullivan. I'm wondering if you could speak to this.

Obviously, in many ways your members are on the front lines of the social and supportive housing crisis in this country. There's a huge need. What are the biggest barriers your members have to getting units built? I'm sure financing is a big one. They face a lot of the same problems, I'm sure, that Mr. Irwin's members face. Can you speak to the barriers they're facing?

[Raymond Sullivan]

They face a lot of the same barriers that our private market colleagues do, plus a layer of additional barriers, and a lot of that is raising capital. We're raising capital from multiple sources and often multiple government sources, so being able to coordinate those in a much better fashion becomes very important.

It's also important for the Government of Canada to solve this problem not by focusing on units, but by focusing on the pipeline of units. This is why it's encouraging that Build Canada Homes is willing to take a portfolio-based approach, but this also means we need stability, predictability, long timelines and long commitments from those timelines. That was very important in the first version of the national housing strategy—that it was a 10-year commitment and a 10-year timeline, which provided some stability. I think we need to see that renewed again for the next decade.