Human Resources Committee on April 16th, 2026

[Raymond Sullivan]

I think the legislation would be strengthened by making the mandate for non-market housing more clear and by requiring Build Canada Homes to publish targets for different bands of affordability. I think that would be a strong improvement to know that Build Canada Homes will succeed in its mandate.

[Natilien Joseph, Liberal, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Sullivan.

I will now go to Ms. Whitzman. Welcome to the committee.

Everyone at this table knows housing is a right in Canada. Our role as a government is to take measures to ensure those rights are respected.

My question is simple: Isn't Build Canada Homes proof our government is taking action to make housing a true right?

[Dr. Carolyn Whitzman]

In what we've been talking about—and it's really important whether you're talking about non-market or market housing—there needs to be a certain amount of predictability and consistency.

I was personally disappointed when the head of the CMHC, at the beginning of the national housing strategy, said that we can have an adequate, affordable home for all Canadians by 2030. I would have loved to see the evidence that this was possible. I still look forward to some sort of “plan” that shows what the timeline is.

The timeline can't be the next decade. There was a whole generation from 1992 to 2017 where the federal government was out of housing policy, and it showed. Those were also the three decades when homelessness started to increase and affordability became much more of an issue.

To me, the gold standard of a CMHC program is MLI select, because it provides a low rate for a long period of time. That was what it took in the 1970s and the 1980s to scale up non-market housing to 14% of completions—not the 2% to 3% it's been under the national housing strategy.

[Natilien Joseph, Liberal, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Thank you, Ms. Whitzman.

[Dr. Carolyn Whitzman]

I'm sorry. I tend to babble on.

[Natilien Joseph, Liberal, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Since I have only 30 seconds left, I'll go to Mr. Sullivan.

How is Build Canada Homes' mandate transforming Canada's approach to housing affordability?

[Raymond Sullivan]

I think one of the early signs of that transformation is Build Canada Homes announcing portfolio deals with provinces and municipalities. That intergovernmental coordination is very important for any kind of housing development, and especially for non-market community housing.

[Natilien Joseph, Liberal, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[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 very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, witnesses, for joining us. You're helping us see what's hiding under the rocks.

We can see Build Canada Homes' mandate will have to be clarified and that there may be a lack of predictability.

We're told that, in Quebec, the Société d'habitation du Québec, or SHQ, will have the final say on projects, because it knows the needs on the ground better than Build Canada Homes.

After that, how will the SHQ's final say apply to housing in Quebec? How will all that work with a single organization managed by the federal government? Apparently, Quebec will have its say, but that remains to be seen.

Ms. Whitzman, you gave a lot of international examples, mainly in Austria and Germany, where there are very interesting models.

Could you summarize the key components of projects carried out elsewhere, in Germany or in Austria? That could help us when establishing Build Canada Homes. What should we keep in mind?

[Dr. Carolyn Whitzman]

When we look at countries that have achieved certain outcomes, like Finland or France, they are countries that have set goals so that whomever gets elected—and keep in mind there are always multiple levels of government with multiple political perspectives—those goals don't change.

Finland said it was going to eradicate homelessness, and it has come pretty darn close. It has certainly reduced homelessness successfully through funding deeply affordable housing with supports, and that's been true financially since 1987 and in their approach since 2008.

In 2000, France set targets for all municipalities to achieve 20% non-market housing. That was only increased in 2016 to 25%, and Paris has now taken on a voluntary goal of reaching 30% non-market housing. Again, France has had quite a bit of political change, but those goals have remained consistent. It's really important to be serious about the long-term nature of finance and the long-term nature of housing policy, and develop a certain consensus around what the approach is going to be. As Mr. Sullivan said earlier, this isn't a four- or five-year program; this is setting up a Crown agency. It's serious.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Ms. Larouche.

We'll conclude this hour with three minutes for the official opposition and three minutes for the governing party.

Mr. Reynolds, you have three minutes.

[Colin Reynolds, Conservative, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you very much to the witnesses today for taking the time to come here to offer your opinions.

I've been in construction for 20 years. I'm a construction electrician. I've worked on many projects. There's been a lot of talk in the committee about modernizing construction. This is something that's very interesting to me because, in construction, the prices are bid and it's a fixed price. Time is money. If there's one industry where time is money, it's construction.

There are a lot of things in place and certain formats of construction, such as a design assist, where the developer or building owner will work with the construction trades to increase efficiency and use cost-reduction strategies as the project is progressing. In Canada, we have certain parameters that construction projects fall under. We have things like climate, geography, the availability of building materials and the building code. We can't build a 17-storey building out of bamboo.

With all this discussion about modernizing construction and given that the construction industry is already self-regulating and modernizes itself, what do you think Build Canada Homes will do to modernize construction? I'd like to pose that question first to Dr. Whitzman, and then I'd like to hear from each of you.

[Dr. Carolyn Whitzman]

I'll try to respond briefly.

When I was on the expert task force on construction, what we heard again and again from builders—and keep in mind that whether you're a non-market or market developer, you're using private construction people—is the need for consistency and guaranteed demand.

I completely agree with you, by the way, about how time is money and that we need to get things going as quickly as possible. The closer we can get to saying, “We know we need this number of seniors' buildings and here's a design that seems to work, so how can we enable that to happen in as many places as possible?” the better off we're going to be as a society. I'll leave it there.

[Tony Irwin]

Knowing that there's not a lot of time here, I would just say that, certainly, the building code, for example, is something we could spend a lot of time talking about. We don't have time for that now, perhaps.

In looking at all the complexities and trying to harmonize different jurisdictions, I hope that Build Canada Homes will unlock some funding for some of my members who are looking at trying to get into modular housing or at other more modern construction techniques. A lot of investment, as you know, is needed to scale that up, whether in factories or new processes.

We have members who are speaking with Build Canada Homes about projects they're looking to undertake, and they're hoping that some of the investment dollars will be there to help them be able to move forward on some of those projects that really are embracing more modern construction techniques.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

We'll now conclude with Ms. Fancy for three minutes.

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

Thank you very much.

Through you, Chair, thank you to the witnesses.

I'm playing cleanup here as the last person of the day, and I'd like to ask one overarching question today. As we know, only about 4% of the housing stock in Canada is classified as affordable. That's about half of the OECD percentage.

With that in mind—and we only have three minutes—I'm wondering if each of you could talk about how important you think Build Canada Homes will be in focusing on affordable housing and helping close that gap. Do you see Build Canada Homes as having the right mandate to do that?

Thank you. You have three minutes.

[Dr. Carolyn Whitzman]

There was a report mentioned in the last hour by the Maytree foundation. I was a co-writer of that report. It was a proposal around a Build Canada Homes approach. I think we were working with some very experienced market developers, and we showed that it's possible to have homes that are affordable for those with very low to median incomes if certain preconditions are in place. I think Build Canada Homes could definitely be an enabler towards that approach.

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

Go ahead, Mr. Irwin.

[Tony Irwin]

I just think back to the last CMHC conference here in Ottawa a couple of years ago. Sean Fraser, who was the federal minister of housing at the time, remarked on stage that market housing providers don't build non-market housing.

We get involved in partnerships. We engage with non-profits and with governments to do that, but it's not, at our core, what we do. The mandate of Build Canada Homes to actually support the building of affordable housing is critical. To me, it's the most critical part of the mandate.

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

Wonderful.

Bring us home, Mr. Sullivan.

[Raymond Sullivan]

In the 1990s, just over 5% of all homes in Canada were non-market community housing. Despite the investments of a national housing strategy over the past seven years, we've actually fallen behind. It's closer to 4.5% now. We have not kept pace with population growth and the growth in the number of household formations.

This is why setting those kinds of targets in legislation, or requiring the agency or Crown corporation to publish those targets, is important for knowing that we are able to reverse that trend and get to where we should be among our OECD and G7 peers.

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

I have 30 seconds left.

I'd really like to ask Ms. Whitzman this question, because I have read some of her book, Home Truths.

In your work—including Home Truths—you talk about non-scale housing. How can you see those approaches being adapted to rural and coastal communities? I ask because today we talked a lot about urban centres, and my riding is a rural one in Nova Scotia.

I am wondering how you could see our adapting that.

[Dr. Carolyn Whitzman]

I could start with a whole proposal I have about Canada Post land. I'm going to leave that aside for the moment.

Again, a portfolio approach is really important, because, individually, towns of 5,000 people—or 50,000, for that matter—can't do it alone. Taking a regional portfolio approach makes a lot of sense.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you. Your time is up.

With that, thank you witnesses for appearing this hour with your informative testimony.

To the members of the committee, we will now suspend before we move to the next hour.

We are suspended.