Human Resources Committee on April 23rd, 2026

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

The six projects that were announced already, and were presented as some speeding up of things, were taken from Canada Lands Company. They'd been working on those sites for some time. How were those structured? Did Build Canada Homes say they're taking those over now and are going to finish them? Are they doing some kind of partnership with Canada Lands Company? Are they out or are they still involved? Is the balance of the lands still there? How did that all come to pass?

[Lindsay Boldt]

Right now, in the special operating agency model that Build Canada Homes is currently operating in, they do have a partnership with CLCL. CLCL is managing and responsible for those Build Canada Homes direct-build projects in the six locations across Canada.

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

I want to be very clear. Do they have a partnership arrangement, those six?

[Lindsay Boldt]

Yes, exactly. In the September announcement that launched Build Canada Homes, there was also a reference to the fact that CLCL would be under the Build Canada Homes portfolio to support the construction on federal lands, in particular as we talk about these six direct-build sites.

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

If CLC is going to be under Build Canada Homes, is this then one Crown corporation reporting through another Crown corporation to the government?

[Lindsay Boldt]

Right now it's a collaboration. In the legislation itself, you'll see that there are provisions that would allow for that to shift under Build Canada Homes. Build Canada Homes would be the parent corporation.

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

I see. Canada Lands Company will report to Build Canada Homes.

[Lindsay Boldt]

It could be a subsidiary under it.

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

Okay. I'm struggling a bit with that structure. I would suggest that Canadians might struggle with it too. It seems really complex. I guess that's what I'm struggling with.

Canada Lands Company has been developing on federal lands for some time. I've pointed out that one of their greatest challenges in doing that was, number one, getting the lands. The process to dispose of federal lands is arcane and slow and often very difficult. Of course, once they get through that process, they have to go through the municipal approvals process, which, as we know, is not always the most efficient operation. Projects in the national capital region might then have to go through the same arcane process with the National Capital Commission, which is very secretive. They wouldn't talk to me and tell me how it works.

You have a Crown corporation that has developed some experience with developing and building beautiful residential communities, with a mix of affordable and deeply affordable units in vibrant communities with some retail and restaurants and that kind of stuff, some of them right here in the national capital region. They have the expertise. They're pretty good at it. They've been working on some of these projects for decades, mostly not because of themselves but because of the other agencies they have to deal with.

This is what I'm wondering now: What will Build Canada Homes do that Canada Lands Company couldn't do to accelerate that process and get units built faster?

[Lindsay Boldt]

By bringing it under Build Canada Homes, in which you would have the financing aspect as well, you would have the partnerships that Build Canada Homes is bringing in. The idea is to really leverage the great work that had already been started on many of these properties. CLC has a bit of a different operating model, so in this case you're bringing it more directly....

Build Canada Homes may make a decision as it relates to the management of their lands. They may make a decision similar to those six direct-build sites, and it would be very actively involved in the construction of affordable housing on those lands. However, Build Canada Homes would also have the ability to enter into partnerships and to pull partners forward in maybe a joint venture or a partnership on some of those lands. Likewise, it might just be in offering the expertise they have. They have developer expertise. There's a whole spectrum of ways in which Build Canada Homes may lean in on the developer role.

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

Thank you.

Can you give me an example of a partnership that Build Canada Homes may bring to bear on a project that CLC had started but wouldn't be able to manifest?

[Lindsay Boldt]

In the conversations that Build Canada Homes will be having, whether they're in those broader conversations that they're having with communities, this can bring things forward in a bigger way in trying to get at that scale of affordable housing development and in understanding whether it is the right tool for the job. The City of Ottawa is one recent example in which they brought forward portfolios of properties and talked about bringing land forward and, likewise, bringing the financing to bear.

If the bigger goal is asking how we can work toward more affordable housing development in a certain area, is the actual piece to bring forward land, or is there, in some of those aspects, a desire to talk about financing? It's bringing in the tools to that same conversation, but it's a broader tool kit than what CLC has available today.

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

This is my final question on this one, I promise. I realize I'm monopolizing this, but I am genuinely curious.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

They are informative questions.

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

Okay. I'm glad everyone's enjoying it.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

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

I keep coming back to my point about CLC, which I think is a pretty neat organization. I'm asking a political question to some degree here. What I don't understand is why, with some changes to the enabling legislation for the Canada Lands Company—or the CMHC, but I'll focus on the Canada Lands Company—the government didn't choose to make changes to its mandate and give it more tools and a broader scope instead of taking a year to create, literally, a fourth federal housing agency, a third federal Crown corporation for housing. Would it not have been easier to just beef up CLC and give them more teeth or something?

[Lindsay Boldt]

I could talk about this for hours because you can get to the point of complexity of some of the machinery. I would say that, again, the Build Canada Homes mandate does have more than just.... The work that the CLC has been doing can be put into the developer function within the legislation. You can see it as part of the mandate for what Build Canada Homes will do in building affordable housing on land. However, given that the direction for the mandate is meant to have that financing piece as well, this is where it comes in: CLCL does not have this. This is not an authority that it has. It does not have that financing aspect, and so that's where CLCL would—

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

The financing piece is new, I guess.

CMHC is not just an insurance company; it does financing as well. Can you tell me what the disconnect was between the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation and their financing arm versus the CLC and their development arm? Why couldn't they have worked better together? Why do we need Build Canada Homes to create the financing piece?

[Lindsay Boldt]

The mandate of Build Canada Homes was meant to really home in on bringing together those similar tools that the Crown corporations, CMHC and CLC, have in different ways, and on trying to focus in on that affordable housing space by using those tools and pulling in tools from both—the land, the flexible financing tools, the partnerships ability and the idea that you can really lean in on the modern methods of construction, or MMC. I think that, in trying to pull that together, the desire was to have that within one entity that could really focus their efforts. Likewise, it then allows CMHC to home in on that market housing part of the housing segment, which is when we look at the housing crisis writ large, a very large segment and a piece of the puzzle.

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

Thank you for all that. I'll leave you alone now.

I will say, for the purpose of my own understanding, that I still struggle—despite your incredibly capable attempt to explain it all, which I appreciate—with the creation of another corporation.

Obviously, it was a simpler time after the war, when it came to dealing with getting homes built. We created one corporation, and it did a truly phenomenal job. What the CMHC did is amazing. I've done a speech in the House of Commons on the scope and scale of the problem back then and on how the government of the day—a Liberal government, no less—recognized the challenge and created the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation, as it was then called. It created partnerships, worked with builders and built entire communities. We solved the housing crisis in roughly a decade or a bit less. Its mandate has evolved over time, for sure. It's become more of an insurance agency and a research business.

One of the primary challenges to getting homes built and making them all affordable.... Of course, we run into the problem of the definition of “affordability”. I fundamentally believe all homes should be more affordable, not just the ones below market. We desperately need more investment in social and supportive housing in this country, but I struggle with why we are using up scarce public resources to create a fourth agency or third corporation at the federal level, when bureaucratic delays are a major part of the problem in getting homes built and making them all more affordable.

The ambition and hope behind this thing are completely laudable and admirable, but I don't get it. I think it's safe to say that a lot of Canadians don't get it either. We solved this problem before, and it didn't take three corporations to do it. It was one. They cut through the noise and got the job done. Fundamentally, that's the problem today. We've spent a year on this now, and it's still getting up and going. I still don't really understand why we need a third Crown corporation when we have two that might need more tools or more power. I think it would have been faster to give them those tools. We would be one year closer to solving the massive housing crisis in this country, which is demonstrably worse than it was after the war.

I'll say it again: I applaud the ambition, but I struggle with the time we've spent building more bureaucracy when one of the primary challenges to getting homes built is, in fact, bureaucracy.

I'll leave it at that.

Thank you very much for being here.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mr. Aitchison, for your passion on this particular subject, which you follow very closely.

I have more speakers: Ms. Goodridge, then Madame Larouche.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I will follow up on some of the questions that were raised by my colleague Mr. Aitchison.

If the Canada Lands Company is now going to exist as a subsidiary of Build Canada Homes, does this mean it is only allowed to build affordable homes, or is it still allowed to build market homes? How does that structure change?

I'm the member of Parliament for Fort McMurray—Cold Lake. I was born and raised in Fort McMurray, Alberta. We've had some unique challenges when it comes to building, having gone through booms, busts and everything in between. I'm quite familiar with Calgary's Currie Barracks, which is a Canada Lands Company space. It's on the old military base near downtown Calgary. It is very centrally located. It is walking distance to Mount Royal and a 15-minute drive to downtown Calgary, which makes it a very desirable neighbourhood. There are $1-million homes in that neighbourhood because that is the kind of clientele it has. There's also affordable housing being built in that area to help with some of those challenges.

Does this mean that, going forward, the Canada Lands Company is allowed to build only affordable homes?

[Lindsay Boldt]

In the scenario in which you have this direct-build model and it's being built on federal land, there is a need to have a sustainable model. In the direct-build model, a certain percentage of the units are affordable, but that's offset by having other units that may need to be at market rent. That is a formula to ensure that into the long term—into perpetuity—you have a model that will allow for the affordability of those non-market units to continue versus needing to have market-rent units to operationally have that model work.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Forgive my ignorance. Is this not for home ownership? Is this simply building for rental properties and rental spaces?