Public Accounts Committee on March 9th, 2026

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Madam Chair, may I ask for a breakdown of the Canada Infrastructure Bank’s investments by province and by Quebec administrative regions since the CIB’s creation?

I think this would be very useful. Indeed, whether in the context of the buffer zone, whether in relation to the fact that there is no funding for abattoirs in Abitibi-Témiscamingue, but there is for halal or kosher meat, or whether in relation to arenas, the federal government is generally absent. I would therefore like to see this data.

[Paul Halucha]

I will provide that.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Jean Yip]

Ms. Lewis, go ahead for five minutes.

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

The Canada housing infrastructure fund was announced in budget 2024, but the public accounts show that little or no spending occurred during the 2024 fiscal year. We know it was operationalized through the BIA, so there's no excuse for that.

When municipalities like Haldimand—Norfolk are facing immediate infrastructure challenges and constraints that are blocking housing construction, we have to ask, why did it take more than a year for this fund to get up and running?

[Paul Halucha]

I would respectfully disagree that we're behind on the CHIF. Other than one province, which we are working very hard to get an agreement with, we have agreements with all of the provinces and territories across the country. As I mentioned, we have put out 27 projects worth $780 million through direct delivery.

What you're seeing in the public accounts is the natural lag that happens on infrastructure. We commit the money, which we have done, and then the money gets spent. Receipts come in and then we pay the receipts. It shows up in our cash flow at the point where we are paying remittances.

If you look at our expenditures for next year, for example, we are showing that about $5.7 billion of ICIP is going to be funded, and that was obviously a program that came around in 2017-18. The allocation decisions were made a long time ago. It's simply the lag between when the work gets done and when they send us the bills and we pay the bills. That's what you're seeing.

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

Since the housing infrastructure fund was introduced two years ago, how much water and waste-water infrastructure has been built?

[Paul Halucha]

I'm sure some of it has started, but what hasn't happened is they have not remitted payment requests to the federal government at this point. Some of the projects will certainly have begun. I think we're expecting a small amount to be paid out next year, and then it will increase as projects get built. It takes time between when a project gets approved and when the project starts building.

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

Since you know that some of them have started, how many housing units have actually started?

[Paul Halucha]

I would guess that there are probably no housing units, because this is to build the basic infrastructure, so until the infrastructure is done.... It's enabling. That's what CHIF does—it enables housing. The housing will come afterwards. The dividend will come after.

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

Is there a measurement that says, for example, x kilometres of pipe will build x number of houses? Do you have a measurement of what you're spending versus the outcome?

[Paul Halucha]

Absolutely, we do. Our KPI on that program is the potential units. Just because we put in housing infrastructure, that does not mean somebody will build houses there or that the permitting will get done. There's a lot that goes into those decisions. You do know that, absent that housing infrastructure, nothing is going to get built there, so there is a strong relationship between the two.

We work in close relationship with municipalities. They tell us where they're going to expand. They know where their subdivisions are. They know where they want to build housing in their communities. We don't tell them where they're going to build. They come forward with those projects, and those projects then become what we fund, either directly or through provincial agreements.

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

You fund, and then do you follow-up to make sure your targets are being met? Do you have a mechanism for doing that?

[Paul Halucha]

Yes. There were a couple of questions about consultants and reporting, but this is what reports are for. We require reporting on all of the projects we fund to ensure that expenditures are wisely used—that we're using taxpayers' dollars wisely and getting value for money—and, on the reporting side, to tell us what we've gotten for the money.

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

We've heard about home ownership slipping away for gen Z and millennial Canadians. Has the department done any analysis on infrastructure shortages and the barriers for especially those generations to owning a home because of construction?

[Paul Halucha]

I can't think...on the infrastructure side. I might turn to Matt. Matt has avoided having to speak at this committee so far. We did a national housing infrastructure study that just came out in the fall.

Matt, is there anything you want to specify?

[Matt de Vlieger, Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic Policy and Integration Sector, Department of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities]

There's an infrastructure council that supports the minister. It's at arm's length, and they put out a first report assessing housing-enabling infrastructure and the extent to which that creates barriers in this country to getting supply built. They've looked not only nationally, with the data we have from StatsCan, but regionally, really drilling into where the bigger barriers are. That goes into it.

I would say, to your question, that construction costs are part of it, but as to other things this committee and others have looked at around development charges, how those have grown and the role those play, all of those things come into the housing ecosystem, especially the regulatory pieces with provinces and territories. The combination of those things for the housing system are adding a burden to young homeowners and those wanting to get into the home-owning space.

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

Is there any plan within the department to bridge the gap between the loss of the dream of owning a home for gen Zs and millennials because of the shortages of homes and the inflated price of homes we've seen over the last decade?

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Jean Yip]

Give a short answer, please.

[Paul Halucha]

That's not fair. That was a big question.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Paul Halucha]

It's at the core of everything we're doing to improve housing supply. We have a lot of young people and a lot of people with kids or grandkids who are also struggling in this market. I would say it's what motivates us on housing policy.

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

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Jean Yip]

Thank you.

You can always answer your question through another member.

Mr. Osborne, please go ahead, for five minutes.

[Tom Osborne, Liberal, Cape Spear, NL]

I want to talk about a couple of different directions. One of them is that there are many different types of housing needs. There's mixed income and middle income. Hopefully, middle income won't be left out of the mix, because I know there's a challenge for middle-income families as well. There's also student housing, senior housing and transitional housing.

How does Build Canada Homes plan to prioritize? I know that it may be jurisdictional as well, or based on location, but how do you plan to prioritize based on the projects that come in?

[Paul Halucha]

The investment policy is our public answer to that question. It lays out the KPIs the organization will assess as it reviews applications. What is it trying to incentivize? How is it measuring success in terms of the allocation of its own dollars?

As I mentioned, there's a good argument that all supply is good supply. I tend to agree with that. Build Canada Homes will surpass the overall supply increase as one of its top three KPIs.

Affordability is the second one. I've talked a lot about that. We're not going to do interventions. Building non-market housing in isolated areas was an experiment that happened in the 1960s and 1970s. It wasn't very successful.

To your point about mixed income, homes and apartments are key. We'll be doing a percentage of these properties. Investments will be non-market, and then there will be a lot that will be market. Even with the 6,000 direct builds, not every home in that place will be strictly affordable, because when you bring in market actors, you bring in capital and you lower the costs. It's a key part of making developments go forward.

The third one—and probably the one we haven't talked a lot about today—is around modern methods of construction, which are our best bet to reduce the costs of home ownership over time. What Build Canada Homes is going to do is be a demand signal. It's not about modular and modern methods of construction by default, but the intention is to have that be a major part of its portfolio in order to spur that industry. That is a key industry for us for bringing the kind of affordable supply to the market we're going to need in order to deal with the housing challenge long term.

I've studied this for a number of years, and from my perspective, I do not see another avenue to dealing with the housing crisis, except through getting the cost of construction back down.

It's about raising people's salaries too. A really key part is having our standard of living as Canadians improve and our purchasing power improve. That's a key avenue to enabling people to purchase homes as well.