Public Accounts Committee on March 9th, 2026

[Paul Halucha]

One has not been announced at this point.

[William Stevenson, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Has Housing, Infrastructure and Communities Canada taken any specific measures in federal housing programs that reflect the higher per-unit cost in rural areas and for remote builds, where economies of scale don't exist in the servicing of sites? Delivering materials and getting builders to those areas drive up the cost. Is there anything specific for rural?

[Paul Halucha]

Absolutely. We have rural targets in almost all of our programming. I'd be glad to run through results if it's helpful to you.

[William Stevenson, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

It's not so much about results as it is about looking at this point at what the programming is in order to get them into it. It's not about what's done.

Here's my specific issue at this point. My riding is Yellowhead. I had Jasper. I had fires. They destroyed a third of the town—300 units. We have now gotten up to maybe 20% of those under construction.

There was a big announcement on Thursday that they were going to spend $14 million. It's federal, but I'm not exactly sure if that is under your department specifically, because it was announced by the Minister of Emergency Management.

[Paul Halucha]

We have made investments in Jasper.

[William Stevenson, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

You have, but can you elaborate on that? Is what you're talking about separate from the $14 million just announced on Thursday? It goes to the affordability we just talked about with non-market housing. Is it specific to the non-market end of things? How are you going...on the other investments that you say have gone there?

[Paul Halucha]

I can be helpful. We can get back to you and the committee with details on Jasper, but I'll give you a couple of examples.

In the national housing strategy overall, communities under 30,000 were identified, and there are rural streams. Under ICIP, there are rural streams.

We've established, in almost every program.... I have a list here of about 10 or 12 of them. There are specific carve-outs to make sure we are sharing resources. We took a very strong look at the regional allocation of money, and rural is a key component for the department.

[William Stevenson, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Where and how are decisions being made as to allocations?

[Paul Halucha]

The way our programming works is that municipalities—

[William Stevenson, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Typically, what can go to rural versus big cities?

[Paul Halucha]

It usually averages between 10% and 20%. We have carve-outs for rural, depending on different programs and programmatic streams.

Usually, it's one of two things. Some are application-based, in which case municipalities tell us what they want us to spend the money on and where they want us as a partner. This forms the opportunities. Ministers make decisions, but they make decisions based on those applications. In other cases, we have federal-provincial agreements in place. For example, if we strike an agreement with the Province of Alberta, they select what the project priorities are. They come forward, and a minister, again, makes an allocation decision.

[William Stevenson, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

I'm not sure if you're aware, but last year, there was a very public disagreement about priorities between the town of Jasper and the province. However, on Thursday, they both chipped in some money—millions of dollars for those 80 units they're putting up there.

I'm wondering how we are making these decisions and what collaboration there is. How are they determining how they're going to collaborate on different projects with the municipalities? You made it sound like it's pretty much up to the minister.

[Paul Halucha]

Ministers have discretion. The minister needs to make a determination on what projects.... As I said, in the case of direct delivery projects, we work off submissions that come forward from first nations communities, municipalities and, in some cases, not-for-profits at the local level. Those are typically the proponents of projects that come forward.

In the case of federal-provincial agreements, the provinces tell us. They essentially provide us with a menu or a set of projects that are their priorities. Then ministers from both the federal and provincial governments need to agree on what the allocations are.

[William Stevenson, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Going specifically back to Jasper, how is your interaction with Parks Canada related to the housing within parks? They have a lot of extra requirements to fit within national parks.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Jean Yip]

Give a quick answer.

[Paul Halucha]

We don't spend money in other federal assets, so we would not have put money into Parks Canada for housing. They would not be a proponent under our programming.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Jean Yip]

Thank you.

For five minutes, we'll go to Ms. Tesser Derksen, but I'll take some of your time to ask a question following on Mr. Stevenson's comments on coordination between governments.

Is there anything else that BCH can do in terms of coordinating between different levels of government to streamline approvals and reduce red tape?

[Paul Halucha]

Our principal avenue to do that through is the housing accelerator fund. That's what it is. We're paying money to municipalities for improvements in their permitting systems. A lot of digitization has taken place. That's the focus of that activity.

What Build Canada Homes can do is show, through their investments, where the markets are that are well aligned with growth. They have three KPIs: adding supply, adding affordable supply and spurring this industrial revolution that we want to see in the homebuilding sector.

In all three of those, as they make market investments, they need to be assessing how good those municipalities are as partners. As they start to put dots on a map of where they're investing, it will send a very strong signal about what they view as municipalities and jurisdictions that have their acts together in order to grow housing, if I can be blunt.

I think they're going to both shape the market and reveal where the strongest players are across the country.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Jean Yip]

Thank you.

Ms. Tesser Derksen, it's over to you.

[Kristina Tesser Derksen, Liberal, Milton East—Halton Hills South, ON]

Thanks very much.

To follow up on a point that many of my colleagues have talked about, affordability truly is something that affects all of us in our communities and some of us in our homes. I have four young adult children who are going through the experience of trying to analyze when or if they'll be able to own a home. This speaks to a lot of us personally as well.

I want to touch on the recurring theme of partnerships. Partnerships seem baked into the Build Canada Homes model.

Can you walk us through the request for qualifications process? I'm particularly interested in knowing how you, for lack of a better word, vet the private sector partners.

[Paul Halucha]

That's a big question.

The request for qualification is a process that has been launched between Build Canada Homes and PSPC. The objective there was to create a baseline, across the country, of the companies that are doing modern methods of construction, from modular companies to companies that do panelization to others that provide different parts of the supply chain.

Now that we're in a space where we're doing procurement, it made a lot of sense to get to know who was in the ecosystem and better understand them. You need to know who you're doing business with, as you pointed out. The next step will be to create a list of trusted suppliers in this space.

We view the first of those two measures as fact-finding, and then the second one will be locking in on who has capacity to help scale and who has capacity to be a real partner for Build Canada Homes and other parts of the federal government. There are an awful lot of homes being built by the Department of National Defence. We also want them to be drawing on those same companies as they enter into agreements.

On the second question about the validation of vendors, this will be what happens at the investment committee at Build Canada Homes. Usually, when you're making an investment with a party, one-third of the transaction—I spent a lot of my career doing industrial policy—is about who you are doing business with and if you trust them and know them well enough. What is their track record? What is the management acumen? You're basically entering into a deal with another management team. You're allocating capital towards them.

That will be a key part of the due diligence process that will happen at that investment committee. There are obviously legal agreements that provide you some level of protection, but when you're investing with organizations, you want to make sure you know, especially where you're committing public capital, what their capabilities are and that they can do what they're signing up with you to do. Track records are very important to those decisions.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Jean Yip]

Thank you.

Mr. Lemire, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would like to second what my colleague, Mr. Stevenson, said. I also have the distinct impression that rural or remote regions such as Abitibi-Témiscamingue are simply not getting their fair share of infrastructure or housing programs; I think that these programs are primarily designed for major urban centres.

We are proud to announce the construction of hundreds or thousands of homes, but rural areas, which have enormous needs, get nothing.

Take the example of Abitibi-Témiscamingue. We have been experiencing a housing shortage for 20 years. It costs almost as much to buy a house, or even to rent one, in Abitibi-Témiscamingue as it does in major urban centres. Increasingly, people are victims of air commuting. Indeed, people can no longer settle in Rouyn-Noranda and prefer to have their homes elsewhere and travel by plane. All this has enormous consequences. Yet, through its mines and natural resources, Abitibi-Témiscamingue contributes around 2% to Canada’s GDP. Despite this, we note that last year, the Canada Infrastructure Bank did not invest a single penny in Abitibi—Témiscamingue.

Why are you absent from the Quebec regions, particularly Abitibi-Témiscamingue?

[Paul Halucha]

Thank you very much for the question.

I would be very glad to return to the committee with information about Abitibi-Témiscamingue to give you a picture of investments we have made there, not only through CMHC and Build Canada Homes, which won't have done anything yet, but also through the department and CIB. We'll undertake to do that and bring it back.

Second, we invest in rural areas of the country, as I've noted. It's a priority. For every program that I've been able to find, we have a rural stream. It is part of the decision-making, and it is intentional to put resources into rural infrastructure. Your point, which I can't dispute, is that there is a greater need for rural infrastructure than there is funding we have available. I would say that is absolutely the case.

One more thing I would raise is that under our new program, the build communities strong fund, we have created an opportunity for regionally significant projects to be referred to us from the Major Projects Office. This is not really an asset class, but it's a new vehicle to get regionally significant infrastructure identified to us for funding.

For example, obviously Abitibi-Témiscamingue is well known for its mining sector and resource capacity. We have an ability there, through the Major Projects Office, to make investments in light of the economic growth opportunities in that area. We haven't done anything solid as a result of that linkage yet, but we are starting to talk with the Major Projects Office about housing needs where there are large investments coming in.

I won't divulge specifics here, but there's one in the Prairies. It's a major mining need. They're going to bring in thousands of workers, and those workers are going to need homes. On our docket is how we can help support the enabling of infrastructure through our programming, because those will be market homes; they won't be affordable housing. It's extremely important, though, for that investment to go forward and to be successful.

I think that's connecting the dots among an economic opportunity, the housing-enabling infrastructure, the housing that needs to be built and our role. If there are market intelligence opportunities from Abitibi that you would want us to know about, I'd be very glad to hear from you about those as well.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Jean Yip]

Thank you.