Public Accounts Committee on Sept. 25th, 2025

[Ned Kuruc, Conservative, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Thank you.

My next question is more of a statement than a question. As a simple guy from Hamilton, I can say there hasn't been a lot of clarity here today. That's the part that is very difficult for me. I would imagine it would be very difficult for the taxpayers. On the one hand, we have the Auditor General, who has clearly said that she would like more data, which I agree with 100%. We have to pin that down. Then, we have the CMHC, with no real-time data. There was no clear answer to the bonuses. The member from the government had to swoop in and answer that question for you, which I find very concerning. Then, there are a lot of goals that haven't been met across the board. I'm a little at a loss for words.

I have also witnessed one organization pass the buck to the next organization, back and forth. This is very concerning. We are in a housing crisis. We are not meeting our targets, and there's no real clarity. The Auditor General just needs more data for more clarity. I don't think the folks at home, the taxpayers, would be very happy with what we have heard today.

I don't agree with this. Again, I have to go back to these bonuses. I don't agree. Now it's a withholding pay scheme. I'm just not clear on any of this. I would hope, moving forward, that we would get a lot more clarity and that the public would get a lot more clarity. I'll be honest with you: When the taxpayers tune in to this, they're not going to be happy. I wasn't a politician four months ago, and I'm not happy with what I'm hearing today.

I would urge.... I think it's safe to say that you have the best interest for the country. I'm not disputing that, but there's no wonder why we haven't been meeting any of the goals, and we're in a housing crisis. I mean no offence.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you, Mr. Kuruc.

I will let them respond. If you have a brief question, go ahead.

[Ned Kuruc, Conservative, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

They can respond.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

All right.

I will ask the two witnesses to respond, please.

[Coleen Volk]

Thank you. I appreciate your question.

To your statement, I am very apologetic that you felt we were passing the buck. That is certainly not the way Paul and I work. I can provide some clarity in terms of roles and responsibilities.

If the Auditor General concludes that a program has been administered poorly, that money is not going out fast enough or that it's a problem of administration, I am definitely the one at the table who is accountable for that. If the Auditor General says that, in the future, this program should use a different definition of affordability or that there should be some design difference in the program, then that is something Paul would address, because he's responsible now for designing the programs—or for the advice to government, which designs the programs. If it's about administration, that is absolutely me.

If we left any sense that we were passing the buck, I apologize for that. That's not our intention at all. It's very clear to us.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you.

Mr. Halucha, do you have any comments you'd like to make?

[Paul Halucha]

No.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Okay, thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Mr. Lemire for two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Ms. Hogan, have you already assessed the effectiveness of housing agreements signed by the federal government and its provincial partners?

Often, it's clear that programs are designed for Ontario, because agreements with that province are relatively easy to sign. That was the case in 2017. Ontario signed immediately, but Quebec took three or four years to sign. Obviously, when the COVID pandemic hit, costs mushroomed. As a result, far fewer housing units were built in Quebec with the same amount of per capita funding or according to the criteria agreed on with Ontario.

In this kind of agreement, are assessments conducted based on provincial needs? Is that part of your mandate? Have you already looked at such assessments? How does one assess the effectiveness of a housing program?

[Karen Hogan]

I would recommend you consult our 2022 report on chronic homelessness, in which we look at a number of housing affordability programs in Canada.

Did we assess the agreements signed between the different levels of government? No. Typically, we verify whether a program's objectives have been achieved or whether progress has been made toward achieving those objectives. We could take that information into consideration during a future audit on housing. It's an important file for Canadians. As a result, we'll obviously verify yet again how much progress has been achieved in that area over the coming years.

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

As a Quebecker, I often find that the basic criteria of agreements are ill suited to the realities of regions like mine. The agreements are difficult, and I get the feeling that we are losing out. The effectiveness of those measures is therefore more difficult to assess.

[Karen Hogan]

Here's my comment: In the programs we look at, there is an affordability criterion. Some programs have a criterion whereby 30% of the housing units must be rented for less than 80% of the median rent in the region. That tool isn't adjusted. It's extremely hard. That means that the price of 60% of the housing built corresponds to the market price. It depends on the intended objective.

In my opinion, the objective must be adjusted for affordability, but there must also be enough flexibility to take regional specificities into consideration. I heard that the next definition of affordable housing may allow such flexibility. Time will tell if that's true.

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

At the same time, if we look at the average income in a given neighbourhood, an individual who has always lived in that neighbourhood and whose income is below that average might be heavily penalized.

Are you satisfied with the answers provided today?

[Karen Hogan]

That's a broad question. There are many possible answers, but I would say sometimes yes and sometimes no.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you.

I'm sure there will be more questions coming out of that.

I turn now to Ms. Tesser Derksen, please, for five minutes.

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

Thank you so much.

I want to thank you again for all the time you've taken answering our questions. Housing is a human right. It's a non-partisan issue, and it's something that we're all going to work together on to get better results for Canadians.

I also want to thank you for doing your best to distill very complex answers into the simplest terms you can. I realize that it might not be a flashy headline or a sound bite. You need to give us thorough answers, and they're complicated, complex policies that you're trying to explain. I am fully satisfied with Mrs. Volk's explanation on the at risk pay. I'm not sure where there might be a misunderstanding there anymore; it's been made very clear.

I want to give Mr. Halucha a chance to just wrap up the question that we were originally engaged in, in the other round of questioning, with respect to the reduction of the disposal time for the transfer to the federal lands initiative. You were talking about outside factors that might be affecting the ability to meet those goals. Could you expand on that, or complete your answer?

[Paul Halucha]

Thank you very much.

There are just a couple of points. I think I ended on the point about the Canada Lands corporation being moved into the housing portfolio. That was announced by the Prime Minister and the minister a couple of weeks ago. I think that's a really important initiative for some of the points that have been raised here in terms of having a lot more coherence among the federal actors. It means that I, Ms. Volk, the CIB and Canada Lands corporation are now all in the same portfolio, working under a single minister with a single mission.

The other point I was going to make was that there is a single mission now that brings together the focus on housing and affordability. It was mission four in the priorities letter from the Prime Minister to ministers. All of that brings a great deal of coherence.

With regard to speeding up the process, I think another important part of the announcement—that announcement was a really important day for us—was the Prime Minister effectively saying that he is going to be directing ministers to bring forward lands that have high housing potential. I think that's a really important signal and step that the government is taking, moving away from what comes up through a surplus process to looking at what key pieces of federal lands are available and can be built on.

The fact that Canada Lands will now have the resources in order to build on federal lands is a really significant step. This was part of the commitment that was made, that Canada would be getting back into building. It means we'll be able to accelerate the amount and the speed at which we bring homes to the market. That, then, creates a space for additional lands to come forward and get built on, because right now a lot of them.... It's been a lot slower. It's been dependent on market demand. This is a key removal of a constraint that I think will bring a lot more homes to market through this Build Canada Homes agency.

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

Great, thank you very much.

It sounds very optimistic. That's great, but I have to be a little bit pessimistic and ask you what types of vulnerabilities or risk exposures you anticipate we might encounter, perhaps from forces outside our control or different variables, and what plans you might have in place to address those.

[Paul Halucha]

The risk is that it's a large challenge that we have before us. I think that's the key risk variable. It puts a premium on a lot of things, such as coordination with other levels of government. I think we approach this recognizing that partnerships will be a key aspect of moving forward.

I'm not sure this is a risk, because I do tend to err toward optimism, but the second key thing is around the opportunities in modular housing and the industrialization of homebuilding. That is where we have the greatest potential. It's about 2% of the market share right now. We know that in terms of factory utilization, those assets, which are privately held, with great capability of building homes, are not being fully utilized. We could actually almost triple the amount of market share that modular has without increasing the asset base. This is really exciting. What they need is supply. They need an order book that's full. That will be a key part of what Build Canada Homes will try to provide. That was, again, why the focus that was articulated was so much on that industry and taking place in front of a local modular provider's homes.

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

That's great.

You mentioned partnerships. Part of your role is to lead these policy-related engagements with various partners. Whom have you identified that might be outside the box from the ones you've already mentioned? What's the breadth of that engagement? What scope do you have? Do you have reasonable discretion to identify different partners?

[Paul Halucha]

One of the key features of how we envisioned this new agency was actually to have a lot more flexibility in terms of whom they bring to the table and the types of deals they do. There's almost not a wrong answer on that. There are going to be KPIs in terms of the investment criteria. I think we already articulated that we're going to be focusing on supply, on affordability and on investments that utilize the modular product. We do believe that's a key part of meeting the housing supply challenge. It is absolutely critical to it.

From a partnership perspective, we did an enormous amount of outreach over the summer. In mid-August, we published a market sounding guide, which brought in about 700 separate responses—favourable, with a lot of them wanting to partner with the new agency as it goes forward. I think the risk, which is a good risk to have, is that there will be a lot of opportunity and a lot of deals that the organization will be able to do. It will be a matter of working through them over the course of the next number of years.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much.

Before I excuse you, I will say thank you all for coming in today and being so helpful with your responses.

There have been a couple of requests for information. This is just a note, Ms. Volk. Can you be as thorough as possible with the housing accelerator information? I know it's something of great interest to members on both sides. Clarity will certainly be greatly appreciated, with as many specifics as possible.

On that, again, I will excuse the witnesses.

The committee is going to pick it up again in camera. It's just for some housekeeping. I'm not going to keep everyone long, but I do need to get through some items. Thank you very much. I will suspend, and we'll come back in about five or six minutes.

Mr. Housefather, there is nothing particularly pressing. I'm not going to pull a fast one here, so you're welcome to come back, but if you decide not to, that's understandable. It's your call. I know you're remote and it does take a few minutes. If we see you, that's great. If not, we'll see you in the House.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

It's no problem. Thanks.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

This meeting is suspended.

[Proceedings continue in camera]