Finance committee  Thank you for your question. We support applying a rigorous rural lens to how programs are designed and implemented, for all the reasons you mentioned. For sure, in the housing accelerator fund, the budget talks about ensuring that smaller and fast-growing rural communities can

Finance committee  I think our members see the rapid housing initiative as being a best practice in how to deliver funding. The biggest challenge with RHI is not having enough access to funding, so we appreciate another round in the budget. As it relates to other NSH programs, I mentioned in my re

Finance committee  Chair, thanks very much. I appreciate the question. You're right. This subsumes a piece that was in Bill C-17—a really critical piece of funding for our members' transit systems that continue to face shortfalls due to the pandemic. It's taking much longer than I think we'd all h

Finance committee  Certainly, the way we approached this question earlier in the year, ahead of the budget and when this was first announced early in the spring, was to talk about these transit pandemic shortfalls, these operating shortfalls. That is the need, for sure. I mentioned in my opening

Finance committee  Thank you very much. I’m Daniel Rubinstein. I'm the senior director of policy and government relations at the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. We're the national voice of Canada's local governments, representing 90% of Canada's population, coast to coast to coast. We ar

Human Resources committee  Thanks very much for the question. Just for members' context, we do have the green municipal fund, a federally funded endowment, and we deliver interventions related to land-use sustainability and housing space. Those include the sustainable affordable housing initiative, which

Human Resources committee  I think we see this program as really something that our members will need to tap into directly. All of us who are involved in that housing sustainability land-use space need to bring our best thinking to the program to help make it a success. Certainly on the GMF, I can share pa

Human Resources committee  Thanks very much. Yes, we did propose ahead of the budget a longer-term time frame for the rapid housing initiative. I really welcome the additional funding in the budget. I think we're still hopeful that this kind of program will be on a longer-term track that allows our member

Human Resources committee  It's a great question. I might approach it philosophically to start. I think we need all levels of government to agree on the kind of housing we're trying to produce. I think we've heard today that one of the primary gaps is, in the market side, where do we create the appropriat

Human Resources committee  We have a board of directors of urban and rural mayors and councillors, and the housing crisis is being felt everywhere—that's for sure. Those cost increases are being felt everywhere. The budget clearly indicates that the fund will be accessible to rural—smaller communities ar

Human Resources committee  Thanks, Mr. Trudel. If I understand the question, it's about making sure that all parts of the country have access to the funding. I can assure you that's very much top of mind for our Quebec members. I can't speak for how the federal government will work with the Province of

Human Resources committee  Sure. I think this is where that range of local supply gaps that our members identified and the need for flexibility to direct towards them really matter. For some of our members, there's absolutely an opportunity to invest in the planning, in the permitting systems and in that s

Human Resources committee  Thanks very much. It's nice to see you as well, Mr. Jeneroux. I made the point about the other programs in the NHS to draw a distinction that I think you heard from previous witnesses. We have a need to provide a level of subsidy on grants and financing that's appropriate for t

Human Resources committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and committee members. I'm Daniel Rubinstein. I'm the senior director of policy and government relations at the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. FCM is the national voice of local government. We have 2,000 members, and we represent 90% of C

Finance committee  Let me answer that. All of our members, especially when speaking about major capital expansion projects, tap in typically to their debt room. The debt room is typically set at the provincial level. Some cities have the ability to cap it as well. It's always within a prudent perc