Trudeau pledges $6 billion-plus for housing in upcoming federal budget
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was in Dartmouth on Tuesday to announce more than $6 billion in funding for housing initiatives. Sean Fraser, minister of housing, infrastructure and communities, is in the background. (CPAC)
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau unveiled more funding on Tuesday for affordable housing across the country.
Trudeau was in Dartmouth to announce the federal government will include more than $6 billion in the April 16 budget for housing initiatives.
The Canada Housing Infrastructure Fund would help speed up construction or upgrade needed infrastructure to build more homes for Canadians.
“If we want build more homes faster, we also need to be upgrading critical water and wastewater infrastructure. … We’ll launch the Canada Housing Infrastructure Fund with a billion dollars available to be allocated in the short term for municipalities to support needs that will directly create more housing, and $5 billion for agreements with provinces and territories to support investments in long-term priorities paired with key provincial and territorial actions to boost housing supply.”
The $5 billion would go to provinces over a longer period. Federal and provincial officials would have to negotiate the terms for that funding.
According to The Canadian Press, provinces and territories would have to agree to a set of conditions, including a renters’ bill of rights. The deadline for provinces to reach a deal with Ottawa would be Jan. 1, 2025.
And provinces would have to freeze development charges for three years. They would also have to adopt changes to the national building code and automatically approve homes that follow designs from the federal government’s housing design catalogue.
Trudeau said the government also plans to add another $400 million to the Housing Accelerator Fund to help make it easier at the municipal level to build more housing.
