Housing Mandate Letter

Dear Minister,

Canadians have given us a clear mandate: to grow our economy, strengthen our sovereignty and build a country that works for everyone. They are ready to build Canada. Now, we must deliver. 

Our path forward is ambitious – and it must be. Global instability, and the accelerating pace of technological changes are testing our resilience. But Canadians are not afraid of hard work, nor are they afraid to take risks. They believe in fairness, in unity, and in building an abundant future for all Canadians. This government must match their resolve with urgency, discipline, and ambition.

I expect all Ministers to remain focused on their core mandate. Every ministry has clear goals focused on delivering better services and driving economic growth, while doing both with the efficiency and excellence Canadians deserve. That means setting clear goals, with measurable outcomes, and being relentless in execution. 

I expect Ministers to fulfill their mandates at a pace this country has not seen in recent history. Canadians expect and deserve change. It is the responsibility of our entire government to remove any roadblocks quickly and ensure the smooth and fast implementation of our priorities.

I expect you to do this by recruiting top talent, adopting best practices from around the world, and leveraging modern tools wherever possible, including artificial intelligence. Above all we must be ruthlessly pragmatic. If our policies are not achieving the results that Canadians deserve then we must change direction to achieve our goals. Through this, we can build a more modern government that delivers better results more efficiently.

As Minister of Housing, you will address the housing crisis facing Canadians. Home prices and rents have far outpaced median household incomes. Canada risks pushing a generation of workers, families, and students out of the cities and communities where opportunity lives.

The problem is that we are not building enough homes. Firstly, governments, at every level, neglected their role in building housing for decades and, secondly, the market failed to build houses at a pace that kept up with our growing country. 

We need to use every tool at our disposal to build homes at a scale and speed not seen since the Second World War. Over the last 4 years, we have built about 250,000 homes per year. Over the next 4 years, to meet the demand of our current and future population, we need to increase that to 500,000 homes per year.

To do this will mean creating the most effective national builder in the world that delivers high-quality affordable homes. It will also mean creating a private market that gets homes built – working with provinces and municipalities to approve new housing projects fast, make it legal to build more kinds of residences in more neighbourhoods, and reduce the cost to create new units. 

Specifically, you will: 

• Increase the pace of of homebuilding across Canada
  
  • Establish “Build Canada Homes” (BCH), with all affordable housing programming transferred from CMHC to make the government directly accountable to increasing housing supply.
  • Eliminate GST for homes at or under $1 million 
  • Cut municipal development charges by 50% 
  • Leverage the Housing Accelerator Fund to get municipalities to upzone 50% of residential land in major cities for multi-unit housing
  • Leverage the Housing Accelerator Fund to get municipalities to reduce average municipal housing approval times by 50% 
• Increase affordable rental housing for Canadians
  
  • Launch a new federal tax credit for rental housing modeled after the MURB program 
  • Deploy $4 billion in long-term fixed financing for affordable housing builders to build at least 20,000 homes 
  • Deploy $4 billion for BCH to build at least 15,000 deeply affordable homes, supportive housing, Indigenous housing and shelters
• Solve the student and senior housing crisis
  
  • Deploy $2 billion to build 8,000 new student and seniors housing in partnership with provinces and territories 
• Kickstart new home-building innovation technology
  
  • Deploy $25 billion in debt financing and $1 billion in equity financing to Canadian prefabricated home builders to build 100,000 homes 
  • Drive 25,000 prefab home starts by BCH

We all know that our country could be so much more than it is. We have the land, the talent, the know-how, and the energy to be the most prosperous nation on earth. And our people have a spirit that could take them anywhere they want to go.

Now let’s build it.

Signed,

Prime Minister

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Note: Italicized figures are added by Build Canada

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