Remarks by the Deputy Prime Minister on changing how we build homes in Canada

Bouctouche, New Brunswick — April 5, 2024

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Hello.

I am really happy to be here in Bouctouche today with my friends and colleagues, Dominic LeBlanc and Gudie Hutchings. And I’m especially happy to be here with the amazing team at Kent Homes.

It is great to see a team that has such team spirit and is so motivated, and it’s great to see how fast you guys can build homes. We need a lot more of that across the country because we need to get more homes built faster in Canada. What I saw today is people doing exactly that.

We particularly need more homes built faster for young Canadians because a lot of younger Canadians are feeling like the life their parents have, the life their grandparents have, is just not within reach.

They feel like they will never be able to unlock that promise of Canada, that promise of a good, comfortable middle class life. It starts with a home you can afford. That is why we are so committed as a government to getting more homes built across the country, to have them built faster and to have them be affordable. To do that at the speed and scale that our economy requires, we need to do things a little differently. We need to innovate.

What I am here to announce is a four-part plan to support the work you are doing here and to help more people across the country build homes the way you are leading the way, the way you are showing an example for the country here at Kent Homes.

Together, the four measures I’m going to announce make up a $750 million package.

Number one, we’re going to launch a new $50 million Homebuilding Technology and Innovation Fund. The Fund is going to support the scale-up, commercialization, and adoption of innovative housing technologies and building materials such as modular homes, like the one that we all see here around us. The idea is that the Fund is going to work with the private sector and other orders of government. We’re going to turn that $50 million from the federal government into a $200 million Fund. The plan is to announce the first projects this summer.

Second, I am announcing that we are providing $50 million to Canada’s Regional Development Agencies, such as the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency.

Third, I am announcing that our government will set aside at least $500 million through the Apartment Construction Loan Program to provide low-cost financing to prefabricated housing manufacturers, like Kent Homes, to support new, innovative rental housing projects. We're going to help people create a market for housing built using this innovative method.

I am so happy about that element of our package because I saw how quickly and how well everyone here builds homes. It is inspiring. I’ve been told you can build even more, that you have the capacity to do it. I want you guys to have an entirely full order book. I want you guys here at Kent Homes to be building as many homes as the amazing people here at this amazing factory can build.

Canada needs more homes. You guys build homes quickly, effectively. You build energy efficient homes. I want to be sure we have a system in the country that makes it possible for an enterprise like yours to be producing at maximum capacity, and this financing will help that. It will help people order homes like this.

Fourth, I’m announcing $11.6 million for a new housing design catalogue.

Last December we announced our government would help launch an updated Housing Design Catalogue.

This is an update to what Canada had after WWII when we also needed to build a lot of homes fast. We understood then that the way to do it is not to do it all over again for every single house, but to have some plans that were approved, that you didn’t need to go through lots of red tape and bureaucratic hurdles to build. That kind of approach is going to help you guys, too because that is exactly the kind of homes you build. That is exactly the kind of homes that your approach is designed to provide.

With this investment in the housing catalogue, our plan is to build an update of that post WWII catalogue and have a 21st century version. We want to have up to 50 new housing designs preapproved. That will include modular homes, row housing, fourplexes and sixplexes, and secondary suites like a basement apartment or a laneway house. Having a preapproved housing catalogue like that will help builders like you guys.

The reason why we want to invest so much in building prefabricated homes is because, if there are fewer individual construction sites and more large, centralized manufacturing plants like yours, we will be able to build more homes faster and at a lower cost.

That’s what we must do. It’s especially important today in Canada.

While weather can cause delays, increasing the cost of professional construction projects, it’s quite a different story for companies that build houses indoors, which I’ve witnessed here. Because, regardless of the weather, their work can continue without disruptions, as was the case today. We have a unique opportunity to use Canadian technologies and housing construction methods to achieve great results for Canadians, and we are very excited about it.

I'm so glad to see that it’s not just an idea. Your work here shows that it is possible. We are already doing it and we need to do it even more. You are an important example for all of Canada.

Over the coming days, and in the budget I will table later this month, we’ll reveal more of our no‑holds‑barred plan to wrestle down the costs of owning or renting a home. 

Our government first came to office with a vow to strengthen and expand the middle class. We delivered on that pledge by reducing poverty, especially for children and seniors, and creating millions of good jobs for Canadians. Our work isn’t over.

Our focus today is unlocking the door to the middle class for millions of younger Canadians. In all we do, we dedicate ourselves to making a better life within reach for our younger generations. Because it is what you deserve. And it is what your parents and grandparents want for you, too.

Thank you very much.