Summary of recent federal announcements. A lot of these ideas are taken pretty directly from the cross-partisan Blueprint for More and Better Housing.
Renter protections. $15M to support legal aid organizations (like TRAC in BC); creating a Canadian Renters’ Bill of Rights (the provinces would need to be involved); taking a consistent history of rental payments into account when you apply for a mortgage. Announcement.
Funding for infrastructure, tied to provincial and municipal land-use reforms. $6B Canada Infrastructure Fund, $1B for municipalities and $5B for the provinces, with conditions attached (including a freeze on development charges), and with conditions announced for future public-transit funding. If provinces refuse to accept the conditions, the money will be transferred to the municipal stream. Plus $400M to top up the Housing Accelerator Fund. Announcement. Previous post.
Funding to build more rental housing. $15B to expand the Rental Construction Financing Initiative (now renamed the Apartment Construction Loan Program) to $55B - enough for about 110,000 apartments at $500K each (the announcement says 130,000). The program provides low-cost long-term loans for purpose-built rental housing, student housing, and seniors housing. Funding from the ACLP will be available for provincial programs that are similar to BC Builds: housing on public land, with provincial funding and with accelerated approvals. Announcement.
Funding to acquire older rental buildings. A $1.5B Canada Rental Protection Fund, similar to the $500M Rental Protection Fund in BC, to acquire older, cheaper rental buildings so that they can be run by non-profits. Basically it turns older market rentals into non-market rentals; it should be more cost-effective than building brand-new non-market rentals. Announcement.
Funding for innovation (e.g. prefab and modular housing): $50M for a fund to support technology and innovation, $50M for regional projects, and $500M from the ACLP for projects using innovative techniques. A Housing Design Catalogue with up to 50 designs including modular homes, row houses, and fourplexes, that can then be pre-approved by municipalities and provinces. Announcement.
From a spending point of view, the big item is the $6B for infrastructure spending. The $55B Apartment Construction Loan Program doesn’t affect the deficit: the federal government issues bonds, it makes loans at a slightly higher interest rate, and those loans are repaid.
More
Mike Moffatt, Globe and Mail: Housing is a national problem – and the federal government has every right to make rental-market reforms.
Critics of the bill have suggested that the federal government is overstepping its jurisdictional bounds. But nothing the federal government has proposed here is unconstitutional, even if much of it will have to be implemented in collaboration with the provinces. They may yet do so willingly, too; B.C. Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon called the bill “welcome news,” indicating a willingness to collaborate as the B.C. government implements its own slew of policies.
Other provinces may be more resistant, but Ottawa always has the option of tying these reforms to federal transfers to provinces. It would be appropriate to do so, as a dysfunctional housing market in one province spills over to others. In Ontario, for instance, increased rents and home prices have prompted an exodus of families to New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Alberta, where rents and home prices proceeded to skyrocket. These interprovincial spillover effects create the justification for federal action, so long as those actions do not violate the Constitution.