Trudeau Announces $500M Fund to Buy Public Lands for Affordable Housing Construction

A "For lease" sign stands in front of a row of houses in a newly build subdivision in East Gwillimbury in the Greater Toronto Area on Jan. 30, 2018. Reuters/Mark Blinch

Ottawa plans to spend $500 million to purchase land from other levels of government in a bid to create more affordable housing, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has announced.

The federal government is earmarking $500 million in its 2024 budget for the purchase of public lands from provincial and municipal governments, Mr. Trudeau said at an April 24 press conference in Oakville, Ont. The plan is to build 250,000 new homes on those lands by 2031.

“See right now, governments across Canada are sitting on surplus underused and vacant public lands like empty office towers or low-rise buildings; there is great potential to build more housing,” Mr. Trudeau said.

Once purchased, the federal government would not sell the lands to private parties but would lease them, the prime minister said, adding that the lands would remain publicly owned.

The public lands used for housing would not be leased as single-family properties but would instead be leased to co-ops and “affordable rentals,” Mr. Trudeau said, adding that long-term ownership would not be an issue.

Lands with existing federal buildings on them could also be expanded for housing, Mr. Trudeau said, noting that apartments or homes could be built on top of some of the more than 1,700 post offices across the country.

The federal government said earlier this month it was looking at developing homes on at least six Canada Post properties in Quebec, B.C., and Alberta and named another 33 sites that had potential for housing development.

Rising housing costs have also been a major issue for members of the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF), with rising housing costs, among other factors, being linked to food bank usage among active duty personnel.

The Department of Defence is working on unlocking 14 surplus properties to build additional homes for CAF members and their families, the prime minister said.

Housing Crisis

Tackling the housing crisis has been one of the main focuses of the Liberal government’s 2024 budget. When asked by reporters if the proposed budget measures go far enough, Mr. Trudeau said they alone were not strong enough to tackle the affordability crisis.

“No one order of government can solve the housing crisis on its own,” Mr. Trudeau said, adding that municipalities would need to “step up” to address densification. He also called on the provinces to build more housing infrastructure such as wastewater plants.

Part of the 2024 budget seeks to invest at least $6 billion into housing infrastructure but access to the funds for provinces and other levels of government will only be granted if they accept the Liberal-proposed renters’ bill of rights and other policies.

The Liberal government is aiming to create at least 3.87 million new homes by 2031 as the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corp. has stated that the country needs a minimum of 3.5 million new homes by 2030, far more than the estimated 1.87 million already on track to be built.

Unlocking public lands for housing is not a new policy for the Liberal party, as noted by Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre earlier this month. He recently told MPs in the House of Commons the 2015 Liberal party platform had made similar promises.

Mr. Poilievre has also argued that housing prices have “doubled” since Mr. Trudeau and the Liberal Party came to power in 2015.

A recent poll found that Canadians are not enthusiastic about the 2024 Liberal budget. The Leger survey said roughly half of Canadians had a negative view of the budget and that just 21 percent said they had a positive opinion.

Another poll by the firm Ipsos confirmed the overall sentiment, said that only 17 percent of Canadians support the budget, while 40 percent were opposed and 43 percent said they were neutral.