The Canadian government is launching a new $6 billion fund to finance the construction of homes.It will help make construction faster and improve things like water and waste systems.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Tuesday that the government will provide money for housing. He made the announcement in Dartmouth with Housing Minister Sean Fraser. Protesters were chanting in the background while the Liberals are traveling to talk about their spending plans before the budget.
The Prime Minister’s Office plans to set aside $1 billion for important improvements to things like sewage, stormwater, and garbage systems.
$5 billion will be saved for agreements with provinces and territories that have not been discussed yet.
The national government needs provinces and territories to promise to do certain things to make more houses in Canada in order to get this money.
Some of the things needed:
Town and city governments have to permit more small homes like duplexes, triplexes, and townhouses.
Municipalities with more than 300,000 people have to stop increasing development charges for three years.
New rules are coming to the National Building Code to make it easier for people to find homes that are affordable, easy to access, and good for the environment. These new rules will have to be followed.
Allowing construction that meets existing building and zoning rules for the federal housing design catalogue without needing special approval.
The new funding deadline is January, so provinces have until then to apply for it. The federal government deal deadline is January 1, 2025, and for territories, it’s April 1, 2025.
“If a province or territory doesn’t make a deal by their deadline, their money will go to the cities instead,” says the PMO’s statement with Trudeau’s announcement.
In addition to the new fund, Trudeau is also promising to add $400 million to the current $4 billion “Housing Accelerator Fund. ” This will help more cities join the initiative to make it easier and faster to build new homes.
So far, almost 180 agreements have been signed in Canada to quickly build over 750,000 new homes. The Liberals think that giving more money will help build 12,000 new homes faster in the next three years.
“We will find a solution to the problem of not enough homes for Canadians. ” This is how we will make things more fair for young people who feel like they are struggling because houses are too expensive, Trudeau said. “We have been working hard to reduce the amount of paperwork and speed up the building of many homes. We want to keep making more progress. ”
Trudeau told cities that they will need to build more houses in order to get money for public transportation in the future.
This news story is still being updated. Come back later for more information.