Bill C-356, also known as the Building Homes Not Bureaucracy Act, proposes to set a target for the completion of new homes in 'high-cost cities,' provided municipalities increase home building by 15 per cent every year.Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre says recent municipal decisions in Toronto, Ottawa and Winnipeg are slowing down the construction of new homes, and that his own housing bill will reverse that trend.
“When you pay for bureaucratic box-ticking, you get bureaucratic box-ticking, but you can’t live in a box ticked by a bureaucrat. You have to live in a home, and that’s why my plan pays for results,” he said.Housing policy has emerged as a major political battleground in the run-up to the next federal election, which is scheduled to take place by fall 2025. Mr.
Scott Pearce, president of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, said in a statement that it is monitoring the bill as it moves through the legislative process. He also pointed to other factors that dictate outcomes on housing that are outside of the control of cities. The Liberal government’s April, 2024, budget featured a heavy focus on housing, including $19-billion in new housing and affordability measures. The Liberal government also announced a $4-billion Housing Accelerator Fund in the 2022 budget that aimed to tie federal funding to municipal policies to increase housing approvals. The program shares similarities with Mr. Poilievre’s approach in that it involves federal incentives that are contingent on municipal action.