Canada must tap into mass timber and other modern construction methods to more than double the speed of housing under construction, according to Mark Carney, the Liberal Party’s new leader. Prime Minister Carney spoke about the Liberal Party’s housing plan just two weeks before the federal election.
A key plank of the plan – launched March 31 – includes the creation of a new entity, “Build Canada Homes” that will “get the federal government back into the business of building affordable homes at scale, including on public lands,” Carney said, adding that more than $25 billion in financing will be opened to prefabricated home builders – allowing for factories to scale up production to create demand.
“Build Canada Homes will catalyse an entirely new housing industry, with Canadian lumber at the centre of it. The way we build homes needs to change. Prefabricated and modular housing are the future. They can drive down time to completion by up to 50 per cent, reduce costs by up to 20 per cent, and reduce emissions by over 20 per cent compared to traditional construction methods, and Canada should be the world leader in this new industry. And as you can see here, we are already well positioned to do so.”
Carney said that Canada’s softwood lumber industry—which has been subject to on-again, off-again Trump tariffs—and mass timber technologies like those used at Intelligent City are central to the Liberals’ plans to build almost 500,000 new homes every year: “We want to address failures in the housing market head-on, unleashing the power of public-private co-operation at a scale not seen in generations.”
Carney, joined by Delta MP hopeful Jill McKnight and other Lower Mainland candidates, held the press conference at Intelligent City in Tilbury. The company uses mass timber products and robotics technology to make prefabricated carbon-neutral housing.
And the Liberal leader tied the “announcement” to the United States plan to more than double tariffs on Canadian softwood lumber, saying our country’s forest resources can instead be used to build affordable homes here, create higher-paying jobs, and strengthen Canada’s economy.
“While the U.S. is trying to keep high-quality, sustainable Canadian lumber out, we will use more of it here in our plan to double the pace of housing construction in this country over the course of the next 10 years” Carney said. “This is the most ambitious housing plan since the Second World War – we will build our way out of the housing crisis – we will build our way out of the economic crisis – (and) we will make housing more affordable in Canada once again.”
As it stands, Carney – former governor of the Bank of Canada and Bank of England – is favoured to win government, with Canada’s Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) reporting that the Liberal leader holds a six-to-seven point led in all polls: “The Conservatives (led by Pierre Poilievre) are holding at more support than they’ve had in the last three elections, but it is not high enough to win when the Liberals have picked up so much of the Bloc Québécois and NDP vote. Those two parties are on track for significant seat losses.”
- To learn more about the Liberal Party’s plans to address the housing shortage in Canada, including the creation of Build Canada Homes (BCH), click here for special coverage from the Real Estate Institute of Canada.
