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Prime Minister Mark Carney arrived Monday morning at a breakfast event hosted by Ottawa’s mayor with a menu of announcements including more details on what the federal housing plan will mean for Ottawa.
The Liberals launched the Build Canada Homes agency in September, promising a $13-billion fund to help construct affordable housing across the country. Among the first sites is a vacant federal government campus on Heron Road.
On Monday, Carney told an audience at Ottawa’s Rogers Centre that the city and the federal government will spend $400 million to build up to 3,000 new units in residential buildings that will be rated either partly or entirely affordable.
The city will help by cutting fees and property taxes for projects on federal lands, while Canadian building materials will be prioritized, according to the government.
In a report released in August, the parliamentary budget officer said Canada needs to build 690,000 new housing units by 2035, on top of what is already being built, to meet housing needs across the country. It said Build Canada Homes would create 26,000 new units.
Housing, health and event announcements
Carney also said the federal government is investing $1.2 million in a new substance abuse pilot project by the city and the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction that it hopes can expand to other jurisdictions.
The project would help co-ordinate an adaptable response to crime and substance abuse while promoting skills development.
Sutcliffe’s office said the pilot is designed to help direct people toward safer cultural and recreation activities, and improve the response to toxic drugs.
Canada will also bid to host the 2028 La Francophonie summit in the Ottawa-Gatineau for the group’s approximately 90 member states and observers, Carney said. Canada last hosted the summit in 2008.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is welcomed to La Francophonie in Villers-Cotterets, France on Oct. 4, 2024. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)
Meanwhile, the city and the province will build 33 modular townhomes of three to four bedrooms each on Beechcliffe Street in the area of Woodroffe Avenue and Knoxdale Road.
Ottawa is spending $3 million on the project and is providing the land. The Ontario government will contribute $3.4 million, while another $3 million will come from the province’s Building Faster Fund.
Global charity Habitat for Humanity will be involved in that project.