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Halifax Mayor Andy Fillmore says new federal funding to help municipalities use artificial intelligence to get homes built faster will help boost productivity in city hall.
The $100 million announced in the 2026 federal budget will be divvied up among Canadian municipalities over three years to support the adoption of AI tools to enable “more efficient and effective review and approval processes,” according to budget documents.
Fillmore called the funding extremely helpful.
“What this will do is make employees, HRM’s valued employees, more productive and be able to do more work and churn out more approvals and more permits,” said Fillmore Tuesday.
He said the municipality doesn’t plan to replace its employees or cut back on the number of them.
Unclear how much funding Halifax will get
The federal budget doesn’t specify how much Halifax will get, nor does it say how municipalities ought to use the funds.
That information will come soon, said Tim Tierney, president of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, which is partnering with the federal government to deliver the funding.
Tierney, who is also a councillor and the deputy mayor of Ottawa, said housing approvals are an area in which many municipalities across the country are criticized for being slow.
“It’s no fault of municipalities, some of them are just too small,” he said.
“Making use of e-permitting with AI as a solution to be able to get some of those things processed quickly will only help build housing, which is needed.”
Federal budget highlights Edmonton’s use of AI
The budget cites Edmonton’s use of AI as instructive for municipalities receiving the funds.
There, city staff have developed several AI tools to speed up operations, including housing approvals. According to the federal budget, Edmonton’s AI use has reduced approval times from two weeks to one day.
HRM’s permit volume and processing times website estimates it takes 24 days to get a permit for a new single-detached dwelling.
Fillmore said he’s interested in learning more about Edmonton’s approach and finding out if using the money to develop a tool in-house would make sense.
“There are times when adding staff actually does pay,” he said.
Fillmore said that while the city doesn’t have its own AI policy, the funding could motivate the city to change that.
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