Liberal Housing Plan will build more homes using Canadian lumber
Delta, B.C. – In the face of President Trump’s tariffs, we need to build. Today, Mark Carney highlighted the Liberal plan to use Canadian resources and ingenuity to create higher-paying jobs for our workers in the forestry industry and to build more homes Canadians can afford.
“In the face of President Trump’s tariffs, we need to build for Canadians,” said Mark Carney, Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada. “We will build homes Canadians can afford and, in the process, create a new industry that can take on the world. We will not only unleash the private sector by reducing costs and red tape, we will also get the government back into the business of affordable housing – partnering with workers and industry and using Canadian solutions, such as softwood lumber and mass timber, to build a stronger Canada.”
The softwood lumber industry and mass timber technologies are central to our plan to build at a scale and pace not seen since the Second World War. Using these Canadian solutions, a Mark Carney-led Liberal government will double the pace of residential construction to almost 500,000 new homes a year over the next decade:
- Create Build Canada Homes (BCH) to get the federal government back into the business of building affordable homes at scale, including on public lands. This will help communities facing affordability challenges, and help builders address rising costs of land and construction;
- Build Canada Homes will catalyze the housing industry with over $25 billion in financing for innovative prefabricated home builders in Canada, so that these factories can scale up production, including through bulk orders of units from manufacturers to create sustained demand. We will prioritize Canadian technologies and resources such as mass timber and softwood lumber, as well as create more apprenticeship opportunities to grow our skilled trades workforce;
- Cut municipal development charges in half for multi-unit residential housing for a period of five years to lower the cost of homebuilding and make housing more affordable; and,
- Reintroduce a major tax incentive which, when originally introduced in the 1970s, spurred tens of thousands of rental housing across the country.
In order to build smarter and more sustainably, a Mark Carney-led Liberal government will also make it easier for families to make climate conscious choices. We will invest $1 billion to power more homes with efficient and affordable electric heating and cooling and make homes more resilient to extreme weather by:
- Funding home retrofits and lowering utility bills while making it easier for low- and middle-income households, including renters, to adopt heat pumps and energy efficiency upgrades including insulation upgrades, heat pump installation, and window replacements;
- Lowering household risks to floods and wildfires, directly helping Canadian families to protect against floods, wildfires, and other extreme weather events. This will help with funding oriented towards adaptation measures such as repairing or replacing your roof, installing a sump pump, or sealing cracks in your foundations; and,
- A Mark Carney government will use a reformed carbon credit market to finance these climate conscious choices, meaning that big polluters, not taxpayers, will pay.
This builds on our plan to cover costs of apprenticeship training and to create more training opportunities in the skilled trades, so more Canadian workers can join these professions, secure higher-paying careers, and help us build the homes we need. And it will benefit from commitments to ensure full labour mobility for skilled trades, agreed by First Ministers in Ottawa on March 21, 2025. A Mark Carney government has pledged to do its part by tabling legislation to end Federal trade barriers by Canada Day.
A Mark Carney-led government will stand strong against President Trump’s tariffs, create new jobs, cut taxes for the middle class, and build the fastest growing economy in the G7. Liberals will build Canada strong.