Tuesday April 8, 2025 | DELTA, BC [Reporting from VICTORIA, BC]
by Mary P Brooke | Island Social Trends
The housing crisis in Canada would be addressed in part by using pre-fab and modular housing components, said Liberal Leader Mark Carney today.
He was delivering a campaign announcement at modular housing assembly facility in Delta, BC.
That type of housing construction including mass timber innovation would reduce construction time by half, said Carney.
To double the home building in Canada to nearly half a million homes per year is a promise from Carney that comes with a price tag of $25 billion.
As part of boosting housing construction, Carney in his campaign is promising more funding for trades worker training which includes expanded seat capacity in post-secondary institutions.
Continuing the economic warfare theme:
Carney says a Liberal government will “build a a prosperity that does not rely on the United States” including the use of “high quality sustainable lumber”.
His promise today about “a new housing industry with Canadian lumber at the heart of it” comes just one day after meeting with BC Premier David Eby about forestry tariff challenges as a big part of that private meeting.
Eby has frequently said in the past year that BC needs to receive federal funding supports (on a per capita basis) just as Ontario and Quebec do. It seems this could be hinged to the softwood lumber sector and this new vision of building homes quickly with pre-fab and modular as a strengthened manufacturing sector for BC (just as Ontario has automobile manufacturing).
BC Forestry Minister Ravi Parmar took the softwood lumber issue to the mainstream TV airwaves this evening, telling CTV that the US tariffs on BC softwood lumber are soon doubling. He said that “a lot of people in rural parts of BC — forest dependent communities — are really feeling quite nervous about what the weeks and months and years unfold ahead”.
Finding new markets for softwood lumber “is not an easy thing to do but it’s a top priority”, said Parmar today. “We need them to make softwood a priority,” said Parmar about the next federal government — the point that Eby discussed with Carney yesterday in Victoria.
“Softwood needs to live on the desk of the prime minister,” said Parmar today.
BC is looking for a loan guarantee program and trade diversification dollars, said Minister Parmar, noting that the federal government two years ago cut funding for trade diversification.
It sounds like Carney got the message. This morning he talked about creating or supporting “tens of thousands of jobs in the BC forestry industry all while reducing reliance on the United States”.
“We must support our forestry industry in challenging times,” Carney told media today.
Carney’s Liberal government would cut development charges in half for all multi-unit housing. He wants to bring back the multi-unit residential unit tax incentive.
He would continue with the Housing Accelerator Fund, more ambitiously. He would speed up approval and permitting timelines at the municipal level.
Carney also wants to see investment in powering homes efficiently including paying for roof replacements and foundation repairs.
Liberal Housing Plan will build more homes using Canadian lumber
[Liberal News Release – April 8, 2025]
“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:
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.
- 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, 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.
===== RELATED:
- Seniors make an effort to vote because it matters (April 8, 2025)
- BC Premier David Eby meets with Liberal Leader Mark Carney about softwood lumber tariffs (April 7, 2025)
- Carney announces Liberal sustainability platform including 10 new national parks & 15 urban parks (April 7, 2025)
- Liberal Leader Mark Carney rallies the party faithful in Victoria (April 6, 2025)
- BC Premier: Softwood lumber duties are an attack on forestry workers (April 5, 2025)
- If the United States no longer wants to lead, Canada will, says Carney (April 4, 2025)
- Carney promises $150 million boost for CBC (April 4, 2025)
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