Prime Minister Mark Carney announced Sunday afternoon the launch of Build Canada Homes, the federal government’s new agency that will oversee federal housing programs.
The agency was part of the Liberals’ election promise to double housing construction.
The government is touting Build Canada Homes as a centralized agency to oversee new affordable housing programs initiated at the federal level.
Carney said the agency will “supercharge housing construction across Canada” by helping to build supportive and transitional housing in collaboration with provinces, territories and Indigenous communities. It will also expand “deeply affordable and community housing” and partner with private developers to build homes for the middle class.
The prime minister also announced that former Toronto city councillor Ana Bailão will be the CEO of Build Canada Homes.
The agency will be able to approve construction on public lands and provide funding in the early stages of housing development projects.
Carney said $13 billion is earmarked for the new agency, which will help fund the construction of 4,000 modular homes on an initial six sites across the country — with capacity to scale up to 45,000.
The initial six sites are in Ottawa, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Toronto, Longueuil, Que., and Dartmouth, N.S.
Construction of those 4,000 homes is expected to begin next year, according to a government official speaking on background.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has been critical of Carney’s approach to housing, saying the prime minister is only adding a new layer of bureaucracy.
Earlier this week, the Conservative leader urged Carney to adopt his own housing policies, saying the government should incentivize municipalities to speed up the permitting process and drop their development fees by tying infrastructure funding to homebuilding.
Poilievre also tweaked two of his campaign pledges, saying the government should eliminate the capital gains tax on money reinvested in homebuilding and eliminate the five per cent federal sales tax on all purchases of homes under $1.3 million.
A report from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) released earlier this month said that overall housing starts in the first six months of this year were near all-time highs.
But the agency also identified concerns in two of the most expensive housing markets. It said Toronto is on pace for its lowest annual housing starts in 30 years and reported a slowdown in construction in Vancouver compared with 2024.
In Toronto, construction of new condominiums dropped by 60 per cent in the first half of 2025, and the agency predicts that for at least two more years, housing starts in the country’s largest city will be well below what’s needed to restore affordability.
The CMHC report also found that homebuilding was running close to a record pace in the first half of this year in cities like Calgary, Edmonton, Montreal, Ottawa and Halifax, driven by construction of rental apartments.
The agency projected that Canada’s overall housing starts will need to almost double by 2035 to meet demand, rising to 480,000 homes per year.
