The Senate resolved into a Committee of the Whole in order to study the subject matter of Bill C-26, An Act to authorize certain payments to be made out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund for the purpose of improving housing supply.

Senator Wilson: Thank you for being here, minister. It is fun to see someone from my own neighbourhood here in the chamber.

In your remarks, you made reference to Bill C-26 being just one piece within a more comprehensive housing plan that is being implemented across the country. In discussions like this, especially with the timelines we are facing on the bill before us, it can be easy to focus too singularly on particular pieces.

Would you be able to describe in more detail how this bill and its intended outcomes fit into the wider housing plan you referenced?

Mr. Robertson: Thank you for the question, senator. This is certainly complementary to the other tools in the tool box, and I would say that the most flexible and trusting way to deal with our partners at the provincial and territorial level is by giving them the discretion to apply this funding to boost housing supply.

Build Canada Homes, which senators have been deliberating on, is a new agency within my department that will hopefully soon be a Crown corporation with the flexibility and tools to be able to acquire real estate, to develop, to have federal land in the tool box and to focus on delivering affordable housing using Crown corporation tools if we empower it with that. That’s a different model that’s more based on proposals from all sorts of partners — provinces, territories, cities, private sector and community builders. It’s a new tool that we think has flexibility, but also has a very clear mandate to deliver with those partners.

We have an array of tools that come from the National Housing Strategy that range from tackling homelessness, with Reaching Home and the Unsheltered Homelessness Encampments Initiative, to the Canada Housing Benefit and many other programs related that are in the National Housing Strategy that are more targeted.

What we anticipate here with Bill C-26 is much broader and much more flexible, and I think it will be really important for us to look at the outcomes and see if this is a good tool going forward. We recognize we’re in a crisis —

The Chair: Thank you, minister.