OTTAWA — Former armouries, post offices and a defunct rifle range are among 56 federal properties set to be freed up for homebuilding projects as the Liberal government hastens to make good on a promise to get millions of new homes built in the coming years.
Public Works Minister Jean-Yves Duclos and Housing Minister Sean Fraser are set to announce the launch of a new public lands bank listing the available properties on Sunday ahead of a cabinet retreat in Halifax, a meeting which amounts to the starting gun going off on what’s expected to be a tumultuous few months in politics.
The properties won’t be sold to the highest bidders. Instead, Ottawa will offer long-term leases in a bid to offset what’s often a barrier to home construction — the cost of buying land.
The properties, which are scattered across the country, are the first of many the federal government hopes to convert to homes over the coming years; the Liberals have set a goal of “unlocking” properties for 3.87 million new homes by 2031, of which they want 250,000 to be on land owned by the government. They promised the land bank in this year’s budget.
How much and how quickly federally owned land could help ease the current housing crunch is an open question.
Previous efforts to create housing on federal land have seen some projects take years just to get through the municipal permitting process. Meanwhile, in cities like Toronto, high interest rates and development fees are leading to a sales slump, which in turn is making developers wary of launching new projects that could be built on public land.
The properties represent a minuscule fraction of the federal government’s overall land holdings; it currently owns 41 million hectares of land, but more properties are expected to eventually be added to the bank.
A government source not authorized to speak publicly ahead of Sunday’s announcement told the Star the land-lease approach is being used to ensure public land supports housing that communities need in the long term, a reflection of the government’s economic policy framing as of late on “fairness for every generation.”
That theme makes an appearance on the cabinet agenda for this week, where there will be also sessions on the Atlantic, housing, economics and Canada-U.S. relations.
At the Halifax meetings, cabinet ministers will hear from a mix of academics and industry leaders, as well as Canada’s ambassador to the U.S., Kirsten Hillman, who is fresh off attending the Democratic National Convention in Chicago ahead of the U.S. presidential election this fall.
The cabinet retreat comes at the end of a summer that began with a storm of speculation swirling around Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s future as Liberal leader, after the party lost a seat in the Toronto—St. Paul’s byelection.
Some backbench MPs openly suggested he step down, while others privately mused that a major shakeup was necessary.
A potential cabinet shuffle has so far not materialized , although all eyes are on Transport Minister Pablo Rodriguez amid speculation he may run for leadership of the Quebec Liberal party and, if that happens, whether he will be the last of the Liberal front bench to decide against seeking re-election.
Whether rumours of a reset can be put to rest might also depend on whether the Liberals can hold onto the Quebec riding of LaSalle-Emard-Verdun in a byelection next month, which is scheduled for the same day the House of Commons returns from its summer break.
A byelection will also be held that day in the Manitoba riding of Elmwood-Transcona, which was held by the NDP. The Conservatives are hoping to wrest it away as they did the Liberal seat in Toronto as further proof that more Canadians are finding a home in their party since Pierre Poilievre became its leader.
Housing is also a big piece of Poilievre’s pitch to voters. He has also pledged to make federal land available for homes as part of his sweeping housing agenda, and has set a target of selling off 15 per cent of the government’s assets for that purpose.
Poilievre’s housing bill would also force the responsible ministers to actually sell off that land within a year of figuring out which pieces could go, a timeline that recently raised eyebrows among bureaucrats tasked with reviewing his bill.
