Before the words even left his mouth, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau surely must have known he erred last month when he said that housing was “not my problem.”

Here we are, barely a couple weeks later, and Trudeau was walking back those comments, saying that while housing may not be a direct federal responsibility, there are ways Ottawa can help.

Federal government tools

Cue the meeting of his cabinet in Charlottetown, PEI which, at press time, was discussing exactly that, as the main agenda item.

As Dave Wilkes, president and CEO of the Building Industry and Land Development Association, says, the federal government absolutely does have means to help build more homes.

“The federal government has several tools at its disposal to help spur the addition of housing supply and improve affordability,” Wilkes says, adding that they include waiving or deferring HST on purpose-built rental housing, indexing the price thresholds for the GST/HST new housing rebate and helping municipalities and provinces fund housing-supportive infrastructure.

Another of our expert columnists, Mike Collins-Williams, CEO of the West End Home Builders’ Association, offers other suggestions: Re-introducing 30-year amortizations, adjusting mortgage qualification criteria, namely the stress test, and other moves to help first-time buyers enter the market.

Building Faster Fund

At the provincial level, Premier Doug Ford announced on Aug. 21 the Building Faster Fund, a new three-year, $1.2-billion program to provide new funding to municipalities, based on performance against provincial housing targets. The fund will provide $400 million in new annual funding for three years to municipalities that are on target to meet provincial housing targets by 2031. Municipalities that reach 80 per cent of their annual target each year will become eligible for funding based on their share of the overall goal of 1.5 million homes.

He had earlier pointed out that some municipalities needed more help to reach their targets than others. For example, on the high side, Brantford was on pace to meet 109 per cent of its target, Pickering 107 and Toronto 90 per cent. At the low end, Burlington is on pace to hit just five per cent of its target, Brampton 23 and Mississauga and Ajax 29 per cent.

Trusting that such a program encourages municipalities to find ways to expedite their homebuilding, and that Trudeau and company devise their own helpful measures, we now can turn our attention to the Bank of Canada. In its latest rate announcement on Sept. 6, BoC helped the cause by not instituting its third straight rate increase, holding its target for the overnight rate at five per cent.

Welcome news, indeed.