CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY

Hello, everyone.

I hope the conference is going well in Regina. Thank you, Mayor Masters, for hosting.

I’ve been to many, many of these, so I know a lot of the conversations happen outside of the big keynotes. So, I really wish I’d been there in person, but can’t make it, but I know in person you’ve got Minister LeBlanc and Minister Mendicino this week.

Earlier today, here in Ottawa, I attended a ceremony to mark the anniversary of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, and met with family members, Survivors, members of the 2SLGBTQQIA+ community, Elders, and grandmothers. The federal government is moving forward on our contribution to the National Action Plan to end this tragedy. I know there are people across your communities who are also working to confront this tragedy.

So, on this day, I’m glad to be joining you virtually for this big moment. Joanne, it’s good to be talking with you again.

You took on the role of President of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities at an extraordinarily difficult time, and you have done great work.

And to Councillor Taneen Rudyk – I know you’ll be taking on this important role next and we look forward to working with you.

I also want to recognize mayors Bowman, Holder, Bevilacqua, and Watson. Thank you all for your work to serve Canadians, and I wish you all the best in your next steps.

All of you here, as mayors and municipal leaders, have faced unprecedented difficulties and have worked to deliver for Canadians. Municipal governments provide many of the direct services Canadians rely on. I want to acknowledge everything you have done to stay strong through these past two years to keep your communities as safe as possible. You are helping to lead Canadians through the pandemic and to recover from the economic impacts of COVID-19.

Now, you’re all part of the work we are doing to ensure a strong recovery, for everyone.

As part of this work, one of the most important things we can do is build housing to meet the needs of Canadians. Housing affordability is a real and growing concern, especially for young Canadians. They are worried that they won’t have the same opportunities as their parents and grandparents to own a home and build their future.

Over the past two years, the costs of buying a home stretched further and further out of reach for too many. This is pushing people to move further and further from where they work and where they grew up – and often, where they had dreamed of building their future.

Just last week, I was in Vancouver and met Kate and Gardy. They have three kids and they rent their home. They have good jobs and work hard, but still can’t afford to buy a place of their own.

In April, I met Ala and Ahmed in Hamilton. They told me that housing affordability is a constant topic of conversation. They want to buy their first home, but prices just keep going up. When it takes years and years to save for a down payment, the price tag for even a starter home tends to remain out of reach.

When I went to Laval in April, I met Alexe and Simon. It’s been very challenging for them to put enough money aside for a down payment, especially with the bidding wars we’ve seen over the past few years. That day, I also had the opportunity to talk about housing with Stéphane, the mayor of Laval, and I know that it’s a subject he feels very strongly about.

Tackling housing affordability is a complex problem and there is no one silver bullet.

As you well know, anyone who is offering simplistic solutions is simply being unrealistic.

Mayors know better than anyone that these things require an approach that is smart, deliberate, and multi-layered. And that’s what our plan is.

In Budget 2022, we laid out an ambitious, targeted, and long-term plan to address housing affordability for Canadians. It’s built on three pillars: helping Canadians save to buy a home; curbing speculation by cracking down on some of the predatory practices we know are out there; and – something we, here, must work on together – increasing supply.

Increasing supply is key to making housing more affordable for Canadians. Budget 2022 puts us on a path to double new housing construction over the next decade. But in order to do get this done, there are things that we can – and need – to start doing today. And getting it done will take all levels of government working together.

That’s why we’re proposing to commit $4 billion through the new Housing Accelerator Fund. The Housing Accelerator Fund is intended to be flexible to the needs of your municipalities, including for smaller and rural communities. This is about empowering you to identify and address your specific challenges and opportunities.

When you think about the potential the Accelerator Fund has for your community, I want to challenge you to be bold. We need proposals that go beyond incremental approaches, beyond what you have done so far. Maybe it’s expanding housing options as a right in your neighbourhoods, or aggressively up-zoning around transit, or activating public lands for low-income or mixed-used housing that meets the needs of Canadians.

Look at your housing systems and determine what those key changes are that will deliver significant new supply over the coming years as Canada continues to grow. And we’ll be there to do it with you.

You know best what your communities need. You are the experts.

We want to help you remove barriers and accelerate the processes that unlock all types of supply, including starter homes, affordable rental units, and supportive housing. Whether it’s zoning issues, permitting, motivating and incentivizing developers and other partners to get shovels in the grounds, we want to be your partner in getting homes built.

As we build more homes, and while we help more Canadians become homeowners, we also have to do more to support vulnerable people. Because everyone deserves a safe and affordable place to call home.

That’s why we’ve topped up the Rapid Housing Initiative with another $1.5 billion in investments over this fiscal year and next. This program has already created over 10,000 new units, and this new funding is expected to quickly build 6,000 more new affordable housing units. As always, twenty-five per cent of the funding from this program will go towards women-focused housing projects.

Affordable housing can be a critical issue for women and children fleeing domestic violence – a need that, sadly, has become increasingly clear during lockdowns. Since the launch of the National Housing Strategy five years ago, our government has ensured that a quarter of all funding serves the specific needs of women and children.

And we made a commitment to end chronic homelessness. Budget 2022 committed to continue providing doubled annual funding for Reaching Home, our homelessness strategy. This means more certainty for the local community organizations that are already doing incredible work in your cities and towns.

By supporting vulnerable Canadians, unlocking supply, and addressing affordability, we will build stronger communities and a stronger middle class.

When we have dynamic communities, we have dynamic economies. We need teachers, skilled workers, and care workers, to be able to live where they work; for small business owners to hire locals and serve their neighbourhoods; for artists and diverse peoples to celebrate culture with new audiences; for family members of all generations to be able to afford to live close to one another. It’s good for families, good for business, good for the labour market, and good for Canada.

Making housing more affordable is a priority and so is making life more affordable.

For instance, in less than a year, we reached agreements with all 13 provinces and territories to deliver $10-a-day child care for young families within a few years, with all families having fees reduced by about half, by the end of this year.

And to make sure children have the best facilities to learn and grow in, in the April budget, we introduced a new Early Learning and Child Care Infrastructure Fund, which will help build new, high-quality, affordable child care in communities across the country.

Of course, building infrastructure is a big part of building better communities. From massive bridges to small community projects, our commitment to infrastructure investments and partnership has delivered concrete results for people across the country. We’ve made historic investments in infrastructure, investing over $45 billion towards 11,000 projects from coast to coast to coast.

We’re working with provinces and territories to make sure they have plans to use all available funding to get projects built. And we’re working with you to advance priority projects. The federal government is your partner in this.

We want to help you build infrastructure that helps your communities grow in ways that are livable and sustainable. As part of this, we’re looking at ways to incorporate infrastructure spending with strategies that help build what Canadians need. That includes looking at ways to leverage public transit investments to build more transit-friendly communities. This not only makes our communities more livable, it keeps our air clean and helps us fight climate change.

I know I don’t have to tell anyone here why that matters.

As mayors, you see the impacts of climate change firsthand. When storms ravage your communities, local emergency services are the first to respond. When heat waves put the elderly and vulnerable at risk, you are the ones setting up cooling stations.

Together, we need to ensure that we build a safe future, with communities that are prepared to deal with the effects of climate change.

We’ve made investments in wildfire preparedness, in improving and completing flood maps, and over $2 billion towards climate mitigation projects to help your communities become more resilient, including in Indigenous, small, and rural communities.

But as the climate continues to change, we need a whole-of-society approach.

Last month, we launched public consultations for Canada’s first National Adaptation Strategy. This strategy will lay out a blueprint for communities and local economies. Because if our work to cut pollution is playing offence on climate change, this is our defence – from building homes that withstand hotter summers to infrastructure that’s better prepared for spring flooding.

You have already helped drive our work on adaptation, and I hope you will all continue to engage in these consultations.

Keeping people safe remains, of course, a top priority.

Sadly, over the past years, we’ve seen a rise in gun violence in many of your communities. Too many parents have lost of a child. Too many people have lost a loved one or a friend. This has to stop. And that’s why we’re taking action.

On Monday, we announced the most significant measures on gun violence in a generation. Our legislation would implement a national freeze on handgun ownership. That means it will no longer be possible to buy, sell, transfer, or import handguns anywhere in Canada.

Already, two years ago, over 1,500 models of assault weapons were banned. It is now illegal to buy, sell, or use them anywhere in Canada.

We are also strengthening border measures and giving law enforcement more tools to stop the flow of smuggled weapons. These measures are working. In 2021, the number of smuggled weapons seized at the border nearly doubled from the previous year.

The facts are clear: the fewer guns there are in our communities, the safer everyone is.

We need to work together, and do everything we can, to stop preventable deaths.

We know that opioid overdoses are taking too many people from us. Tragically, since the pandemic began, this crisis has only worsened.

Addiction is a health issue, but too often, it is treated like a criminal issue. We want people who use drugs to be able to get the support they need. Because getting help saves lives.

On Tuesday, British Columbia was granted an exemption that allows for personal possession of small amounts of certain drugs. This will help people who use drugs get access to health and social services, instead of ending up in the criminal justice system.

I want to thank Mayor Kennedy Stewart for his leadership on this. As many of you know, these conversations are ongoing with other mayors – notably with my friends Mayor Sohi and Mayor Tory – to move forward on this file.

We all know that science-based, community-based solutions are critically important if we’re going to tackle this crisis head on. But we need to make sure we’re wrapping those services around in the solutions we put forward. That’s why we want to work with you, and with the provinces and territories, to make sure communities have these tools that help prevent overdoses, and get people the support they need. That’s how we get through this crisis.

My friends, we have faced a lot of hard challenges over the past few years. We’ve been able to deliver a lot for Canadians. Let’s continue working together.

Let’s build big projects that help us grow.

Let’s build housing that welcomes new Canadians, younger and older generations, vulnerable people, and more.

Let’s build safe, healthy, resilient, and diverse communities for our children and grandchildren to grow up in.

Let’s make sure that, together, we keep building a Canada where everyone can thrive.

Thank you, my dear friends.