Here in Vancouver, people have been on the front lines of the housing crisis for a long time. Prices have gone up and up, and I get it, B.C. is an amazingly great place to live and people want to live here. It's a gateway into Canada for so many people, and people around the world know that it is one of the best places on earth. I certainly agree. I've got deep family roots here, still have family who live here. I got my start as a teacher here living out in B.C., so I understand how much it is a draw to be able to live in this incredibly beautiful, vibrant city and incredibly wonderful province.

But with all this growth, it means that governments have to make sure that housing is getting built and getting built in the right way, and that's what our Housing Accelerator is all about. Today, we are extremely happy to announce that we've reached a deal with the city of Vancouver that will see over 40,000 homes built over the next decade.

(Applause)

This deal will mean less red tape, more housing built near transit, more affordable rental housing and more density. Homes in accessible, vibrant communities, the very places people want to live and raise their families in. Today's announcement actually brings the total number of new housing units unlocked by our Housing Accelerator to almost 300,000. This is well over the initial 100,000 we'd hoped to unlock when we announced the accelerator fund back in 2022.

We asked communities across the country to think big, to be ambitious, and because of that, we’re delivering real results. All this adds to the fact that the Housing Accelerator Initiatve has also exceeded its targets.

Housing is a big challenge, there's no doubt, but we have met big challenges before as a country. And the best way to solve housing challenges is what I said, to work together. Just over a year ago, I was here in the Vancouver area announcing funding to the Squamish First Nation to build thousands of rental units in the Sen̓áḵw project. Actually, your boss was there, David was there just before he actually became Premier, and it was great to see with him already the work we were going to do.

And the Sen̓áḵw project is what we've been working on in various ways for eight years, with a focus both on reconciliation, on responsible community development, on protecting the environment and creating economic opportunities that provide growth for everyone. And if you have any doubts of what a great project that was that we all worked on together, even Pierre Poilievre points to that project as one of the great successes of this government and its partners. So, you know it's got to be pretty good!

This construction site where we are today will become rental housing thanks to federal support, with plans to be complete in March of 2025. And I know the province has been introducing legislation to deliver more homes and modernize zoning rules. The federal government is ready to keep being a partner with all areas of government that are ready to make progress on building more homes, faster.

This fall, we also introduced a bill to eliminate the GST on the construction of new rental housing, and 300,000 Canadians are already taking advantage of the Tax-Free Savings Account to purchase their first home. We know that the rising cost of living is tough on Canadians, and we're working hard to bring it down. We've strengthened the Canada Pension Plan. We paid the grocery rebate to millions of Canadians last summer. We eliminated interest on federal apprenticeship and student loans.

And just today, we've announced that Prince Edward Island is reaching the milestone of $10-a-day child care. They're already the seventh project-… province to do this. I will say, though, it was right here in B.C. that we signed the first deal with the federal government in the province to deliver affordable early learning and child care. And already, our Canada-wide program is delivering hundreds, if not thousands of dollars in savings every month to Canadian families.

Listen, people are working hard to keep up with the cost of living, which can be especially hard as Christmas, the Christmas holiday approaches. That's why our government never stops fighting to secure the promise of Canada, the promise that each generation stands on the successes of the previous one and can achieve even more. We're taking action that provides support to Canadians of all ages, protecting the CPP, strengthening health care, delivering dental care, like the new Canadian Dental Care Plan that opened applications to seniors this week, on top of the hundreds of thousands of kids who have healthier smiles already thanks to our federal dental care announcements.

We're making sure that all Canadians see opportunity in Canada's future, with good jobs and a clean economy, ability to build a home and a family in the places they want to live. That's why it's so important to build more homes, faster, and that's exactly what we're doing here today. Canada is the very best country in the world, let's keep working hard together to make it even better.