Good morning.

It’s great to be back in Etobicoke alongside Premier Ford and Mayor Chow, and to be joined by our Minister of Housing and Infrastructure, Gregor Robertson.

Thank you to the Kilmer-Tricon team for hosting us at the Stella, one of Toronto’s newest and most innovative affordable rental properties.

The first project as part of the City’s Housing Now initiative, the Stella will provide 725 purpose-built rental homes, with over 200 affordable units.

The property will generate zero carbon and, like much of the progress we are announcing today, it is the result of a true partnership between public and private sectors – from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation and the City to Tricon and Kilmer homebuilders.

Almost exactly a year ago, not far from here in Vaughan, I announced our housing plan.

I said that Canada needed to build our way out of the housing crisis – so that Canadians, particularly young Canadians, could access affordable housing.

With our plan, we have committed to addressing the failures in the housing market head-on, unleashing the power of public-private cooperation, and using innovative technologies to build faster and smarter.

We have also committed to increasing housing supply to bring costs down.

In my first week as Prime Minister, our government eliminated the Goods and Services Tax (GST) for first-time homebuyers on new homes up to $1 million, saving Canadians up to $50,000.

In September, we launched Build Canada Homes to turbocharge housing construction and catalyse an entirely new housing industry.

Since then, we have committed to supporting nearly 10,000 homes through 12 partnerships across the country – with projects worth over 1,200 units breaking ground in the next three months.

We’re building local infrastructure – new hospitals, transit, wastewater systems – through the $51-billion Build Communities Strong Fund.

Last week, we tabled legislation that will unlock $1.7 billion in federal funds to help provinces and territories lower the cost of homebuilding.

Minister Robertson and I want to work with our partners to optimise that funding to increase housing supply.

I’m pleased to see Premier Ford’s leadership in bringing down costs.

We’re moving fast and starting to get results.

Across Canada, housing starts are up, rising 4.5% in February, and up 5.6% over 2025.

Rents are down to a 33-month low, and rental affordability is improving – with the rent-to-income ratio falling to its lowest level in over six years.

Rent in Etobicoke for a two-bedroom is down 8.4% compared to last year.

We’ve moved with speed and ambition, and we’ve started as we mean to go on.

We’re tackling the housing crisis from every angle, and what we need to do now is to close specific gaps.

To expand housing supply, increase housing affordability, and create thousands of careers in the skilled trades, today we are announcing the new Canada-Ontario Partnership to Build.

This partnership leverages our different levers, capacities, and jurisdictions to achieve shared goals – namely, more homes, lower housing costs, and tens of thousands of new careers in the skilled trades.

We will do so by:

• Reducing the costs to build.
• Helping Ontarians save on the purchase of their home.
• Building the essential transit infrastructure to support growing communities.

Development charges are the fees charged to developers to fund the infrastructure – such as water mains, roads, parks, and facilities – required to support new homes.

They have become a major hurdle in the Ontario housing market.

In recent years, they have been growing at an unsustainable rate – increasing the cost of every new home, compressing margins, and stalling new builds.

Cutting development charges was a key commitment of our housing plan.

Today, we are delivering on that commitment.

Today’s historic agreement with Ontario means that development charges across the province will be reduced by half for three years, and the essential infrastructure will still get built.

Through the Build Communities Strong Fund, Canada will invest $4.4 billion over 10 years – matched by Ontario for a total of $8.8 billion – to build housing-enabling infrastructure and reduce municipal development charges as a result.

This will lower upfront costs and create certainty for builders to build affordable homes you can buy and rent.

For a two-bedroom apartment in Etobicoke, this will reduce costs by over $40,000.

This is the first agreement under our government’s Build Communities Strong Fund and the first agreement in Canadian history that ties federal infrastructure funding directly to reductions in development charges.

We’re off to a strong start.

Central to our government’s mission is making it easier for you to buy a home.

That is why the Government of Canada and the Government of Ontario are partnering to eliminate the full 13% of federal GST and provincial Harmonized Sales Tax on all purchases of new homes valued up to $1 million – saving up to $130,000 for all buyers in Ontario on the purchase of their new home.

Ontarians who purchase homes priced between $1 million and $1.5 million would benefit from a rebate of $130,000. This will go down to $24,000 for homes valued at $1.85 million or above.

This partnership will provide almost $2.2 billion in total tax savings for Ontarians.

It will catalyse an additional 8,000 housing starts in Ontario next year – supporting up to 21,000 jobs in the skilled trades and boosting Ontario’s GDP growth by $2.7 billion.

By helping buyers attain new homes and helping builders start new projects, we will unfreeze the condo market in the Greater Toronto Area.

Overall, this partnership will reduce taxes and fees for a home in Ontario by up to $200,000.

Finally, we are directly tying housing supply with infrastructure – a force multiplier for construction.

We are prioritising major transit and infrastructure projects that connect communities, improve productivity, and unlock new opportunities for businesses and workers across the province.

We have reached an agreement with the Province and the City to build Waterfront East, connecting Union Station to the Port Lands – or Ookwemin Minising.

The line will provide service to more than 150,000 people who will live and work on the eastern waterfront and will be used by over 50,000 daily riders.

Waterfront East transit will connect into a broader transportation network that includes new roads, trails, bridges, and streetcars – all integrated with other major public transit hubs.

The project is expected to enable 75,000 housing units.

In addition, we will work alongside the province on GO 2.0 to build multiple new GO lines – enabling expanded two-way, all-day service for Milton and Kitchener, building dozens of new stations, and adding convenient connections to existing transit systems across the Greater Golden Horseshoe.

We have agreed to intensify the collaboration between our governments on Alto High-Speed Rail – Canada’s first high-speed rail line connecting Toronto to Québec City – so Canadians get faster, more reliable commutes back home.

As we build new major infrastructure projects, we are accelerating local projects that have stalled for too long.

Working with the province to deliver on the Ontario Line, the Eglinton Crosstown West Extension, the Scarborough Subway Extension, the Yonge North Subway Extension, and the Hamilton Light Rail Transit.

These projects will connect the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area and, as a result, will shorten commute times, grow communities, and get more homes built.

Every project, from housing to public transit, will support workers in the skilled trades by prioritising the use of Canadian materials and manufacturing under our new Buy Canadian policy.

Because it’s not just what we build. It’s how we build.

We will build inclusively, in full partnership with First Nations, Inuit, and Métis.

We will build in solidarity with workers, creating good union jobs.

We will build sustainably, because reducing emissions is not just a moral duty, it’s an economic imperative.

Above all, with our new Buy Canadian Policy, we will build Canadian by becoming our own best customer.

This is the first of many housing and infrastructure partnerships to come through the Build Communities Strong Fund.

We will announce a series of additional projects across the country in the months ahead, leveraging public assets and public lands, and we will work in partnership with the private sector and other governments to build at scale.

Every federal dollar invested will be multiplied by attracting private capital, investors, and developers to expand the housing supply.

Canadians have given our government a mandate to build a stronger Canada; a country where Canadians are empowered with more opportunities that help you get ahead – with safer communities and homes you can afford.

That’s the foundation on which you can build your life, how you want it and where you want it.

By building smart, building Canadian, and building now, we are building Ontario strong to build Canada strong.

Thank you.