Good morning.
It’s great to be back in Brampton with Mayor Patrick Brown. Thank you, Patrick, for your partnership on this project and for making Brampton more secure, more prosperous, and more fun.
Fitness, fun, and community is what the Century Gardens Recreation Centre and its new Community Youth Hub are all about.
This space will host a basketball court, amphitheatre, e-sports room, and the Atiba Hutchinson Soccer Court – named after one of Brampton’s greatest exports.
Kids have already begun training on the soccer court, some in the hopes of matching Atiba’s incredible career that included 109 caps for Canada.
While I didn’t realise my dreams of playing in the World Cup or the NHL, I did make close friends and learned the right values playing sports at the Laurier Heights community centre in Edmonton.
So, some 40 years later, I returned there to launch my campaign.
As I said then, this is a time to build. And today, we are delivering on that promise for communities right across Canada.
That means building hospitals in your community, so you don’t have to drive two hours or wait many more when your child is sick.
It means building new rapid transit that reduces traffic and cuts your commute home in half.
And it means community centres – like Century Gardens – where your kids can play safely on the weekend.
Canada’s new government is building major infrastructure projects – ports, mines, and highways – that connect and transform our economy.
And we’re building the strong, local infrastructure that connects communities and transforms the services you receive, your commute, and your everyday life.
Local communities are the heartbeat of Canada.
And we are building strong communities.
Canada strong means Halifax strong. Laval strong. Brampton strong.
Today, we are officially launching the Build Communities Strong Fund, a $51 billion investment in community infrastructure across this country.
We’re partnering with provinces, territories, and municipalities to build local infrastructure – from better hospitals and public transit to new community centres.
The Build Communities Strong Fund has three streams of funding: a provincial and territorial stream, a direct delivery stream, and a community stream.
The $12 billion provincial and territorial stream is focused on public transit, education, health care, and housing-enabling infrastructure.
Last week, Premier Ford and I announced the first agreement under this stream – the Canada-Ontario Partnership to Build.
This partnership will cut development charges in half across the province and eliminate the full 13% GST and HST on new homes valued up to $1 million.
That’s up to $200,000 lower taxes and fees on a new home in Brampton.
We’re also working with Ontario on half a dozen transit projects – from the Hamilton LRT and Toronto’s Waterfront East LRT to the ALTO High-Speed Rail.
We are pursuing similar partnerships with all provinces and territories to make housing more affordable and our communities safer and more vibrant right across Canada.
With provincial matching and cuts to development fees, all orders of government are pulling in the same direction, toward the same goals.
In addition to strengthening communities, local infrastructure is playing an increasingly important role in homebuilding.
When there’s no public transit, appropriate wastewater systems, or community spaces, families don’t want to move, housing demand slows down, and homes don’t get built.
We are working with provinces to modernise colleges and universities, including Toronto Metropolitan University’s School of Medicine in Brampton, so Canadian workers can train for the jobs the country needs most.
We are building buses and trains that connect our communities.
And one of our top priorities is federal funding to help build and revitalise Canada’s hospitals.
In many communities, hospitals built in the 1970s are now serving twice the populations they were designed for, and families are waiting too long for the care they need.
So, we’re deploying $5 billion through a Health Infrastructure Fund to build more emergency departments and new urgent care centres.
And we are investing in long-term care, palliative care, and mental health care to fill infrastructure gaps across the health care system.
One of our main priorities is to invest federal funding to build and modernise Canada’s hospitals so you can get the care you need.
We are investing $5 billion to build more emergency services and new urgent care centres.
This includes new investments in long-term care, palliative care, and mental health services.
Under the $6 billion direct delivery stream, we are working with the Canada Infrastructure Bank to mobilise private‑sector investment to amplify public dollars and accelerate projects.
This includes building climate-resilient infrastructure to reduce the impact of floods, extreme heat, and fires.
And it includes local communal spaces that bring people together, with our first project right here in Brampton.
I am pleased to announce that Canada’s new government is investing $64 million to build the new Embleton Community Centre and Park. This will be a 175,000-square-foot space, with competitive and recreational pools, a gymnasium, a fitness centre, child care services, an ice-skating pavilion, and courts for tennis and pickleball.
It will be a space where families gather, kids learn to swim, athletes train, and a community grows.
It is happening because of the strong partnership between the federal government, the private sector, and the City of Brampton.
I want to thank Mayor Brown and the Member of Parliament for Bampton South, Sonia Sidhu, for championing this project and getting it built.
This week, our government is launching the first tranche of projects that will build communities strong – from Bridgewater, Nova Scotia, to Iqaluit, Nunavut, to St. Albert, Alberta.
The government will announce a dozen projects – worth $300 million in federal funding – from new sports and recreation centres to new water treatment plants and reservoirs that enable new homes.
We know that local communities will have even more ideas, so we are launching a new portal on the Build Communities Strong Fund web page for proponents to apply for new projects.
The $27 billion community stream will allow for predictable, long-term investment in local infrastructure.
These investments are designated for municipalities directly, and involve nearly 20 categories of public infrastructure, including wastewater and storm water infrastructure, roads, and bridges.
In the coming weeks, a series of projects under this stream will move forward.
Funding for the Build Communities Strong Fund will be matched by nearly $17 billion from provinces, with additional billions leveraged through municipal partnerships and private capital.
The Build Communities Strong Fund will be a force multiplier supporting 42,000 careers in communities across Canada – from engineering to the skilled trades – and boosting Canada’s GDP by an estimated $95 billion over the next decade.
That’s $12 billion in infrastructure investment every year for the next eight years, nearly double the rate of the previous eight years.
And we will move fast. In the coming year, nearly 500 projects, representing over $6 billion in total investment, are expected to break ground.
By building infrastructure that promotes homebuilding, we are enabling the construction of thousands of new homes.
We launched Build Canada Homes in September to help kickstart a new housing industry in Canada.
We’re using public lands, innovative technologies, and funding to build homes faster than we have in a generation.
We are building the right projects in the right ways.
We’re building sustainably, with low-carbon investments that make Canada more competitive.
We’re building in solidarity with workers, creating good union jobs across the skilled trades.
We’re building inclusively, in full partnership with First Nations, Inuit, and Métis.
And, above all, we’re building Canadian – with Canadian workers, Canadian steel, lumber, and expertise.
Every project – from housing and public transit to roads, bridges, and community centres – will support workers in the skilled trades by prioritising Canadian materials and manufacturing under our new Buy Canadian Policy.
In a little over two months, a few kilometres from here, Canada’s men’s soccer team will take the field at the World Cup.
Brampton will be well represented.
Tajon Buchanan, Cyle Larin, Jonathan Osorio all started their careers in Brampton’s community centres, parks, and recreational programs – in places like the ones we are building today.
The true value of community infrastructure goes well beyond these superstars. To every kid who gets to play. To every parent who gets to watch. To the safe spaces to work out, hang out, and just have fun.
Because when we invest where we live, we invest in each other.
That’s how we build Brampton strong for all – and Canada strong for all.
Thank you.