Thank you very much, Gregor. Thank you, Salma, for welcoming us here. Thanks to my parliamentary colleagues. Thanks to members of city council, all of you. And I’ll just say one thing at the start. You’re going to hear a lot about different levels of government working together. And one of the blessings I have as… in this role, is that I have colleagues who worked at the… I’m looking for Dolly. Here you are, yes… who worked at the provincial level in the city, at the city level here in Toronto, city level in Vancouver, city level across. And that helps bring energy, insight, and a sense of purpose to what we’re doing. I want to thank Mayor Chow for being here today alongside Ana Bailão, our CEO of Build Canada Homes, Coleen Volk from CMHC, and my colleagues. But the mayor is here, and right from the beginning, right from the start, when I got in this role and, I knew the mayor a bit from before, but right from the beginning, we agreed that Toronto grows stronger, Canada grows stronger when we work together, when our governments work together, and particularly when we build together. And I know the mayor would also agree that Toronto is one of the world’s greatest cities. I think she dropped the qualifier, greatest city. Fair enough. Yeah. Prime Minister of Canada, I’ve got to be more equal, but greatness is earned. But greatness is also a magnet.

And for generations, people have come from every single corner of the earth to build a new life here in Toronto. And, as a consequence, Toronto is one of the fastest-growing cities in North America. And that growth comes with, of course, greater demand for social services and greater demand for housing. And, for decades, the simple fact is Toronto didn’t build enough housing, and too much of what was built was unaffordable for most Torontonians. Prices driven up by development charges, by taxes, by rising construction costs, and a lack of availability of land. And the best way to meet the challenge that that has created is to build more supply and to build it faster. To build better with new methods and modern materials, and above all, building in partnership. Building, yes, with the private sector, but also with non-profits and across every order of government. And, crucial to this, is to build a healthy rental market for every kind of renter. And that means, from the federal perspective, it means pulling every lever that we have and using every tool at our disposal. So, before I go into more detail in today’s announcement, let me just say a few words about what we’ve been doing to build momentum in affordable housing over the last 17 months.

Just last September, less than a year ago, we started and launched Build Canada Homes, a new federal entity charged with supercharging housing construction across Canada.

And, since its launch, Build Canada Homes has already committed to building nearly 17,000 homes through 17 partnerships across the country, and construction has already begun on 1,900 of these homes. We are working in partnership by aligning our funding on the ground and the city’s local expertise to deliver homes quickly and at scale.

I would now like to inform you that the teleprompter has ceased to function. Unlike a certain world leader, I do not view this as a conspiracy.

Over the past 17 months, we have delivered major projects. The average price of a home – this is across Canada – a home has decreased, falling from $825,000 at the start of 2022 to less than $660,000 today. That’s a 20% decrease. The percentage of their incomes that Canadians are using for mortgage payments is at its lowest level in nearly four years. And the asking-rent-to-income ratio is the lowest it has been in over two years.

So, there’s big progress now being made directionally on affordability. We need to do much more to get things where they need to be. That brings us right here. What was a parking lot, 2444 Eglinton, is now, as you see, a construction site for Kennedy Green, the largest affordable housing development in this province in more than a quarter century. And Kennedy Green is backed by $289 million in financing from the Canadian government. But it’s happening not just because of the money, but because we’re building together. And that’s what partnerships can do. Just four months ago, Mayor Chow and I stood with Premier Ford to announce a new partnership between the federal government and the Government of Ontario. One that’s cutting taxes and fees on new homes in this province, that can mean up to a reduction of $200,000. In June, through that partnership, the City of Toronto secured $1.5 billion to cut residential development charges by 40% to 60%. And that partnership is also building the transit that neighbourhoods need, to cut commute times, to connect people to their jobs, their schools, and their homes. New transit that includes the new Waterfront East Line that will serve more than 150,000 people and, in and of itself, enable 75,000 new homes. That includes expanded all-day GO service across Greater Golden Horseshoe and rapid transit that reaches deeper into the city than ever before from the Ontario line to, you guessed it, the Scarborough subway extension.

All across the country, with our partners, we are working with our partners to build strong communities. Partnerships that enable us to tackle the housing crisis from every angle. We are changing the way this country builds so that every Canadian can access housing and the good life it provides.

So, to today, I’m proud to announce a new housing agreement between the Government of Canada and the City of Ontario… the City of Ontario? It’s a takeover. I don’t know. I’ve got Ford on my mind. The City of Toronto… Government of Canada and City of Toronto. Let’s put this in context. Over the next three years, the Government of Canada will invest $2.7 billion. And by the way, that $2.7 billion, that’s distinct from what I talked about earlier, that $1.5 billion. We will invest $2.7 billion to build more than 18 housing projects across this city. We’re starting by creating more than 5,600 new rental homes that a broad range of Torontonians can afford. North of 1,800 of those homes will be deeply affordable, supportive, or rent-controlled. And we’re moving fast. You see the shovels behind me. We will have shovels in the ground on 80% of this portfolio. That means more than 4,500 homes by the end of this year. As I suggested at the start, every home in this portfolio will be a rental. And they span together the entire continuum of rental housing, from supportive to affordable homes. And it’s a partnership that builds on every component of a healthy housing ecosystem. So, what does that mean for Torontonians? It means that Scarborough, at 158 Borough Drive, hundreds of families, seniors, and essential workers will have a home in the heart of the community on the rise behind… or beside the Civic Centre and the Town Centre, and the new Scarborough Centre station. It’s coming to you.

It means that the Parkdale Hub, in the west end, a new 16-storey complex will move forward, finally, creating more affordable places to live in one of the neighbourhoods that has been hardest hit by rising rents and rising evictions. Those are just two of the examples of the 18 projects we’re announcing today: 18 communities across this city, tens of thousands of new places for Torontonians to call home. And we’re executing this, we’re building, through two channels. First and crucially, is non-market, non-profit housing delivered through Build Canada Homes. And thank you, Ana Bailão, for your leadership there. Specifically, we’re investing… the federal government is investing more than $310 million to advance nine projects on city-owned land, nearly 1,900 homes, more than 700 meeting the strict definition of affordable housing. That means that rent will cost less than 30% of a household’s pre-tax income. All of these projects had been approved in the past. All of these projects were ready to build, many of them for a long period of time. All of them were stalled for want of financing until today, Canadian government putting up the capital to get them built. And the City of Toronto contributing one of the most valuable resources a city can offer to improve a project’s affordability, which is public land at a nominal value. So, thank you. And, on top of that, the City of Toronto providing more than $530 million in capital and incentives, including a 99-year exemption for municipal and school property taxes.

The second channel that we’re building on is market-rate housing, homes built by the private sector and backed by attractive financing. And this is where the CMHC’s Apartment Construction Loan Program comes in. The federal government, through that facility, is providing more than $1.8 billion in low-cost financing for nine projects. They will create 3,700 new homes, of which 1,000 will be affordable. That includes new rental homes near Corktown on Ontario Street and the redevelopment of the former downtown Coach Terminal just steps from City Hall. I’ve been there. I went to that Coach Terminal. We’re going further still. With up to $600 million in additional financing capacity – so, that’s additional capacity that’s available out of that overall amount – so that the City of Toronto can move forward as soon as other opportunities become ready. So, what we’re announcing today is a big component of what the type of housing and the scale of housing that Toronto needs. Not luxury condos, but homes that people can afford, places that they can build their lives in, places near the subway, schools, grocery stores, for working families, for students, seniors. Now, as Gregor mentioned a moment ago, we know it’s not just about what we build, as important as housing is, but it’s also how we build it. So, we’re building inclusively. At 15 Denison Avenue, one of the projects, we’re building a 100-unit Indigenous-led supportive housing development. We’re building in solidarity with union workers. The portfolio alone will support over 2,100 jobs every year during construction. And we’re building sustainably. You take the project on Dundas Street West: where there was a parking lot, we’re building a state-of-the-art housing development with mass timber construction, geothermal energy, low-carbon design strategies.

Above all, we’re building Canadian, with Canadian steel, Canadian lumber, Canadian workers. Now, I’m warming up to hand over to the Mayor. So, I’m going to go back to Toronto’s greatness. Think of what drives that greatness. The food scene like nowhere else. Research hospitals that lead the world. A tech industry that rivals any other on the planet. Thriving music, film, entertainment industry. But the fundamental greatness of Toronto comes from its people. And the fact is that too many Torontonians have been struggling to afford their rent. Today’s announcement is a big part of changing that. By building at scale across the entire rental continuum, we’re making Toronto a model: strong communities, safe communities, communities that people can afford.

Canadians have given our new government the mandate to build a stronger Canada – a country where everyone has more opportunities to get ahead, with safer communities and affordable housing.

We’re building Scarborough strong, Toronto strong, and Canada strong for everyone, and we’re just getting started.