NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh is promising to increase housing supply by freeing up Crown land for rent-controlled units.
An NDP government would use suitable federal land to develop more than 100,000 rent-controlled homes within the next decade, Singh said during a March 24 campaign stop in Montreal.
He also pledged $1 billion over the next five years to secure additional public land for the development of rent-controlled housing.
“When we see federal land, we want to use all of it, 100 percent of the federal land that is usable to build homes that are affordable, homes that are non-market housing,” Singh said while standing on public land in Quebec’s largest city. He said the site has been shovel-ready since the last election in 2021.
He vowed that an NDP government would “speed up” approvals on federal land to get “shovels in the ground and homes built sooner.”
The project would be nationwide, Singh said, noting that any Crown land used for building homes would not be transferred to developers.
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He accused the Liberal government of giving developers a “sweet deal” on federal land, which he said is then used to build expensive housing. An NDP government would instead retain ownership of all federal land to control pricing, he said.
New construction would be publicly financed with a new Community Housing Bank to partner with non-profit developers, co-ops, and indigenous communities, he said.
The housing commitment also features a vow to train an additional 100,000 people in skilled trades, Singh said, adding that project labour agreements would be implemented to guarantee every worker involved in a project receives benefits.
It was the second day on the campaign trail for Singh and the other party leaders with five more weeks until the April 28 election day.
The polls have Singh’s NDP party trailing in third place behind the Liberals and the Conservatives. An Angus Reid poll released March 24 says the NDP has dropped from 21 percent support last December to 7 percent currently. The poll found that 50 percent of 2021 NDP voters would cast a ballot for Mark Carney’s Liberals if the election were held today.
The snap election was called by Carney on March 23, just nine days after he was sworn in as prime minister and six months ahead of the predetermined federal election date.
