Today, the Honourable Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, joined by the Honourable Sean Fraser, Minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities, and the Honourable François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, announced new action, as part of Canada's economic plan, to build more homes, faster, and strengthen competition to lower prices for Canadians.
To scale-up new homebuilding technologies and drive innovation in the housing sector, the government announced a $123 million investment through the Affordable Housing Innovation Fund, which will build more than 5,000 affordable homes. This investment will support eight innovative homebuilders to develop, test, and streamline the next generation of homebuilding techniques to build more homes, faster. New and innovative homebuilding practices will enable quicker, more cost-effective construction to build the next generation of homes.
The government also announced further action to strengthen competition and lower prices, especially of groceries, for Canadians. First, the government is launching a new call for projects through the Contributions Program for Non-profit Consumer and Voluntary Organizations that will help Canadians find more affordable, healthy grocery options. Second, to prevent anti-competitive mergers, the government is freezing the transaction-size threshold for the advance notification of mergers under the Competition Act for 2024 at $93 million. Freezing the threshold means a greater share of potential merger transactions will be automatically reviewed by the Commissioner of the Competition Bureau.
Today's announcements reflect the latest initiatives in the federal government's economic plan to build more homes, faster, and make life more affordable. The government is using every possible tool to unlock more homes and to strengthen competition to lower prices for Canadians.
