Federal minister gives details on northern share of new community fund
Plan is to give $10B to northern, Indigenous and rural communities for infrastructure over 10 years
Federal Housing Minister Gregor Robertson, left, makes a housing announcement on Jan. 30 in Ottawa alongside Cecile Nelvana Lyall, the minister responsible for Nunavut Housing Corp., and Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. president Paul Irngaut. (Photo by Corey Larocque)
The federal government is aiming to earmark about $10 billion out of a new multibillion-dollar infrastructure fund toward northern, Indigenous and rural communities.
Housing and Infrastructure Minister Gregor Robertson shared his goal for the Build Communities Strong Fund in an interview Tuesday.
“There’s lots of energy in this new government to invest in Nunavut,” Robertson said, adding he has noted a “huge gap” in funding between Nunavut and the rest of Canada that has gone on for “generations.”
The Build Communities Strong Fund was announced in November. It will provide $51 billion over the next 10 years, starting in 2026, and $3 billion per year after that, toward water and wastewater infrastructure and other projects such as roads, bridges, hospitals, recreational centres and climate change adaptation.
These projects will lay the foundation for another goal of the federal government — homebuilding.
Homes cannot be built without proper infrastructure in place for water, wastewater and other community needs, Robertson said.
To that end, Ottawa and the Nunavut government recently announced $480 million to build 750 homes in Nunavut. This will count toward the territorial government’s goal to build 3,000 homes in Nunavut by 2030.
The federal government is ponying up $250 million and the remaining $230 million is covered by the Government of Nunavut.
Ottawa announced a deal for the construction of 25 of the homes in late January. The responsibility for contracting the other 725 will be up to Nunavut Housing Corp.
“My ongoing role is to push the pace and make sure that the funding moves and that the homes get built,” Robertson said.
“Accountability is obviously critical … It’s one thing to announce the funding, but it is even more important to see the results on the ground.”
Nunavut Housing Corp. plans to find builders for the homes through its own procurement process, which includes requests for proposals, public tenders, negotiated contracts and supply arrangements, said Winter Fedyk, a spokesperson for the housing corporation, in an email.
The federal government’s goal is to ensure housing in Nunavut is affordable, said Robertson.
The work will continue, he said, teasing a “big” announcement on local infrastructure in the coming weeks.
Why was this photo taken on dial up.
AND LORI, say something Negative, come on be mean
Ok 10B here, 800M there, 500M over there. Enough of the photo ops and the grandstanding, just build some houses already.