Ottawa lines up partners to build 750 Nunavut homes
NTI’s Igluvut Corp., and Ottawa pre-fab construction company among first to get work on new project
Frank Cairo, right, CEO of Caivan, an Ottawa homebuilding company, leads Nunavut Housing Minister Cecile Nelvana Lyall, left, and Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. president Paul Irngaut on a tour of the company’s warehouse in Ottawa. Caivan and NTI are among the first partners announced in a federal government plan to build 750 new homes in Nunavut. (Photo by Corey Larocque)
Ottawa homebuilding company Caivan and Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., will be the first two partners in a federal government plan to build up to 750 new homes in Nunavut.
Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. president Paul Irngaut says the Build Canada Homes plan to add 750 new homes in Nunavut is a “new way of doing things.” He made the comments at an announcement in Ottawa Friday, surrounded by federal cabinet ministers Mandy Gull-Masty, left, Gregor Robertson, centre, and Nunavut Housing Minister Cecile Nelvana Lyall. (Photo by Corey Larocque)
“NTI comes to this agreement with one clear principle: Housing in Nunavut must be Inuit-led,” Paul Irgaut, president of the Inuit organization, said Friday at an announcement in Ottawa alongside federal and territorial housing ministers.
NTI’s Igluvut Corp., created last year, will manage the Inuit organization’s construction of 25 homes, he said.
It will be up to the Nunavut Housing Corp., to pick the companies to build the other 725 homes, said Nunavut Housing Minister Cecile Nelvana Lyall.
Lyall, Irngaut and federal Housing Minister Gregor Robertson made the announcement following a tour of Caivan, an Ottawa company that makes components for homes and ships them to the construction sites to be assembled.
Calling it “a new way of doing things,” Irngaut said, “Nunavut’s housing crisis can’t be solved by being alone. We need partners.”
Federal Housing Minister Gregor Robertson, left, Nunavut Housing Minister Cecile Nelvana Lyall and Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. president Paul Irngaut, right, shuffle papers during a ceremony to mark the start of construction of 750 homes in Nunavut. (Photo by Corey Larocque)
Construction of the homes will be paid for through a partnership between the federal government and Government of Nunavut. Ottawa will spend up to $250 million while the GN will contribute up to $230 million.
Friday’s announcement was the next step in Nunavut’s portion of the federal Build Canada Homes project.
When Prime Minister Mark Carney unveiled that agency in September to “supercharge” homebuilding across the country, he announced 700 homes for Nunavut would be part of the $13-billion project.
That number has grown to 750, Robertson said. The number of homes to be built by each of the partners, and when construction will be completed, has not been determined.
“There are very significant housing needs in the North, as well as unique challenges,” he said.
The 750 homes will be considered part of the 3,000 new homes the Government of Nunavut pledged in 2022 to deliver by 2030, Lyall said.
Calling Nunavut’s housing crisis “severe and longstanding,” Lyall said it negatively affects the health, educational success and safety of Nunavummiut.
“[The construction] represents a measure of hope that people will have places to rest after long days, where children can study, and where families can plan a future,” she said.
The homes NTI’s Igluvut Corp. builds will be affordable three-bedroom homes whose tenants will pay $1,800 a month, Irngaut said.
“Every new home transforms a family. Over time, this transforms Nunavut,” he said.
Using pre-fabricated components built in Ontario is a new way of homebuilding, Irngaut said, noting NTI is involved in a modular home factory in Arviat.
Robertson called using Ottawa-made components a “jump start,” but noted construction of the components by Inuit workers in Nunavut will occur.
Building components in a factory and then shipping them to the location where a house is to be built will help overcome traditional challenges of building in the North — the climate, a short season and high costs — Robertson said.
“The houses that are being built here — right behind us — will be going to a Nunavut community very soon,” he said.
This sounds like a good partnership.
A better partnership would be Caivan/NTI building these 25 homes in Ottawa while building a house making factory in Iqaluit.
Arviat and Cambridge Bay are supporting modular home factories, why not in Iqaluit as well? The homes will be needed, as will the economic development.
I think we tried modular homes up on the Plateau about a dozen years ago. Turns out that they ended up costing more than stick built.
The reason is that Inuit Orgs get caught up in who is doing the work and the jobs. Well, they only care when it’s not their own money like with the new hotel – made by Inuit in China right?
Cambridge Bay resident here. What modular home factory do you speak of?
If it’s the empty wearhouse behind CHARS that was funded by 5M of CaNnor money everyone here knows they just likley took CaNnor for a run and it sits as an empty unfinished building.
Just another likely case of people creating a fake northern company to acquire funding, take some grossly inflated fee to build themselves, not finish it and I assume they will try to either rent it as storage or sell the shell essentially cashing the CaNnor funds out for themselves.
When money flies around like this we have seen it time and time again. Zero vetting, money gets allocated any nothing ends up here. Wonder where it goes… I am sure it’s not in the pockets of the individuals leading such projects that create the fake Inuit company but live typically in Ontario. Could never be that!
I hope Canada starts doing a much better job vetting who they’re giving money to.
Maybe talking about CHOU’s Manitoba factory that sells modulars through a potato company in Cambridge Bay.
Off the bat no Inuit Beneficiary employees if the company is based at Ottawa
Can they fly qualified Inuit to work in Ottawa how Nunavut flies in workers
I bet they can find lots of Inuit work force in Ottawa. Lots of inuit here working and more things for there family to do.
What is the total installed cost of each affordable 3 bedroom house?
Including shipping.
Go to NTI and ask them you won’t get answers here
What are the chances this latest housing initiative gets screwed up like all the others?
Good question! It depends on the following:
1. NHC is kept as far away from any of it as possible.
2. NCC 3000 or NCCD or whatever their name is in 2026 is kept far, far away from anything to do with it.
3. NTI and the GN tell Nunavummiut up front what the unit’s cost (all in) no hidden cost, (Assembly, transport, installation,) all included.
4. Provides a detail list of where each and every unit is going throughout Nunavut.
4. NTI or whoever is ultimately is responsible tenders (to the market) the installation of the units once arrived in Nunavut communities and allows ALL Inuit owned contractors to bid (unlike the sole source involving NHC & NCC 3000 or NCCD or who knows their name).
5. NTI and the GN provided monthly updates on the progress and delivery (emphasis on delivery and occupancy) of the units on their web sites, in the Assembly, to the Hamlets, to the media, etc..
If they do that, then maybe Nunavummiut can dodge another Nunavut 3000 and NHC-NCC 3000 sole source contract disaster.
750 units? Awesome. We have an extreme need for housing across the territory
Oh……… Nunavut Housing Corp is involved?
Cant wait to see 12 put of 750 get built while they dump the rest of the cash
Are.these going to be added to the nu3000? Lol. If nhc has anything to do with it ,they will be,already done once . So by 2040, lol there will be 3750 new homes in nunavut? Woohoo while I bet that would be the amount just built in Alberta alone . Just saying
a new way of doing things? what does he mean by that? its always been pre-fab buildings shipped up north, its always been non-inuit companies building, its always been the same way? what new way is this? wasnt there that young lady trying to get support for inuit-led housing and they turn around and the gn/inuit orgs took it over? how is this a new way? its the same way
Question does this mean NTI staff will get staff housing? To ease housing shortage NTI should have provided staff housing right from the beginning and would’ve helped in the housing shortage in Nunavut.
Thank you for helping with our housing crisis
Thanks to those college universities here in canada building our homes. Warmer affordable for its unique location. Could be anyone from canada. Thank you
Modular or panel type housing is proven to be the most cost effective means of producing high quality housing, quickly. It is no surprise that Nunavut should work with a southern factory to meet our needs.
The reason this type of housing is cheaper, and quicker is because the components are built where costs (facilities, equipment, labor, electricity, transportation, access to materials) are lower or way more available. Read: near a major Canadian city, on the road system, by a forest with wood.
Attempts to build modular home factories in the north will inevitably be much more expensive, which goes against the key advantage of pre-fabrication.
A factory building in Nunavut will cost double. All the equipment will cost close to double to ship in. Labor availability and skills in Nunavut is an issue. Electricity and heat is more expensive. Raw materials like lumber and insulation will have to be shipped up in any case, instead of being trucked a few hundred Kms at the most.
In the end, a factory built component house built in Nunavut will probably be close to the cost of stick built. The products of such a factory will mainly have to be turned into paid cargo to ship to somewhere else to be built into a house, whether it is from Quebec, or a Nunavut community.
Building these modular facilities in Nunavut does nothing but pander to our desire to have as much benefit from house construction as possible (the jobs and training as well as the built house). We should be clear eyed on this point.