Hello. Good morning. Great to be back here in my second home in Vancouver. It is a real pleasure to be here with two great friends and two more that are all focused on building the kind of future that we need together.

First of all, Wayne, thank you, Chief, for your continued leadership. Your vision of true reconciliation, which is about partnership and prosperity and working together to build better, stronger communities for everyone, you're a great partner and a great leader, and we're glad to keep working with you.

Joyce, whose riding we're in right now, Joyce, thank you for your friendship, for your continued dedication to not just this community but this entire country. Your vision for a greener, more prosperous world has infused everything that we're doing, and it's always a pleasure to be back in the beautiful riding of Vancouver Quadra.

Mayor Sim, thank you so much, Ken, for the housing accelerator announcement we made a few months ago, but your consistent, positive outlook, clear-eyed about the challenges we're facing but always ready to roll up your sleeves and work constructively to deliver. This is the kind of partnerships across order of government that we need to see more of. And Ken, you've been an amazing partner and teammate in how we're responding to continue to grow Vancouver and create opportunities for everyone who lives here and who wants to live here as well one day.

Finally, Premier Eby, David, thank you for stepping up with such a strong vision on the provincial side, understanding that what is good for B.C. ends up being good for the entire country. You are taking real action to address the challenges people are facing in their daily lives but also the vision of how they see themselves into the future.

Thank you all for being here. You are all working very hard to make housing more affordable here in Vancouver, and the work you’re doing is essential.

It's great to be here also with other members of B.C. caucus, Jonathan, Ken, Ron, Randeep, and Wilson.

B.C. has always been a second home to me, and addressing this issue of housing really matters. I spent many, many years growing up, spending time with my grandparents across the way in West Van. I lived here as a teacher and understood how challenging it is or was even back in the late nineties, but what people are facing today is just beyond anything we could have imagined in decades past and that's why we need to continue to step up in a coordinated way.

B.C. actually was the canary in the coal mine for the problems we're seeing across the country around housing affordability. Home prices here started going up decades ago and people around the country started to notice, but lot of them, and governments in particular, ignored those warnings. Inaction by successive governments of all orders, investors buying up homes meant for middle class families, and old school zoning laws that didn't let communities grow in ways that kept up with Canada have brought us to a tough spot here in B.C. and right across the country.

The cost of housing is too high for Canadians, whether in small towns or large cities. And that’s not fair … and it’s not fair to the middle class and those who work hard to be part of it.

Solving the housing crisis is a complex problem and it won't be solved by simplistic slogans or buzzwords. Canadians need thoughtful solutions coming from every order of government, from builders and from partners of every kind, and they need these solutions urgently. That's what our governments are focused on, and they're bringing partners together to get it done. This brings me to the truly extraordinary leadership of this B.C. government which is why we're here today. Last week, Premier Eby announced an ambitious and fundamentally practical new housing program that is going to turn underused public and non-profit land into affordable rental housing for the middle class. They've started with over 20 different sites where they will take parking lots, underused land around health care facilities, potential buildings on top of daycares, and work with partners to build apartments that meet the needs of middle class Canadians and their families. Part of that is working hand-in-hand with First Nations.

But let's remember that these won't be your typical tiny one-bedroom units that have been popping up across downtowns across the country. These will be units of all sizes, including up to three or four bedrooms, the kind of places where families can grow and they can call home, and they'll be made available to families based on their income, on a community by community basis, truly targeted for the middle class. This is a demonstration of how you build homes for people to live in, not just to pad investor portfolios. B.C. also recognized that this housing crisis is urgent, so as part of this program, they're going to speed up construction, cutting timelines by more than half.

The objective of B.C Builds is to quickly construct rental units for the middle class on underused land.

Well, our government thinks this is exactly the kind of visionary, progressive housing solution that people need. B.C. is providing $2 billion in low cost loans so we can build more homes for the middle class faster. The federal government is now doubling that funding, putting another $2 billion from the federal government's apartment construction loan program into B.C. Builds. This will support, at a minimum, eight to ten thousand new homes over the next few years, with more to come as even more land is secured.

They've already given a few great examples of how this program is helping create vibrant, livable communities. In North Van, municipal land is being developed by a non-profit to build 180 homes for people who work in the city of North Van, like firefighters or tradespeople, and it's being built in a part of the community that already has daycare facilities, seniors supports, and recreational spaces. Now, in Duncan, up island, Cowichan Tribes is working with a First Nations-owned developer to build almost 200 homes for middle-income people living in the Cowichan Valley, and the development will also have space for Indigenous businesses and the new headquarters for Cowichan Tribes. In both of these cases, at least a fifth of the units are going to be made available below market rates.

We need those kinds of solutions. The federal government is proud to once again partner with British Columbia in this project.

Now, David, on a personal level, you were sounding the alarm on housing long before you became Premier, so it's not surprising that you're taking such concrete, visionary action with B.C. Builds. What you're doing here is transformative, and I am hoping that other provinces take careful note of the leadership that you've shown and the capacity to actually deliver to keep people living in cities, keep people growing and optimistic about the future, to make sure young people can see themselves starting a family in the communities that they call home. These are the things we need right across the country.

But as is the case with so many things, things start in B.C., and your leadership personally and your friendship on working together to make sure this happens is something that I'm really, really excited about, because as a goal, as a country, we need to make sure that housing is affordable so that a middle class salary is enough for people to live in the communities they love and where they work, whether they're a teacher, a nurse, a small business employee, whatever career they have.

We are there for those ready to take action. All communities in Canada must build more housing, faster.

We need to use every tool in our toolkit to meet this generational challenge. Canada is the best country in the world, so let's keep working hard together to make it even better.

Thank you very much, friends.