Carney’s “Build Canada Homes” Plan Banks on Mass Timber to Double Housing Output

Mark Carney, the newly appointed leader of the Liberal Party, has unveiled an ambitious national housing strategy centered on mass timber construction and modern prefabrication technologies, aiming to more than double Canada’s annual housing output to 500,000 units per year.

Speaking at the Delta, B.C. facility of Intelligent City, a mass timber housing innovator, Carney introduced Build Canada Homes (BCH)—a proposed federal development entity tasked with building affordable housing at scale, catalyzing a new manufacturing-driven housing industry, and offering $25 billion in financing to prefab builders.

“Build Canada Homes will catalyze an entirely new housing industry, with Canadian lumber at the centre of it,” said Carney during the March 31 announcement, adding that prefabricated and modular construction can reduce build time by up to 50%, costs by up to 20%, and emissions by over 20% compared to traditional methods.

Mass timber figures prominently in the plan. Carney pointed to firms like Intelligent City as models for the future of housing delivery. The Vancouver-based company integrates robotics, digital design, and timber-based prefabrication to deliver mid- and high-rise carbon-neutral housing. At the press event, Carney was joined by Delta Liberal candidate Jill McKnight and several Lower Mainland nominees.

“While the U.S. is trying to keep high-quality, sustainable Canadian lumber out, we will use more of it here in our plan to double the pace of housing construction,” Carney said, in reference to President Trump’s proposed tariff hikes on Canadian softwood lumber.

The plan also draws historical parallels to post-WWII nation-building efforts. “This is the most ambitious housing plan since the Second World War,” Carney said. “We will build our way out of the housing crisis—and the economic crisis—while making housing more affordable again in Canada.”

BCH will be empowered to act as a developer, manage projects, and issue bulk orders to manufacturers, while transferring key housing programs from CMHC. It will also provide $1 billion in equity financing and $10 billion in low-cost capital for builders of affordable, student, Indigenous, and seniors’ housing.

The strategy includes regulatory reforms such as streamlining building codes for prefab housing, leveraging pre-approved design catalogues, and fast-tracking approvals for proven builders. Measures also include cutting development fees and reviving the 1970s-era Multiple Unit Rental Building (MURB) tax incentive to stimulate rental construction.

The mass timber showcase at Intelligent City further underscored the plan’s emphasis on industrialized building methods. The company is currently manufacturing the structure for a nine-storey project in Toronto’s west end—the city’s tallest mass timber residential building to date.

Set for 230 Royal York Drive and developed by Windmill Developments and Leader Lane Developments, the project includes 58 market-rate rental units and two replacement units. Intelligent City’s Delta facility will complete the structure within four months using AI-assisted robotics, moving the bulk of work off-site to reduce time and community disruption.

“New construction practices like this shorten the time to build housing and reduce the impact of construction on neighbors,” said Toronto Councillor Amber Morley in a separate statement. “I’m encouraged to see developers embracing green building practices and working toward a more sustainable future.”

As Canada navigates rising demand for housing amid economic and trade pressures, the proposed Liberal strategy positions prefabricated mass timber construction as a core solution—leveraging domestic resources, modernized building processes, and a coordinated federal response.