Provincial budget recommendations: Ontario, Nova Scotia, Manitoba

Published February 08, 2024

It’s budget season, and CHF Canada is engaging in the provincial pre-budget consultation for Ontario. This year, CHF Canada is expanding to include consultations in Nova Scotia and Manitoba. These are important opportunities to communicate with provincial governments about co-op communities’ current needs and hopes for the future.

Check out our recommendations to grow and sustain co-operative housing in Ontario, Nova Scotia and Manitoba. Provinces are expected to release their budgets in the spring. We hope that our recommendations will be reflected in those budgets.

Ontario  

Among the rising costs of housing across all regions of Ontario, co-op housing remains a stable, affordable form of housing for many.

CHF Canada proposes four recommendations to preserve and grow co-operative housing across the province so that more Ontarians can have a safe affordable place to call home:

1. Support Housing Services Act (HSA) co-ops as they enter into new agreements with municipalities
2. Protect renters by investing in a Community Housing Acquisition Fund
3. Create at least 250,000 non-market housing units by 2031, including co-ops
4. Develop and fund a for-Indigenous, by-Indigenous urban, rural, and northern housing strategy

Learn more in our submission: 

• English
• French

Nova Scotia 

Nova Scotia is experiencing a significant shortage of adequate housing; as such, provincial efforts have ramped up to tackle the housing crisis.

CHF Canada shares the government’s vision to ensure that all Nova Scotians can live in a home they can afford in a healthy, vibrant and diverse community. Our recommendations for the 2024 Provincial Budget are in the context of the co-operative housing sector’s willingness and dedication to work with the province to achieve this vision:

1. Dedicate additional resources for new co-operative and non-profit housing development, including pre-development funding and further investments to enable co-ops and non-profits to acquire existing rental properties (e.g. existing Community Housing Acquisition Program)
2. Allocate sufficient rental assistance funding for low-income households in co-operative housing

See our submission.

Manitoba  

Co-ops are ready to explore new opportunities to create affordable, safe, and inclusive homes for Manitobans. In our 2024 budget submission for Manitoba, CHF Canada has two key recommendations to grow and sustain co-operative and affordable homes across the Province of Manitoba:

1. Grow Manitoba’s housing co-operatives, through dedicated funding and assets (e.g. provision of provincial land)
2. Sustain existing affordable homes, such as through continued rental assistance for co-ops and non-profits

The Province of Manitoba has played a pivotal role in recent co-op housing developments, such as the provision of land leased for the Old Grace Housing Co-op in Winnipeg. Learn more and participate in the province’s pre-budget consultations until March 1.

Learn more in our submission.