Pomp was in the air of the courtyard at Guelph City Hall Thursday morning. The special guest was Ontario’s Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing Paul Calandra, and the order to the day was celebrating Guelph’s success on housing starts in 2023. The what was a giant novelty cheque, a symbol of the very real award for Guelph starting construction on 1,287 new housing units last year, nearly $4.7 million in “reward” money!

The funds announced today, $4,680,000, are from the Building Faster Fund, a three-year, $1.2 billion program that is meant to encourage Ontario municipalities to reach the housing goals they pledged to and help Ontario reach 1.5 million total new units by 2031. According to the Government of Ontario media release, “The fund rewards municipalities that make significant progress against their targets by providing funding for housing-enabling and community-enabling infrastructure.”

“What you’re seeing through the Building Faster Fund really is an indication of what mayors across the province of Ontario have been telling us,” Calandra explained. “As the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, I can change whatever rules I need to change, we can bring in new policies, but ultimately if we are to meet our housing targets of 1.5 million homes, we are going to have to put infrastructure in the ground to allow communities across this province to actually get those homes built.”

Calandra thanked Mayor Cam Guthrie for the hard work, and alluded to some difficult and/or contentious conversations between the two of them on the subject of address housing needs in Guelph and across Ontario.

“I can tell you that the mayor has screamed at me on a lot of occasions, but he was very nice and pleasant the way he did it. There was one call in particular, I can tell you, that was probably one of the most uncomfortable calls I’ve ever had, but as a result there were so many different changes that we brought forward,” the minister said.

To wit, Calandra was reminded on an exchange in Question Period last October where Premier Doug Ford said about Guelph,“I like your mayor, he just can’t get up there and make a decision, so he always wants to pile it onto the province. He’s a good guy actually, I like him. But your whole council in Guelph are a bunch of left-wing lunatics. Simple as that.” So was the premier wrong in his assessment of Guelph’s abilities if the City was able to get rewarded for its work on housing?

“We’re here today to celebrate $4.67 million in funding that is going to the City of Guelph because they were able to get shovels in the ground,” Calandra said in response, adding that he’s prepared as the minister to remove any and all obstacles in the name of that goal.

“And that includes councillors who don’t want to get it done. There are in my own community of Stouffville councillors who don’t want to get shovels in the ground. So I’m not going to be strayed on that mission to build 1.5 million homes across the province of Ontario, and this is an indication that I’m working closely with the mayor and those councillors who want to work in that exact same direction, which will lead to amazing things for not only Guelph but the entire province.”

Speaking of direction, Guelph’s adoption of the Ontario government’s housing pledge last February to build 18,000 new units as our share of the 1.5 million came with some conditions. Among them were a request for several commitments from the Province including help to remediate brownfields, increased spending on provincially-controlled infrastructure like schools and hospitals, and exceptions for secondary plans and exclusionary zoning in appeals to the Ontario Land Tribunal.

Calandra didn’t have any firm answers.

“We have been very clear with respect to infrastructure, whether it’s Highway #7 or a whole host of other infrastructure programs, that we are here to support them if it’s about getting shovels in the ground,” he explained. “Guelph has shown that not only can they build more homes, they can actually do it while protecting the things that are important to them. So when there are conditions in place to build a better, stronger community, they’ll have a great partner in the Province of Ontario, and me as Minister.”

As for the mayor, Guthrie said that he appreciated Calandra’s graciousness and thanked City staff and his council colleagues for the achievement.

“I’m proud to tell everyone that Guelph met 98 per cent of our provincially set target for 2031, so that means last year, we achieved 1,245 housing starts, we approved 13 residential conversions, and we added 29 long term care beds as well,” Guthrie explained. “This is no easy task given that cities approve housing but we don’t build them.”

The City does build budgets though and when asked about how the extra funds might affect the bottom line and his Strong Mayor’s directive to shave six per cent from Guelph’s 2025 budget, Guthrie said that there there’s still some work to do when it comes to how the funds will be spent.

“What this does is we have to provide the Province with what’s called an investment plan and what the money is going to go towards,” Guthrie explained. “But specifically it will go towards housing enabling infrastructure, and investments in that housing ability. That plan will be sent to the Province and then we’ll be working to see where that will be allocated.”

When asked if Guelph was rewarded because Mayor Guthrie embraced the use of Strong Mayor Powers created by the Government of Ontario, Calandra said that getting housing done is a team effort out of city hall, and all the members of that team need to be heading the right direction.

“I think in those communities where you’re seeing that they aren’t meeting their targets, the number one thing that we hear from from the homebuilding community is that it’s costly, it takes too long, and there’s too much uncertainty, and that is why they’re attracted to communities that want to remove obstacles, and give them certainty,” Calandra said. “So it’s not about reducing or eliminating the important work that the planning team does, it’s about providing that certainty and making the process easier for them.”

See the full video from the announcement below: