WATCH: Will the federal budget help get you into a home?

• Can the Feds deliver on housing pledge?
• Who is being earmarked for affordable housing?

The federal government’s 2022 budget makes bold promises to get more Canadians into a home.

However, it remains to be seen how a ‘new spirit of collaboration’ among the levels of government being touted by Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland can produce meaningful results in cities like Kelowna.

House prices in Kelowna, like many other parts of the country, have spiked by as much as 35 per cent the last year alone, driven mainly by the desperate shortage of supply. That leaves many people with little chance of getting onto the property ladder and has pushed rentals out of the reach for many as well.

Freeland promised billions of dollars in funding to help double the number of housing starts over the next decade.

The budget includes several items on the federal NDP’s housing wish list, including a $1.5-billion, two-year expansion to the Rapid Housing Initiative.

It also provides $4 billion over five years to launch a new fund with the Canada Housing and Mortgage Corporation (CMHC) to help cities and municipalities create more affordable housing. Also, there’s $1.5 billion over two years to the CMHC’s Rapid Housing Initiative to create 6,000 new affordable housing units with at least one-quarter of the funding dedicated to women-focused projects.

Freeland said there would be a new relationship among municipal, provincial and federal players and the massive homebuilding would be “part of a great national effort and it will demand a new spirit of collaboration.”

She told the House of Commons that provinces and territories, cities and towns, the private sector and non-profits, will need to work "together with us to build the homes that Canadians need.”

Freeland said what the country needs to do is tear down the barriers to building more homes and many of those barriers are at the municipal level.

Kelowna needs affordability

In response, Kelowna city councillor Gail Given said the city would need to look at the details but any funding, especially for non-profits, would be good news for Kelowna.

“For the most part we’re really pleased to see the federal government stepping into this realm in a bigger way,” Given told Kelowna10. “ It’s very important for the federal government to fund the affordability side.”

As for the municipal barriers to housing construction Freeland has highlighted, Given said Kelowna had worked hard in recent years to speed up processes such as the pre-zoning of land, but hoped the new funding would mean municipalities would not have to compete against each other for money for non-profit initiatives.

“Our need is significant. We are approving and building thousands of units, but the challenge of course is that many of the units are at market price," she said. “With competitive bidding the way it is, prices are being driving up more from a market perspective.”

Given said it was important the feds and province create policies to slow "the commoditization of housing, ” and said the potential for capital gains tax changes and on measures regarding short-term rentals that take rentals out of the market, were among things the senior levels of government could move on in future.

Conservatives have doubts

Conservative Party interim leader Candice Bergen called the budget irresponsible, and said the housing program would not deliver.

"We wanted to see some substantial programs, or solutions to address the housing inflation crisis, specifically housing stock," she said. "We are seeing out-of-control spending, no plan for long-term growth or productivity. We're seeing a housing program announced, as in typical Liberal fashion, that will actually result in not one house built or one house purchased this year."

Dental and pharmacare

Other budget highlights in Thursday’s books included expected moves in healthcare.

The budget promises $5.3 billion over the next five years, and $1.7 billion annually after that, to help pay for dental care for Canadians with household incomes under $90,000.

The program will start with kids under 12 this year, expand to teenagers and people with disabilities in 2023, and be fully implemented by 2025.

The budget promises to table and pass a pharmacare bill by the end of 2023 and ask the Canadian Drug Agency to develop a list of essential medicines and make a bulk-purchasing plan. This is almost word-for-word what was in the confidence and supply agreement with the opposition NDP. There is no funding for the effort in this budget. Freeland said that will come in future years.

-With files from The Canadian Press