 everyone. My name is Nathan Cullen. I'm the Minister of Water, Land, and Resource Stewardship. I'd like to introduce Musqueam Chief Wayne Sparrow to open today's event, Chief Sparrow. My name is Wayne Sparrow. I'm the elected chief of the Musqueam First Nation. It's a privilege and honor to be here on our lands here to welcome each and every one of you here for a very exciting announcement. Musqueam has always been a supporter and I'm talking to the Premier on housing and where we can help out and move our community forward. So on behalf of our community, I'd like to take this opportunity to welcome each and every one of you here and I'll pass over back to the minister. Thank you. Thank you very much Chief Sparrow. I know you have some commitments and I really appreciate you being here with us today in traditional Musqueam First Nations territory. It's great to be with you all to talk about the crucial work being done to make life better for British Columbians and I look forward to hearing from Premier Ebe, Minister Cullen a little bit later, municipalities and developers are at the forefront of building resilient connected communities we all want to live in. That's why I'm so pleased to be here with Rick Illich from Townline Homes and Linda Buchanan, Mayor of the City of North Vancouver who are joining us as well today. To get us started, I'd like to introduce and invite Premier Ebe to make some comments. Premier. Good morning everybody. Thanks very much for joining us and thank you Chief Sparrow for the welcome to the territory. It may seem strange to have the Mayor of North Vancouver here but we're not actually in Vancouver. We're on the UBC Peninsula and this is definitely Musqueam territory. Behind us is Norma Rose Point School named for Musqueam Meldor and behind me and behind the cameras Musqueam Laylums Development on Block F here at UBC and really glad to have you here Chief Sparrow for the work that Musqueam is doing to build housing for British Columbians and your partnership with Townline. Thank you for joining us Rick as well today. Everyone in BC deserves a good place to call home but for too many that foundational piece feels just out of reach. There are people in their 20s and even in their 30s living at home wondering when they're going to be able to start their own homes. Too many middle class families with decent incomes looking for a place to live and just not able to find it. Unfortunately ensuring affordable quality homes for British Columbians simply wasn't a priority for far too many years. It's an active construction site so we could not earn a housing crisis. We can't stop the work. The good news is there's a government that's prioritizing housing for British Columbians by cracking down on the speculation that drives up prices people investing in housing but not using housing as a place to live. Removing unfair restrictions that restricted condo units from being rented out people scouring Craigslist looking for a place to live while condos sat empty. We're partnering with the nonprofit sector with half a billion dollar fund to preserve affordable housing and protect tenants through redevelopment tenants at risk of ending up on the streets and our efforts are working. Last week we saw a new report from BC housing that showed a record number of purpose built rental units built last year but our population is growing at an historic rate as well. We must do more to get more homes built and faster. So today we're taking action to remove obstacles to building the homes that we need. Currently getting a provincial permit to build a new home can take multiple different applications spanning different ministries with different processes. These include things like water licenses, transportation approvals, road rezonings and getting approval to build on remediated contaminated sites. British Columbians expect government to have high standards for health and safety around our housing of course and we do have high standards but British Columbians also expect those approvals processes to be efficient, effective and timely and not increase the cost of housing. That's why today we're taking another step to modernize and add resources to provincial processes that while necessary are holding back new homes that families desperately need. We will be creating a one-stop shop for provincial permitting to speed up approvals for new homes. This single window will streamline this process for permits eliminating the need for multiple applications across multiple ministries. This work will be supported with an initial investment to hire 42 new full-time staff. Their jobs as the housing action task force will be to identify the highest priority housing including indigenous led projects, BC housing applications and multiple unit applications to steer them through the process quickly, efficiently and responsibly. But these staff will also help us undertake the broader transformation of BC's permitting regime which will take time as we engage in consultations with First Nations and with our industry partners so we do it right. We're expediting permits through the current system at the same time as we reform it because in a housing crisis there is no time to waste. If the pandemic taught us one thing it's that going it alone doesn't work. It'll take all of us working together to build a province that offers a good home for everyone. Every level of government in partnership with indigenous communities, nonprofits, co-ops, home builders and more. Now on many occasions I've asked municipalities to speed up housing applications to get more people into new homes faster. It's only right if we're looking to them that we also look to ourselves. Our government should provide leadership and do the same when it comes to provincial permits and that is exactly what we are doing. Thank you. All right okay thank you so much it's great to be here today and of course Premier a fantastic fantastic announcement. I want to start off by thanking Chief Sparrow and recognize that we're on the traditional territory of the Musqueam Nation and as Premier mentioned the housing crisis has been pricing too many British Columbians out of the market denying them the opportunities to get ahead. Too many people families seniors young people have been unable to find affordable homes to rent or to own and have been forced to leave the communities that they call home. Given our current situation we cannot afford unnecessary delays that prevent new homes from desperately needed breaking ground. The new permitting strategy for housing is going to prioritize housing projects so we can get the housing we need built faster. A streamlined permitting process will remove backlogs so British Columbians of all ages and all incomes can access a good home that they deserve. This strategy is just the latest action we're taking to address the housing crisis. Just last week we announced a new 500 million rental protection fund dedicated to protecting tenants preserving affordable rental homes for decades to come. Last session we approved the Housing Supply Act a new tool that will allow us to work with municipalities to speed up development and create the conditions to allow developers builders and not-for-profits to create the new housing when where and at the scale that we needed. We also continue to open new homes for renters and homeowners every week. Our government's housing plan has the largest investment in housing affordability in BC's history seven billion dollars over 10 years. More than 36,000 new affordable homes completed or underway 100 communities across the province under our government. There's still so much more work for us to do and we know British Columbians are counting on us to deliver the results that they deserve. Today's announcement is a vital step in building the new homes that we need now and another example of how our government is taking immediate actions to get results. So I'm so grateful for all of you to be here today. I'm so grateful for the Premier to make this important announcement with Minister Collin and I want to recognize now Rick Gillich who's the CEO of Townline Homes to share a few words around what this means for his sector. The housing shortage is a major contributor to the affordability imbalance throughout the province and it's been a long time in the making. It will take policy changes action and cooperation from every level of government to make real change. The province's permitting solution strategy announced today is a step in that direction and will have benefits throughout the province. Today's announcement is proof that our provincial government is showing leadership by bringing inward looking inward at their own structure and policies. I hope our civic politicians will find inspiration in that. Thank you. I'd like to introduce Mayor Buchanan. Thank you very much Rick and good morning everyone. I'm Linda Buchanan, the mayor in the city of North Vancouver. I would also like to acknowledge that we are gathered on the traditional territories of the Musqueam First Nations and such a pleasure to see you Chief Sparrow and thank you. This has been their home since time immemorial and I want to thank you for sharing the lands with us. I want to thank Minister Callon and Premier Ebe for inviting me to be part of today's exciting announcements. It's great to be here and great to see the province commit to easing the process of building in British Columbia by establishing a new provincial permitting strategy for housing. We can all agree we need more homes for all people but particularly for middle income earners and those with less means right across the province. But for too long good projects have been stalled due to processing times. This creates more costs and reduces affordability for people. That's why at the City of North Vancouver we have been modernizing our permitting process and transitioning to a digital one-stop shop for builders. So it's wonderful to see the province following our lead. In March 2020 the city began exploring how to streamline the permitting process. We know governments aren't always as fast as we would like them to be especially when it comes to permits and so we sought to change that. Slower processing times means slower delivery of housing and in my community we cannot wait longer for the housing we need. So when we found ourselves grappling with the consequences of COVID-19 pandemic no in-person meetings city hall closed to the public unsure if it was safe to do business by paper and construction was deemed as an essential service in the province we leveraged the opportunity to change our process. Since then the city has delivered on a wide range of service improvements regulatory changes and resource strategies to adapt to new pressures and ways of doing business as well as charted a path towards future improvements and continuous enhancements in an ever-changing world. This work was supported in part by a $500,000 grant from the province. In 2021 we received funding through the local government development approvals program and since then we have completed a full transition for every application that's part of our city's development application process from paper-based to fully electronic. This means from submission to review to issuance of permits and as well as to inspection is gone fully electronic meaning that with each submission not only does it save time and money it's saving 100 to 120 pounds of paper for every submission. In addition we've hired a complex permits coordinator to address bottlenecks in processing updated bylaws to a better align with modern forms of development we're now seeking to support such as sorry coach homes and town a row housing and so much more but our work is far from done we are now look at re rewriting our comprehensive development zoning bylaws in which there are roughly 730 dating back to the late 1960s and other updates to move projects forward this work has been transformative for the city of north vancouver and delivering the homes people in our community need i am so glad to see the province now taking steps to streamline their processes as well every level of government has an important role to play in housing delivery we must all commit to simplifying the permitting process as our economy and communities depend on it so thank you again premier ebe minister kelon for for your leadership on this file and for inviting me to be here today to tell you a little bit about what we're doing here uh at the city of north vancouver i'd like to now turn it back over to minister cullen i'll get out of the way thank you very much your worship and uh thank you for your leadership and partnership with the province on innovating what is happening in north vancouver just a few comments about what's happening in the ministry that i lead and with respect to today's announcement and changes that british columbians will start to see in the immediate and near term uh future the ministry of water land and resource stewardship is a critical piece in approaching the housing crisis nine months ago this ministry was formed to take a new approach towards the stewardship of the water lands and vital natural resources of our province we were also tasked with finding solutions for permitting issues that are affecting everyone across the natural resource ministries through a cross sector team we're working to accelerate decisions increase transparency and ensure bc's natural resource sector remains strong throughout the future as part of this important work our number one priority is tackling the backlog in the housing permitting process it's not just how many people are working on permitting it's how they're doing the work and how fast we can permit through new housing developments as premier ebia said we've taken urgent action to address the housing crisis to get more homes to british columbians faster the next step is to streamline the housing permitting process and the decisions that we need to make as part of our permitting strategy for housing and to create a bridge between all the ministries that are implicated in housing permits under several pieces of legislation from the water sustainability act to the transportation act we're creating a single window for permitting applications that directly impact the housing supply in the short term decisions will be set up across by a cross ministry housing action task force focused solely on housing permits this team includes decision makers project managers it specialists and other experts on hand to support housing applications right away dedicated resources and a cross ministry team will make significant process to get british columbians the housing that we need the successes we see with the single application approach will help to inform the permitting solutions we intend to implement across the entire natural resource sector we know that time is money the longer it takes to permit these projects the more expensive it is for developers and most importantly the more expensive it is for people looking to purchase or rent homes in this province our first priority is reviewing the permitting applications that are related to urgently needing housing that are on file right now as the premier outlined indigenous led housing bc housing and multifamily projects as well as housing in communities with the greatest shortages and lowest vacancy rates british columbians need safe affordable housing and they need it now our permitting strategy for housing and our single window application process will each reach help us reach our goal for housing for british columbians immediately thank you for your time we'd like to take a quick group photo apparently no we're going to skip that excellent we'll do that afterwards we'll now available to take your questions for media on the line if you could press star one if you have any questions that would be great and just a reminder that you can unmute yourself and you will not be audible until your name is called so uh first on the list oh look who it is it is richard zussman from global news i think richard why are you so great oh just oh i see you went to the warm side richard can you unmute yourself next one we're just going to head to bender sedgeant ctv line is open are you muted let's move to bender sedgeant ctv and then we'll loop back in with richard thank you um i'm just wondering at this point with all the multiple permits that have to be obtained how long can that process take and with the new housing action task force what is your commitment in terms of turning around this one-stop shop permit okay i'll take the second part first and i think rick is probably in a better place to answer the question about his experience with various levels of permits how long that that takes uh the provincial government is very uh committed to bringing down the permitting time for new housing but not just for new housing uh we also need to address permitting time around mining natural resource industry uh and all provincial processes uh in order for our province to continue to grow to continue to be a prosperous place that provides good high quality jobs for british glumbians uh we need to make sure uh that when people are ready to invest in this province whether to build homes for families uh or to open a new mine and everything in between uh that we're responding quickly so it's a competitive advantage for us to be able to do that and it's also urgent for us to deliver that housing for workers across the province we know that one of the pieces that employers are challenged by is they try to hire someone and that person looks for housing and they and it can be a barrier to getting that person working that they need so for many reasons we need to address this issue certainly provincial permit processes for large developments can last years and in addition municipal processes add add time as well rick do you mind speaking a little bit to your experience on the amount of time for permits that you may be waiting gently gently how do i not offend everybody um you know the permitting process uh is it's a very inconsistent process so it to answer that question is it's you really can't does not want to answer but um you know having the opportunity to see just the focus on inward you know the inward look at current policy and current processes knowing that management is going to be paying attention to it is a good start um when when files or applications cross a counter at a at a very whatever city or municipality you're in and your file manager is slated for a four-week vacation or a maternity leave or a stress leave or whatever the file sits there that's not how the real world works but that's how it's in some cases it's been working in some jurisdictions so just having a focus on how to consolidate policies or the processes and how to know that there's somebody's eye on it will will shave months and months and without question can be years we have had files that have taken years we've had files that have taken a year and a half two years just to get across the front counter because this the the the city which will remain unnamed won't accept it until it's almost perfect before they enter the so-called public process so it's it the the we're looking forward to seeing a stronger focused management style overseeing all permits hope that helps thanks thanks right i bender do you have a follow-up i do i was looking to see and i didn't hear but like what the commitment is in terms of how fast that these new permits can be turned around also just wanted to ask a little bit about how many projects are in the pipeline that are being transitioned to this new process and how you plan to deal with other municipalities i understand that north bank of or maybe different who may not have a similar streamlined process thanks bender part of the work that this team is going to do is around identifying high impact projects that could be bc housing projects that could be affordable housing projects that could be indigenous housing projects multi-unit projects purpose-built rental the kind of housing that we desperately need and and moving them through the process as it stands right now so that they are expedited through that process that they get priority but having that concierge service for those high priority projects doesn't address the the system itself so that's why at the same time we will be forming and moving to the single window process that is more efficient and more effective for everybody we think we can take months and even years off of provincial permitting processes for major developments by reforming the permit system thank you next question we're going to loop back in with you retreat sussman from global news sorry about that here now i give them a move here from the province towards a more consolidated effort to get non-profits into the larger housing sector in terms of psilocystic which you like to see more housing and permitting being run by the province then by the province's private sector so one of the things that we know in our province is that our population is growing at an historic rate last year we set a record this year we're beating last year's record which was a 50-year high in terms of population growth when you have that kind of growth in population and everybody who's coming here needs a place to live and we need to respond to that government's not going to be able to do it alone the non-profit sector is not going to be able to do it alone the for-profit sector is going to be able to do it alone we all have to work together every level of government and we need the private sector working at its top capacity we need the non-profit sector working at their top capacity and government needs to facilitate through the safeguards and the permits that are necessary so that they're not holding up the housing that we need one of the key themes that I hear over and over from people is that they just can't they have a decent income but they just can't find a place to live there are lots of people that could afford market housing if the home was there and that's what we need we need those homes to be there and for those that don't that need additional support then often it's the for-profit sector that partners with the non-profit sector to deliver those homes rick's company uh partners with bc housing partners with non-profit organizations across the province to deliver homes so it's not a public private for-profit not for-profit it's all hands on deck when it comes to housing your follow-up sesame um is there an expectation premier around bender asked about timing but is there a way to be transparent to the public around how long the permitting process taking place and can the province provide that information to the public not just on provincial approvals but by municipalities so that people can compare that it may take x number of months for x community to approve um these permits and another municipality is doing it longer like is this the sort of information the public should have access to and is it something that you're willing to look towards investing in so uh i'll i'll provide some broad remarks i'm going to turn over to minister cullen and minister calon but broadly the provincial government the federal government are very interested in how do we work together with municipalities to be transparent about permitting processes to make processes as predictable and understandable by people who would like to build so that before they buy that parcel of land they know what's available to be built there they can do the math and make sure that it makes sense for them and then when they buy the property they can get to work almost immediately on building uh the homes that we need that's the goal that we would like to get to in partnership with municipalities the province has a role to play and the federal government has their housing accelerator fund that can help us get there we did our development approvals review process to help us get there uh but specifically on today's permanent announcement i'll turn over to minister cullen the other uh cullen calon it's pretty similar um i'll just add that um you know i've been hearing from local governments i've been also hearing a lot from the the not-for-profit community the development community about that very question which is uh too often applications come in they don't know really who's reviewing which team is reviewing it how long it's going to take and and part of the work the minister column is leading is addressing the backlog we have now working on the system that we have now but also working with our ministry to rethink what that system could look like uh i think we can come to a place in the very near future where somebody applying for a building permit knows upfront what is required of them knows upfront how much it will cost and knows upfront how much time it will take to get that approval done it's happening in some jurisdictions around the world and we believe we can see that happened here in british columbia working with all of our partners so so briefly to add we heard an example from the north shore about how we can change the processes with some partnership with the provincial government in moving from paper to digital which might be shocking for a lot of british columbians to hear was it 120 pound applications 120 pounds 120 pounds worth of paper applications paper applications for for once right so and if it's reviewed another 120 pounds worth of paper the changes we need to make is an overhaul of the system the backlog that minister call on the premier eb talked about is the time which costs the money for the developers and then on down to the people who are looking to rent her own homes in british columbia we have to do both things at once we have a a task force that we have created across ministries to address all the different permits into one place for those prioritized projects that the premier talked about as well we need to change the way that we do business across all permitting in the province both for housing in the natural resource sector and any improvements that we make will help both when we when we improve things through a water permitting process it helps developers build more housing it also helps the natural resource sector in lifting up the the jobs and the work that's across our province so it's a lot of work but this has been a the problem has been a long time in the making our solutions have to be expedited and they will be expedited under this process so that transparency the premier talked about when someone makes an application we're able to tell them what their expectations should be in terms of time that they can relate down to their financiers to their partnership with first nations and all in the rest this is what we're aiming for and this is what we'll get done thank you great next up von palmer vancouver son good day thank you for doing this in the past when we've had one stop centers for approval in the government what we've seen is that there is one entry point but all of the ministries that are affected covered under legislation and regulations still have to vet the application they still have to sign off so the application permit comes in at one place but it still has to make the rounds and I don't if that's the way it's going to work with your changes and in the short medium term anyway I don't see how this is going to save much much time will it well I think you're uh you're right bond to be uh to be skeptical because we have seen in the past governments tried to do a one-stop shop but they have been frustrated by internal silos within government and we've looked at that history we've looked at that approach and we've learned the lessons from that in this approach this is more than just a single place to drop off your application our goal is an expedited process where information doesn't have to be resubmitted reconsidered and redetermined by multiple decision makers throughout the process and to speak a little bit about the structural reforms that are going to enable that I'll pass it over to minister cullen um it's an excellent question and point uh in terms of the history of the province bond the the entire genesis and the creation of this ministry was in fact feedback from developers from people in the natural resource sector to change the way government worked hence the creation of this ministry that brings in many of the decision makers and by its very nature requires cross-sectoral approach within government so as one industry leader described it to me once he said you created a front counter years ago when the province made a very large ministry but the silos remained you just threw a cover over top of the silos our effort in creating the the immediate work of the task force to prioritize the housing permits that are coming through of those top priority cases is to concierge and bring in all the ministries that are responsible for the permitting of those projects at the same time changing the way that we permit across this province means that we have line of sight when a permit comes in of all the different regulatory bodies within the provincial government to allow the decision to be made again our partners within the city the cities and municipalities across British Columbia allow for the innovation that we see in the north shore to do exactly the same thing at the city level so that when someone comes in and makes their application they can transparently understand what it is that's going to happen with their permit and be able to get the feedback as opposed to the descriptions that Rick had which happened too often where you permit you seek your permits and you're you're passed along and the time is wasted in some cases and things take so long as to raise the costs and to deliver more uncertainty we want to bring certainty to the permitting process we want to bring transparency to the permitting process with our partnership at the local government level and that's what we're going to do great uh follow up yes please uh heard the premier say a number of times already that success will be measured by results that people can see and touch and feel so uh what is the average approval time for a project now and what is the goal to be at 18 months from now in October 2024 so we can judge whether it succeeded or not so uh my understanding uh is that our our average approval time is two years at the provincial level uh and uh and obviously our goal is to improve on that um it's important to recognize that each proposal is different and so uh my goal is within the 18 months that we have is that we are laying the groundwork and implementing this broad reform within the system but over those 18 months we're pulling out those major housing developments the bc housing developments the affordable housing developments the multi-unit developments that are going to make a big difference in communities in terms of housing availability the rental housing developments for multiple families where we're going to be able to see those major developments move through much faster in a period of months instead of years so that broader reform is going to take some time we uh have partners that we work with with industry with first nations and certainly in government we've got some heavy lifting to do but immediately those major projects plan i want british columbians to see them coming forward much faster and that is the target to get that housing underway as quickly as we can great uh next question goes to branna charblas from canadian press hi there um i'm just curious um how many developments are in this process currently i know you've mentioned a backlog so i'm just curious how big that backlog is yeah the the latest numbers are that there's about 21 000 permits that are in the system about 5 to 6 of those permits in the system right now are related to housing and so again minister cullen's team uh and and working with all the ministries involved will be able to pull those uh permits out and then prioritize those in fact as well and and get through the system much quicker follow up riana uh yeah um so i know a couple of the other reporters have asked about uh wait time and it's a little unclear how much time you hope this will compress and i'm just wondering if you could speak to that a little bit more thanks so the the current average wait time as i understand it for provincial permits is about two years uh and so the goal is to reduce that dramatically uh to i mean ultimately a goal of months for approval from uh from the current wait time of years uh and for some projects we believe that there's a possibility of providing advance approvals and ensuring that people know going in what they're permitted to do so that it's almost immediate but that is long term in the here and now in the urgency of the housing crisis we will be identifying those high impact housing projects and and moving them through the system maintaining those high standards but prioritizing them through the system to get them out the door so that so that work can start now building those homes that we desperately need as our population grows so dramatically next question goes to these are used to city news good morning um obviously you know cities like north bank hoover are on side with this what do you do with the communities that have city halls municipal governments that are dragging their feet or have challenging processes that aren't willing to change well i think there is a point of unanimity among cities which is that there's there's work for the province to do on permits i think all mayors would not along with that idea so happily there's no disagreement on that uh where do we do part ways with some municipal leaders that surround the urgency of reform in their own city processes and and wait times in some communities and lack of predictability and uh and and and so on and so forth one thing that's been obvious to me uh is uh it's uh uh each time i've raised this issue is the mayors rightly point to the province and they say look uh you know you need to get your own house in order um and especially those cities that are approving the housing that we need uh and so that's what today's announcement's about we're doing our part we're doing the work we're bringing on these uh folks who are going to help us expedite uh processes reform how we do permits at the provincial level and we want to support you in doing that same work for those cities that are really reluctant to do that we do have our new legislation around housing targets setting out targets for the housing that we need that we know we need with our population growing so quickly as people move here for the opportunities that are in british columbia so we'll be working closely with municipalities on that there's an array of tools available under that new law that we passed last session uh starting with setting those targets working with the cities uh making sure they're able to hit those targets and for those that aren't uh working with them to address the issues that they've identified and that we've identified through that process i believe that uh setting targets uh monitoring and following up uh will assist and that's for our own permitting processes and the reforms that we're talking about today but that's also for cities as well great lisa back to you for a follow-up thanks so much for the priorities i'm just wondering which communities are the priorities that you're looking at right now the priority communities you're looking at and and what are some of the unintended consequences that could come out of streamlining these processes um so the housing supply act as the premier has highlighted as uh it has been passed right now we're in the process of looking at two kind of sets of mechanisms to decide which communities will have part of the housing supply act one is where there's opportunities for growth for where there's opportunities for people to be able to get housed and also communities that perhaps historically haven't brought on more housing because they've tried to protect their communities from having people come into their communities and so we're looking at a two-track system but one of the messages that i've given to all communities and i've been meeting with mayors throughout the province and talking to them about what we need is that it doesn't matter if you live in vancouver or if you live in anmore we need all the communities to take part of it and so although we'll be choosing eight to ten communities part of the housing supply act we need everyone to participate so i spoke to the mayor of anmore and said okay you need to be part of this housing solution that means you guys need to have the housing come online and also communities as big as vancouver and north vancouver etc and so we're going to be working on that and we'll have more to say on which communities in this spring great i think this might be our last question before we wrap things up uh jared pennor vancouver sun yeah i think municipalities palities will probably be welcoming of the province sort of looking inward but at the same time i think a lot of lower mainland municipalities have been stymied a bit by the lack of funding through bc housing for affordable units um how do you have plans to sort of beef that up a bit while you're speeding things up to help municipalities that have shovel ready projects in the need of that finances so uh our housing strategy uh is multi-pronged it involves announcement like today where we're accelerating private sector housing developments home builders that want to get homes built and are caught up in permitting processes at the provincial level it involves the nonprofit sector we had an announcement just last week of a half a billion dollar fund to buy up multi-family rental buildings that are for sale to protect the tenants that live in those buildings and create opportunities for redevelopment of those sites that are going to bring on even more housing and to leverage those sites to buy other properties to do more partnerships to build more housing it also involves direct government funded housing this announcement today is a little bit about that we have bc housing projects that are even caught up in provincial approvals processes right now and they're certainly caught up in city processes um we are committed to building more housing we are committed to delivering more housing of all kinds including affordable housing through bc housing we'll have more announcements about that to come uh but what you are seeing is every uh initiative that we can take to get more housing available whether it's opening uh previously vacant condos to rental by changing unfair rules or expediting permit processes at the municipal or the at the provincial level or directly funding the construction of deeply affordable housing we're going to be taking those steps great let's end it off on a good one Derek over to you for a follow-up my follow-up was i'm related to that adept with previous announcement um if you set aside 500 million dollars to help non-profit is there going to be a part two to that uh effort in uh a right of first refusal for on those uh potential properties um because if if non-profits are simply using that money to to compete with uh private private um investors um and they pay too high too high a price or for those old buildings um units aren't necessarily going to be that protected um a couple pieces of that Derek first of all one of the things that we heard from landlord uh bc and from the non-profit housing sector is that in their conversations they've identified owners of older smaller rental buildings monpa operators that are getting a wage where they want to retire they don't want to be landlords anymore they'd like to sell their building but they are personally attached to the tenants they have a community in their building and they don't want to just sell the building to the highest bidder without concern for the people that they care for that live in the buildings and so they've been trying to find ways how can we sell our building to a non-profit to support the tenants how can we make sure that this housing stays affordable for these people we care about and that's everything from the pension fund that sold us uh the building in uh bernaby cardston court uh to very small building operators that will preferentially sell to non-profits to protect those tenants um but beyond that i've also asked the housing minister uh for his team to look at what's been done in kebek in kebek they have a right of first refusal for properties that are proposed to be purchased by real estate investment trusts by these big companies and uh and the kebek government has the opportunity to get noticed that the building is going to be sold they have the opportunity to have a look to see whether they wish to purchase that building it does give them the opportunity to have a look at using their own fund to do that kind of to buy that building and it may be an advantage for british columbia so i've asked the housing minister have a look at that it will not be in the next legislative session uh but it is something that we are actively looking at policy around great and that's a wrap but i'm going to have all you beautiful people stand by the podium for a photo