Millions in funding coming for homebuilding innovation initiatives, Trudeau says

The federal government intends to earmark more than $600 million in the upcoming budget for a series of new homebuilding innovation efforts aimed at scaling-up the development of modular and prefabricated homes in Canada.

The federal government intends to earmark more than $600 million in the upcoming budget for a series of new homebuilding innovation efforts aimed at scaling-up the development of modular and prefabricated homes in Canada.

On Friday in Calgary, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said this package of new funding is meant to help change the way homes are built in this country, and make it easier and cheaper to build at the scale needed to overcome the current housing shortage.

The Liberals are also for the first time allocating money to the pre-promised modernized housing design catalogue, reviving a wartime housing effort that built "victory homes" or "strawberry box homes" nationwide.

"We want to accelerate the pace of home construction to levels not seen since the end of the Second World War. To do that, we need to change our approach and adopt innovative technologies," Trudeau said.

Here's how the millions meant to grow Canada's homebuilding sector will be allocated:

According to the release accompanying Trudeau's latest housing-focused pre-budget spending announcement, these measures are just the jumping off point for plans to engage the housing, construction and building materials sectors, as well as labour unions and experts, "to develop a Canadian industrial policy for homebuilding."

The new technology fund will be led by an innovation cluster known as Next Generation Manufacturing Canada.