Pre-fab home factory, Indigenous post-secondary: 2024 federal budget highlights for the North

A new production plant for mobile homes in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, is one of several projects that will see new federal dollars head north, according to the Liberal government's latest budget, released Tuesday.

The budget contains a scattering of funding for housing, food security, education and wildfire fighting in the territories, and paints a broadly rosy picture of Canada's economy as "outperforming expectations." It also notes that amid the challenges brought by higher interest rates, the country has avoided a recession.

While the federal budget includes billions of dollars country-wide for urban, rural and Northern Indigenous housing efforts, it also includes money for one specific project: $2.15 million for Nunafab Corp. to establish a modular home production plant in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut.

The intention, according to the budget, is that homes built at the plant can be shipped to other Nunavut communities.

At the "heart" of the budget's plan for housing is the idea that people shouldn't have to spend more than 30 per cent of their income on housing and a belief that increasing the supply of housing will bring prices down. 

The budget discusses new policy plans to use government-owned land for homes.

"Governments across Canada are sitting on surplus, underused and vacant public lands, such as empty office towers or low-rise buildings that could be built on," it reads.

"By unlocking these lands for housing, governments can lower the costs of construction and build more homes, faster, at prices Canadians can afford."

The budget also includes $6 billion over 10 years to build water mains, sewers and other municipal infrastructure that will need to be upgraded as new homes come online.

The budget earmarks $57 million for northern food security in 2024-25 and $34 million in each of the following two years.

There's also $14.9 million over three years to renew and expand the Northern Isolated Community Initiatives Fund to all regions of Inuit Nunangat to support local and Indigenous food production systems, including "innovative northern food businesses."

For schools, there is also the promised $1 billion for a national school food program. That announcement, made earlier in April, has prompted some Inuit organizations to call for cultural considerations, such as country food.

The Dechinta Centre for Research and Learning in Yellowknife is set to receive $5.2 million in the next two years, to increase the availability of culturally appropriate post-secondary education in the North.

"We were waiting with bated breath … in the hopes that our work would be recognized," said Kelsey Wrightson, the centre's executive director, who was sitting at her computer Tuesday afternoon before the budget dropped, wondering if the organization would be included.