Transparency lacking in implementation of N.B. housing strategy, auditor general says
Paul Martin says completion timelines, specific costs missing from action items to create more housing
Key elements of New Brunswick's strategy to encourage the development of 6,000 new homes per year lack transparency, including around the timelines for achieving specific objectives and the total cost of some of the projects, says the province's auditor general.
Part of Paul Martin's report zeroed in on the New Brunswick Housing Corporation's implementation of the N.B. Housing strategy, which was released last June by Jill Green, minister responsible for housing.
"Fifty per cent of the actions [in the strategy] had no noted cost to government," said Martin, speaking before the legislature's standing committee on public accounts.
"For example, the action to recruit and or pre-qualify 10,000 individuals in priority trade occupations, to support immigration to New Brunswick, had no program costs or housing solution to the immigrants included in the strategy."
The three-year, $551-million strategy includes the goals of encouraging the creation of 6,000 new homes per year, reducing the waitlist for subsidized housing by 3,000 households, and increasing the number of skilled trades for residential construction by seven per cent annually.
It also aims to create conditions to hold annual rent increases at an average of 2.5 per cent and the percentage change in average home prices to 4.8 per cent.
The strategy was released as the provincial government's response to New Brunswick's housing crisis, brought on by rapidly rising rents, home prices and record-low residential vacancy rates.
The New Brunswick Housing Corporation was established in 2023 to carry out the strategy's 22 action items, and its budget was funded through transfers from the Department of Social Development, the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure and Service New Brunswick.
Martin, in his report, said the housing corporation has established targets and measurable actions within the strategy, but needs to make clearer the links between its actions and its stated goals, as well as transparency, monitoring and reporting on its progress.
On transparency, Martin said most of the actions were measurable, had been clearly assigned to executives at the housing corporation and had their sources of funding identified. However, 16 of the 22 actions had no timeline for completion.
Auditor
General Paul Martin told MLAs Tuesday that the New Brunswick Housing
Corporation hasn't laid out the costs associated with key parts of its
strategy, such as the province providing surplus property for affordable
housing development. (Jacques Poitras/CBC)
Additionally, 11 of the 22 actions had no specific overall cost to government.
One of those was the province extending temporary property tax relief to landlords by limiting assessment growth for tax purposes by 10 per cent for eligible non-residential properties and apartment buildings with more than four units.
Another was the province's commitment to make government surplus property available for affordable housing development.
"In some cases, program details were not sufficient to determine if the funding was going to be a loan, forgivable loan, or non-repayable grant," Martin said.
Speaking to reporters Tuesday, Martin said his audit was a good opportunity to offer the provincial government a scorecard for how it's doing on an important social issue.
"We're interested in measuring their performance on this and I hope they will take our recommendations and take them to the next step," he said.
Jill
Green, New Brunswick's minister responsible for housing, released her
government's strategy last June for alleviating the province's housing
crisis. The New Brunswick Housing Corporation was formed with the
mandate to implement that strategy. (Jacques Poitras/CBC)
The audit comes just shy of the one-year anniversary of the strategy being released, but statistics already suggest the province is lagging behind on some of its targets.
The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation published data showing New Brunswick had 4,547 new housing starts in 2023, short of the strategy's goal of 6,000 annually.
And in May, Statistics Canada published data showing rents in New Brunswick jumped by 10.8 per cent in April compared to a year earlier.
Speaking to reporters, Green touted the work done in the past 11 months, adding that housing starts have gone "off the charts," with numbers higher than when they started being tracked in 1948.
At the same time, she acknowledged Martin's criticisms around transparency and public reporting on the progress it makes.
"We're about to launch the review of the first year of the housing strategy," Green said. "We are doing that, and we'll take his recommendations very seriously and implement them."
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20 Comments
Comment by David Amos.
Comment by Akimbo Alogo.
People who actually get out of the province once in a while will notice that this is not a New Brunswick specific issue. But then again, those people just want to complain and not help.
Reply by Kyle Woodman.
Weak excuse.
Reply by David Amos.
I agree
Comment by William Peters.
The aim is to subsidies the private sector and to turn more of our economy into a rentier economy. That way time can be turned into a commodity that can be mined by out of province landlords. You who must live in this new world must find the time to acquire the money that will power the change after you have turned it over. What you do to acquire money is assumed to be there is ever increasing amounts to allow it.
Comment by Kyle Woodman.
Is anyone surprised by another failure by the Higgs government. All talk, no action.
Reply by Akimbo Alogo.
yawn
Reply by David Amos.
Welcome back to the circus
Reply by Kyle Woodman.
Never left
Comment by Wilbur Ross.
So much propaganda coming out of Fredericton these days. Can't trust anything the Tories put out. Mr. Outhouse is stinking up the place.
Reply by David Amos.
Have you looked in the mirror?
Comment by Douglas James.
The numbers are all just pulled out of a hat. It makes it sound as if the government is taking action on a serious problem when all it is really doing is trying to win the next election.
Reply by David Amos.
Everybody knows that
Reply by Douglas James.
Everybody knows nothing or they wouldn't repeatedly vote for Conservative governments.
Reply by David Amos.
They did not vote for you or me but I am not bitter
Comment by Inger Nielsen.
Auditor General needs to figure out where all our governments missing money went! things just are not adding up and we are talking a lot of money here
Reply by David Amos.
Dream on
Reply by Eugene Peabody.
Most of the millions and millions of dollars the federal government sent to NB to help offset the problems caused by the Covid pandemic went to paying the provincial debt not to helping citizens.
One of those was the province extending temporary property tax relief to landlords by limiting assessment growth for tax purposes by 10 per cent for eligible non-residential properties and apartment buildings with more than four units."
Seems the wealthy folks got a break eh?