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He also raised the possibility that more money would be forthcoming, pointing out that last year's initial budget only contained enough for 400 housing starts.

Meanwhile, the Conservatives, led by Pierre Poilievre, vowed to tie federal funding to housing starts by rewarding cities that build more homes and penalising those that block construction - a carrot-and-stick approach.

We know that housing starts in the last financial year were less than 135,000.

That would represent a pullback from November, when housing starts surged by nearly 15% from October to the highest level in six months.

Single-family housing starts have now risen three months in a row and are outpacing home completions for the first time since the spring of last year.