Councillor files freedom of information request to see city housing report

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This article was published 07/01/2025 (242 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A city councillor says he’s been forced to file a freedom of information request for a report on federal housing funding he said is being unfairly withheld from council.

Coun. Brian Mayes (St. Vital) said that while a report prepared by City of Winnipeg staff summarizing the first year of the federal Housing Accelerator Fund was submitted to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation in December, he has not been able to access it despite repeated requests. A city hall vote on the program is scheduled for Jan. 30.

Mayes said it was the first time he’s had to file a freedom of information request in his 13-year career and criticized an “obsessive” secrecy around the housing fund, which is set to provide the city $30.6-million in payments from 2023-26 with a goal of creating more than 3,000 new housing units in Winnipeg.

“It’s frustration. I’m voting on this, I should see it,” he said Tuesday. “Why the hell do federal bureaucrats have this information and I don’t? I find that baffling.”

“I’m not claiming there’s corruption, I’m not claiming there’s any inefficiency, but … give me the facts before I vote.”

Council has highlighted eight initiatives, including changes to zoning rules and a capital grant program, set to be funded from future accelerator fund payments. One initiative, a $12-million incentive plan for infrastructure and service upgrades to new housing developed from the federal fund, is scheduled to be discussed at Jan. 30’s council meeting.

A spokesperson for the city pointed to a recent update provided at a December council meeting that outlined the first year of the program and said further information was coming.

“Per our agreement with CMHC, the city needed to submit an update on each of our eight initiatives in order to receive the scheduled program funds,” city spokesman Kalen Qually said in an email.

“The information submitted by the city is being reviewed by CMHC and then a public report from both the city and CMHC will be released to the public at a later date.”

Mayes said city staff have told him the federal body will decide when the report should be made public.

He suggested the city is treading lightly amid the Housing Accelerator Fund’s uncertain future: federal Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has said he would end the program if elected prime minister later this year.

“This belief that, ‘Oh my god, we certainly don’t want to upset the federal government, we’ll let them decide when you can see it.’ No, that’s not what the agreement says,” Mayes said.

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“I’m the one voting in late January, so I take some offence at this. We’re going to have more votes on this Housing Accelerator (Fund) as the year goes on, and I want the public to have the facts, and I want the elected officials to have the facts.”

While the agreement between the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation and the City of Winnipeg requires the city to make reports public within one year of being submitted to the federal body, it also says that reports should be published in an “open, transparent, effective and timely manner.”

Coun. Sherri Rollins, chairwoman of city council’s property and development committee, said she wasn’t sure why the report wouldn’t be provided in advance.

“If my colleague feels like he needs to do a (freedom of information request), that’s not good,” she said. “I’m certainly going to reach out to him.”

malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca

Malak Abas
Reporter

Malak Abas is a city reporter at the Free Press. Born and raised in Winnipeg’s North End, she led the campus paper at the University of Manitoba before joining the Free Press in 2020. Read more about Malak.

Every piece of reporting Malak produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.