Prime Minister Mark Carney, centre, and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith make a housing announcement in Red Deer, Alta., July 29, 2026. The Canadian Press/Jeff McIntosh
Ottawa will provide Alberta municipalities with more than $510 million over eight years to support water and wastewater infrastructure to accelerate housing construction, Prime Minister Mark Carney says.
Under the infrastructure agreement, Alberta will cover at least one-third of eligible costs for municipally led projects. The funding is intended to support Alberta’s goal of building 25,000 more affordable homes by 2031.
“A home needs more than four walls and a roof,” Carney told reporters alongside Smith at the announcement in Red Deer, Alta. “They also need clean drinking water, reliable sewage systems.”
Carney said that at least $100 million of the funding will go towards development in rural and indigenous communities in Alberta. He estimated the funding agreement will sustain over 750 skilled trades jobs annually, including positions for electricians, plumbers, pipe-fitters, and engineers.
The funding will come through the Canada Housing Infrastructure Fund, a $6 billion federal program. Under its provincial and territorial stream, $5 billion is being provided over 10 years to support housing-enabling infrastructure, including drinking water and wastewater systems.
The Prime Minister’s Office said the new funding is intended to eliminate infrastructure bottlenecks that can block or delay housing development when local water, wastewater, stormwater and solid-waste infrastructure is near capacity.
Smith said cities like Red Deer have been “strained” by growth and the new funding will help address that.
“Red Deer, like so many communities across Alberta, has experienced the pressures that come from the kind of rapid population growth that we’ve seen over the last five years, as we’ve welcomed over 600,000 people to our province,” Smith said. “This growth has strained public services and infrastructure all over the province, and it’s highlighted an acute need to build more and to build faster to catch up.”
Carney cited a planned wastewater pipeline in Airdrie, Alta., as an example of how infrastructure can help boost housing construction.
The $114 million project, announced a year ago with $50 million in support from Alberta, aims to connect Airdrie with Calgary’s wastewater treatment system, allowing the construction of up to 45,000 more homes.
Smith said Alberta had an all-time record of over 53,000 housing starts last year—14 percent above the province’s previous record set in 2024. Alberta makes up less than 12 percent of the population of Canada but accounted for roughly 25 percent of the nation’s housing starts last year, she said.
Carney said the federal government is also currently negotiating another agreement with Alberta through the Build Canada Homes (BCH) federal housing agency.
Build Canada Homes was launched in September 2025 to finance and accelerate affordable housing projects. It became a Crown corporation earlier this month after receiving royal assent.
Carney said on July 29 that BCH has committed to building roughly 15,000 housing units across the country via 16 partnerships and 1,900 homes are already under construction.
