The federal Liberals have placed their hopes for scaling up Canada's affordable housing stock in Ana Bailão, a former Toronto city councillor.

Bailão spent 12 years at Toronto City Hall starting in 2010 and directed a number of affordable housing initiatives there.

As a chair of the city's planning and housing committee, she pushed for exclusions to higher development charges on infill projects with four or fewer units. She also defended a bylaw to allow garden suites as a form of gentle density on existing Toronto lots.

She served as deputy to former mayor John Tory for five years until 2022 and ran to replace him after his resignation the following year, finishing 34,000 votes short of current mayor Olivia Chow.

When Bailão announced plans to leave municipal politics, she was honoured by the Building Industry and Land Development Association, or BILD, for her "tireless efforts to address housing supply and affordability challenges" in Toronto.

"She was in the eye of the storm in Toronto, and now she's in the eye of the storm nationally," said Jennifer Keesmaat, Toronto's chief planner from 2012 to 2017.

Bailão worked for developer Dream Unlimited as head of both affordable housing and public affairs after leaving city council.

Keesmaat said having experience in both public and private sector housing is a valuable asset for the incoming Build Canada Homes CEO.

"That's pretty rare … and I wouldn't be surprised if that was one of the reasons why she was identified," she said.

The Liberals announced Bailão's appointment and launched the new agency on Sunday in Ottawa with $13 billion in funding and plans to oversee construction of 4,000 homes on six federally owned sites.

Build Canada Homes is also tasked with helping to finance affordable housing projects and promoting the adoption of new technology, such as prefabricated and modular housing, to make builders more productive.

Keesmaat is also the CEO of developer Collecdev-Markee and a member of the National Housing Council, which advises the federal government.

She said the use of public lands to build larger non-market housing projects — rather than just a handful of units — shows Build Canada Homes is working at the scale needed to address the affordability crisis.

The first job in front of Build Canada Homes, Keesmaat said, is to get the conditions in place for builders to break ground on a suite of already approved projects in cities across the country.

Among the major barriers to development are high development charges and steep financial guarantees builders need before they can secure a loan for construction, she said.

What remains to be seen, Keesmaat said, is whether Bailão has the "appetite" for action and deal-making she'll need to untangle the knots in the homebuilding pipeline in Canada.

"I think that's the very first challenge that Ana faces in her role, is figuring out, 'How do I actually … undo the gridlock in the building and construction industry that exists today?'" she said.

The debut of the new agency and Liberal promises to double homebuilding come after the pace of housing starts stalled in Canada in the first half of the year.

The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. said last week that a slow building pace in Toronto and Vancouver — Canada's two most expensive real estate markets — was dragging down the national average in housing starts.

Scott Aitchison, the Conservative party's housing critic, called Build Canada Homes just another level of federal bureaucracy during question period in the House of Commons on Monday.

"It is yet another Liberal boondoggle that will cost Canadians a fortune and will solve nothing," he said.

Aitchison blamed the slowdown in building starts on federal taxes and red tape driving up the cost of construction.

Federal Housing Minister Gregor Robertson said in response that the Liberals are partnering with the private sector and various levels of government to deliver affordable homes.

Robertson has said he felt he didn't have the tools he needed when he was mayor of Vancouver to make a dent in the city's shortage of affordable housing.

Keesmaat said it's too early to tell whether the fact that Robertson and Bailão share experience in local politics will serve them well on the national level.

But she said the housing file in Canada has come to a pivotal moment, with former municipal leaders who know the "friction points" on the ground now in charge at the federal level.

"So there's no more excuses, right? You just got the keys to the kingdom. Go build as much housing as possible," she said.

– Craig Lord, The Canadian Press