Bill C-287 Housing Cost Transparency Act

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C-287 An Act to Amend the National Research Council Act

Short Title: Housing Cost Transparency Act

Bill Type: Private Member’s Bill

Bill Sponsor: Brad Redekopp (Saskatoon West)

Status: Outside the Order of Precedence — Introduced June 17, 2026. This Bill has not passed yet.

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What is this Bill For?

Bill C-287 would require the National Research Council (NRC) to publish plain-language cost summaries, governance transparency information and a public registry for any proposed change to Canada's national model building codes that could materially affect housing construction costs, timelines or complexity.

Right now, when a committee proposes a change to the national building code

  • a change could add thousands of dollars to the cost of building a home
  • there is no requirement to publish who proposed it
  • there is no requirement to publish who sits on the committee that approved it
  • no reporting on what it will cost builders or buyers
  • no way for the public to track it.

This Bill requires all of that to be published before any proposal goes to public review.

One important limit: the Bill explicitly states that NRC's role does not infringe on Provincial, Territorial or Municipal authority over code adoption, permitting, inspections or zoning. The transparency obligation sits with the NRC.

The power to adopt or reject codes remains with the Provinces.

⚠️ No enforcement mechanism — Section 5.5 explicitly states that a failure to publish the required summaries, governance lists or registry does not invalidate any national model code or any action taken by Provinces or Municipalities in relation to it.

The transparency obligation exists on paper. There is no penalty, no remedy and no mechanism to compel compliance if the NRC simply does not publish.

WHO GAINS POWER

  • The public gains the right to see who is proposing building code changes, what those changes will cost and who sits on the committees making those decisions — before the changes are finalized
  • Builders, developers and housing advocates gain a formal channel to track and respond to code proposals during public review

WHO LOSES POWER

  • Committee members and institutional actors who currently advance building code changes without public disclosure of their affiliations or financial interests lose that anonymity
  • Industry associations, government departments and other bodies that sponsor code proposals must now be named publicly

WHO GAINS MONEY

  • Homebuyers and builders gain access to cost impact information before code changes are adopted — allowing informed advocacy against changes that add unnecessary cost
  • No direct financial transfer is created by this Bill

WHO LOSES MONEY

  • The NRC bears the administrative cost of preparing, maintaining and publishing cost summaries, governance lists and a public registry — the Bill contains no funding allocation for this work

⚠️ No funding provided — The Bill creates significant new publishing and analysis obligations for the NRC but includes no appropriation, no budget estimate and no staffing provision to carry them out.

THE CATCH

⚠️ No enforcement mechanism — Section 5.5 is the most important line in the Bill. If the NRC fails to publish anything required — cost summaries, governance lists, the registry — nothing happens. No code is invalidated. No penalty applies. The transparency obligation is real. The consequence for ignoring it is not.

⚠️ No funding provided — New obligations with no budget attached. The NRC must absorb the cost of a significant new transparency infrastructure with no stated resources to do it.

⚠️ "Material" is defined but not measured — The Bill defines a material housing-related model code proposal as one that "could materially affect" costs, timelines or complexity. Who decides whether a proposal crosses that threshold? The NRC. There is no independent review, no appeal mechanism and no minimum cost threshold that triggers the obligation automatically.

⚠️ Qualitative escape hatch — Section 5.2(4) allows the NRC to substitute a qualitative description for a quantitative cost estimate if quantification is "not practicable." The Bill does not define when that standard is met, who reviews that determination or whether it can be challenged.

Read the Full Bill Text Sourced Here:  Bill C-287 Housing Cost Transparency Act