Housing Minister Sean Fraser is expected to reveal details of the Liberal promise to lease federal lands to developers for building affordable housing on Sunday, ahead of a three-day trip for the entire federal government to Halifax.

The annual end-of-summer cabinet retreat comes three weeks before Parliament returns for the fall session and is likely to be the last summer trip for the cabinet before the upcoming election.

This could be the last real opportunity for this government to reset itself with voters before asking for another mandate.

A year ago, a ministerial session in Charlottetown focused heavily on housing as rapid immigration and lackluster housing construction led to decreased availability and rising prices.

However, the Liberals left that session without any tangible announcements, and their poll numbers continued to suffer as they failed to convince Canadians that they had the remedy for a problem that had become critical under their watch.

This time, they intend to put a lot on the table for Canadians starting Sunday afternoon when Fraser and Public Services Minister Jean-Yves Duclos announce efforts to convert unused or vacant federal lands and properties into affordable housing.

Former Liberal Chief of Staff Marcy Corts, who now serves as Senior Vice President of Strategy at the government relations firm Compass Rose, said housing will be central to this retreat and the Liberals' future agenda.

"Frankly, the government has certainly taken political steps and made significant investments since last year, some of which are starting to bear fruit, but the reality is that the focus on supply needs to remain," she said. "There's no real relief yet."

The announcement comes on Sunday afternoon four months after Fraser and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau released an updated housing plan aimed at building nearly four million new homes in less than seven years.

Estimates suggest that between 3.1 million and 3.5 million new units will be needed by 2031 to address the housing crisis that has left Canada with some of the least affordable housing among developed countries.

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation warned earlier this year that the housing affordability crisis is likely to persist until 2026, although housing starts may begin to improve in the coming months due to falling interest rates.

Demand for housing in Canada surged in the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic. Between March 2020 and March 2022, the average home price in Canada increased by more than 50 percent to $835,000. This has since declined, as high-interest rates have raised borrowing costs and the number of people in the market to buy a home has decreased.

Average rents have risen by about 25 percent over the past five years.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development notes that the price-to-income ratio for housing in Canada has decreased since peaking in early 2022, but overall, housing costs have risen by 40 percent more than Canadian incomes since 2015.

The government’s overall plan includes new tenant protections, loans to build more apartments, and a suite of programs to significantly expand the number of affordable units available. Among these initiatives is a project to build homes on public lands, which seeks to identify and lease unused or vacant federal properties to developers for constructing affordable houses.

With capital land costs sometimes reaching a quarter of the cost of a new home, the leasing program helps reduce these upfront costs for developers and also keeps the land in public ownership to help ensure that homes built on it remain affordable.

The April budget designated the first five parcels of land for leasing under the program. Four of them are on former military bases in Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto, and Ottawa, while the fifth is the site of a former National Film Board building in Montreal.

This retreat is also expected to see the government discuss immigration issues and temporary foreign workers, industrial strategies including the electric vehicle market, child care, and Canada-U.S. relations.

Meetings will begin Sunday evening with a working dinner, followed by two full days of discussions. On Monday, the cabinet will hear from experts and advisors in housing, immigration, and the middle-class economy. This will include Kevin Wyetzner, CEO of the Canadian Home Builders’ Association, Senator Hassan Yussuff, former President of the Canadian Labour Congress, and Maya Roy, former CEO of the Young Women’s Christian Association of Canada.

Tuesday's discussions will shift to Canada-U.S. relations, where the upcoming presidential election carries significant weight for Canada, which relies heavily on U.S. trade for its economic stability. Canadian Ambassador to the U.S. Kirsten Hillman will address the cabinet on Tuesday, along with former ambassadors Frank McKenna and David MacNaughton.