Ottawa, Ontario – Today, the Hon. Pierre Poilievre, Leader of the Conservative Party of Canada and the Official Opposition, introduced part of his plan to bring homes you can afford, the Build Homes Not Bureaucracy Act.
Housing costs have doubled after eight years of Justin Trudeau. Nine in ten young people say they’ll never be able to afford a home. Toronto has become the world’s worst housing bubble, and Vancouver is the third most overpriced housing market on the planet. Thanks to spiralling housing costs, Canada has the riskiest mortgage debt of all 40 OCED countries.
What is Justin Trudeau’s solution to this historic housing crisis? More photo ops. Trudeau has plagiarized Conservative messaging, but not the policy. In fact, homebuilding is down year-over-year this August, thanks to Trudeau’s inaction. Here’s how the Conservative plan compares to Trudeau’s:
- Conservatives will tie housing completions to infrastructure funding so we can get shovels in the ground immediately while providing a big bonus to municipalities that exceed homebuilding targets. Justin Trudeau’s ‘Housing Accelerator Fund cost Canadians $4 billion but has built zero homes in a year and a half.
- The Conservative plan will withhold transit and infrastructure dollars from cities that don’t build sufficient high-density housing around transit stations. The Liberals will continue rewarding big city gatekeepers with tax dollars regardless of whether or not they build homes.
- The Conservative plan will tackle NIMBYism by penalizing gatekeepers who get in the way of construction. The Liberals will continue to allow NIMBYs to deny Canadians homes you can afford.
- The Conservative plan will list 15 percent of the federal government’s 37,000 buildings and all acceptable land for sale so we can turn it into affordable housing within a year and a half of this law passing. The Liberals will allow federal land and buildings to continue to remain useless and vacant.
- The Conservative plan will remove GST for any new home with rental prices below market value, incentivizing the building of homes you can afford. The Liberal GST rebate, on the other hand, will make it easier for developers to build more expensive homes that only the ultra-rich can afford.
- The Conservative plan will cut the bonuses and salaries and, if needed, fire the gatekeepers at CMHC if they are unable to speed up approval of applications for housing programs to an average of 60 days. The Liberals will continue to provide these gatekeepers with huge bonuses, regardless of how many homes they get built.
There used to be a deal in Canada. You work hard, you get a home. Justin Trudeau broke that deal, but Conservatives are going to fix it. That’s why only Conservatives have a plan to build homes, not bureaucracy.