Liberal leadership contender Mark Carney has endorsed a Conservative proposal to remove GST charges on new residential construction priced under $1 million.
Blacklock's Reporter says Carney’s campaign also released data indicating that the federal government’s pledge to restore housing affordability by building 3.87 million homes by 2031 is unattainable.
“Canada is in the midst of a housing crisis,” stated Carney’s campaign in a document titled Housing Backgrounder. “The supply of homes is critically low. Now is the time to build.”
The document called for eliminating GST for first-time homebuyers purchasing homes under $1 million, a measure intended to reduce financial strain on young Canadians.
The policy mirrors one proposed by Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre on October 28, when he criticized the GST threshold of $450,000 for being outdated and below the market value of most homes in Canada.
“That threshold was meant to increase, but it didn’t,” Poilievre said at the time. “Try finding a home for $450,000 after nine years of Trudeau. It’s impossible.”
Poilievre argued that nearly all new homebuyers end up paying GST and estimated the cost of repealing the tax on new homes up to $1 million at $8 billion.
He proposed covering the expense by cutting federal programs like the Housing Accelerator Fund, which he claimed had not resulted in any new construction.
Carney did not specify the cost of his plan but emphasized the urgency of ramping up home construction. “We will take bold steps to ensure enough homes are built for Canadians,” his Housing Backgrounder stated.
His campaign document did not reference the government’s existing promise of 3.9 million new homes by 2031, a goal requiring an unprecedented 650,000 housing starts per year.
Instead, Carney’s plan aims to double the current pace of construction, which has averaged 227,000 new homes annually over the past decade.
“A government led by Mark Carney will double housing construction over the next decade,” the document pledged. “We need to build four million homes by leveraging improved building methods and mobilizing significant private investment.”
Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation reported 227,697 urban housing starts last year. The highest annual total on record remains 273,200, set in 1976.
Carney pledged to accelerate construction to 500,000 starts per year by using innovative building techniques, including prefabricated and modular housing, and by removing zoning restrictions. However, he provided no further details on how these measures would be implemented.