BC Conservatives blast NDP and Carney for spending millions to buy 2,200 unsold condos from developers

VANCOUVER — The NDP government and Prime Minister Mark Carney are facing sharp criticism from B.C. Conservatives after announcing a plan to purchase 2,200 unsold condominium units from developers and convert them into affordable housing, a move critics describe as a bailout for wealthy developers that will not meaningfully address the housing crisis..Conservative housing critic Linda Hepner said the housing crisis will not be solved by wasting taxpayer dollars on artificially propping up developers. “If prices are set too high for condo units to be sold, market forces will cause the prices to lower until people can afford them. But if developers know that the government will simply bail them out if the condos sit vacant long enough, they will never drop their prices, making the housing crisis even worse,” Hepner said. “Instead of wasting taxpayer money on a bailout, the government ought to unlock B.C.’s housing industry by lowering taxes, speeding up the regulatory process, and removing the policies which have escalated construction costs,” she added.Conservative Leader Kerry-Lynne Findlay said the NDP government is actively scaring spending away from the province.“The greater issue is that the NDP government is actively scaring spending away from B.C.,” Findlay said in a Monday X post..“We wouldn’t be in this position in the first place if the government wasn’t so ideologically hostile to business. High taxes, excessive regulations, and legal uncertainty from a government that keeps getting in the way of the economy makes it extremely difficult to build or produce anything.”Conservative attorney general critic Steve Kooner said legal uncertainty is severely holding British Columbia's economy back.“The government practically begged a company to come take over the Yellow Giant gold mine and forced them to spend millions of dollars cleaning up an environmental mess, only to suddenly strip away their mining rights without warning or compensation so they could make a deal with indigenous groups,” Kooner said. “And after the Cowichan decision, residents in Richmond are watching their homes, their property values, and future development get clouded by legal uncertainty on fee simple title; uncertainty which threatens all British Columbians. After all this, the only way to bring back affordability is for the government to restore certainty and stop thwarting spending in the economy.”

BC Conservatives blast NDP and Carney for spending millions to buy 2,200 unsold condos from developers

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