New Democrat leader Jagmeet Singh says Parliament’s temporary ban on foreign buyers of Canadian residential property should be made permanent and strengthened to eliminate loopholes that allow investors to bypass the law.
Blacklock's Reporter says the current ban, set to expire on January 1, 2027, is not enough to protect Canadians from being priced out of the housing market, Singh said.
“It is going to expire,” Singh said. “Here’s our plan. We are going to make it permanent, the ban on big money investors buying up Canadian homes. That should be banned. Homes in Canada should be for you and your family, not for rich investors to get richer. In addition we are going to end loopholes.”
The ban was first introduced in 2022 as part of Bill C-19, a federal budget bill that included the Prohibition On The Purchase Of Residential Property By Non-Canadians Act.
The law made it illegal for non-Canadians to directly or indirectly buy residential property, carrying fines of up to $10,000 and potential forced sale of the property.
However, numerous exemptions were written into the law. These included properties outside metropolitan areas, homes inherited through estates, and recreational properties such as cabins or summer homes. The legislation also allowed purchases by immigrants who had filed five years of Canadian taxes, international students, skilled foreign workers, refugees, and diplomats.
Singh’s party said any permanent ban would preserve the recreational exemptions but close other gaps, including the use of numbered companies or corporate proxies to make purchases on behalf of foreign buyers.
“The focus is on preserving housing stock in residential communities for the people who need it most,” the New Democrats said in a statement.
In 2021, before the federal election, the House of Commons passed a Conservative motion calling for a temporary freeze on foreign homebuyers by a vote of 180 to 147. The Liberal cabinet opposed the motion at the time, though later included a version of it in their 2021 campaign platform, promising to “ban new foreign ownership of Canadian houses.”
To date, no federal agency has published a formal study on the impact of the ban on real estate prices or availability. Singh, however, made clear his party intends to push for lasting measures to protect housing access for Canadians over speculative international spending.
