All of the major Canadian parties have made housing a huge part of their 2021 Election Platform. We've broken down each parties Platforms below...
Liberals
Unlock Home Ownership
- introduce a new Rent-to-Own program
- The landlord must commit to charging a renter a lower-than-market rate to help Canadians build up savings for a downpayment;
- The landlord must commit to ownership in a five-year term or less; and
- Proper safeguards will be in place to protect the future homeowner.
- introduce a tax-free First Home Savings Account
- this plan will allow Canadians under 40 to save up to $40,000 towards their first home, and to withdraw it tax-free to put towards their first home purchase with no requirement to repay it.
- First Time Home Buyer Incentive (FTHBI) (introduced in 2019)
- re-elected Liberal government will allow you to choose between the current shared-equity approach or a loan that is repayable only at the time of sale
- First-Time Home Buyers Tax Credit
- double the First-Time Home Buyers Tax Credit, from $5,000 to $10,000
- Reduce your monthly mortgage costs
- reduce the price charged by the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation on mortgage insurance by 25%
- increase the insured mortgage cut-off from $1 million to $1.25 million, and index this to inflation
Build More Homes
- Housing Accelerator Fund
- invest $4 billion in a Housing Accelerator Fund which will grow the annual housing supply in the country’s largest cities every year, creating a target of 100,000 new, middle-class homes by 2024-25.
- work with municipalities within this program to identify vacant or underused property that should be converted to housing on the principle of use it or lose it – that core urban land should be available for new housing, not left vacant as an unproductive investment property.
- National Housing Co-Investment
- permanently increase funding to the National Housing Co-Investment fund by a total of $2.7 billion over 4 years, more than double its current allocation
- Convert empty office space into housing
- opportunity for property owners and communities to explore converting excess space into rental housing
- double our existing Budget 2021 commitment to $600 million to support the conversion of empty office and retail space into market-based housing
- Multigenerational Home Renovation tax credit
- a new Multigenerational Home Renovation tax credit for families wishing to add a secondary unit to their home for the purposes of allowing an immediate or extended family member to live with them. Families will be able to claim a 15% tax credit up to $50,000 in renovation and construction costs.
- Support Indigenous Housing
- End chronic homelessness
Protect Your Rights
- Introduce a Home Buyers’ Bill of Rights
- Banning blind bidding, which prevents bidders from knowing the bids of other prospective buyers
- Establishing a legal right to a home inspection to make sure that buyers have the peace of mind that their investment is sound
- Ensuring total transparency on the history of recent house sale prices on title searches;
- Requiring real-estate agents to disclose to all participants in a transaction when they are involved in both sides of a potential sale
- beneficial ownership registry
- Ensuring banks and lenders offer mortgage deferrals for up to 6 months in the event of job loss or other major life event
- Requiring mortgage lenders act in your best interest so that you are fully informed of the full range of choices at your disposal, including the First-Time Home Buyer Incentive
- stop “renovictions” by deterring unfair rent increases that fall outside of a normal change in rent. We will require landlords to disclose on their tax filing the rent they receive pre- and post-renovation, and implement a proportional surtax if the increase in rent is excessive.
- Ban new Foreign ownership
- a temporary measure to help stabilize the housing market coming out of COVID-19, we will ban foreign money from purchasing a non-recreational, residential property in Canada for the next two years, unless this purchase is confirmed to be for future employment or immigration in the next two years.
- starting January 1, 2022, Canada’s first-ever national tax on non-resident, non-Canadian owners of vacant, underused housing and we will extend this to include foreign-owned vacant land within large urban areas.
- Stop Excessive Profits in the Financialization of Housing
- review of the tax treatment of large corporate owners of residential properties such as Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) who are increasingly trying to amass large portfolios of Canadian rental housing, putting upward pressure on rents.
- Canada Financial Crimes Agency
- establish the Canada Financial Crimes Agency as Canada’s first-ever national law enforcement agency solely dedicated to investigating and combatting all forms of major financial crime, including the presence of money laundering in the housing market
- Reduce incentives for speculation and house flipping
- establish an anti-flipping tax on residential properties, requiring properties to be held for at least 12 months.
NDP
Making sure everyone can afford a place to call home
- Ensure that more affordable rental units are built across the country
- create at least 500,000 units of quality, affordable housing in the next ten years, with half of that done within five years
- spur the construction of affordable homes by waiving the federal portion of the GST/HST on the construction of new affordable rental units
- re-introduce 30-year terms to CMHC insured mortgages on entry-level homes for first time home buyers
- doubling the Home Buyer’s Tax Credit to $1,500
- a 20% Foreign Buyer’s tax on the sale of homes to individuals who aren’t Canadian citizens or permanent residents.
- create a public beneficial ownership registry
Conservatives
Implement a plan to build 1 million homes in the next three years
- Leverage federal infrastructure investments to increase housing supply. We will:
- Build public transit infrastructure that connects homes and jobs by bringing public transit to where people are buying homes; and
- Require municipalities receiving federal funding for public transit to increase density near the funded transit;
- Review the extensive real estate portfolio of the federal government
- the largest property owner in the country with over 37,000 buildings – and release at least 15% for housing while improving the Federal Lands Initiative
- Incent developers to build the housing Canadians both want and need, by:
- Encouraging Canadians to invest in rental housing by extending the ability to defer capital gains tax when selling a rental property and reinvesting in rental housing, something that is currently excluded; and
- Exploring converting unneeded office space to housing.
- partnering with Indigenous communities and empowering Indigenous Peoples with the autonomy to meet their own housing needs
- Enhance the viability of using Community Land Trusts for affordable housing by creating an incentive for corporations and private landowners to donate property to Land Trusts for the development of affordable housing.
root out the corrupt activities that drive up real estate prices and put homeownership out of reach
- Implement comprehensive changes to the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act, and give FINTRAC, law enforcement, and prosecutors the tools necessary to identify, halt, and prosecute money-laundering in Canadian real estate markets
- Establish a federal Beneficial Ownership Registry for residential property.
- Closely examine the findings and recommendations of the Commission of Inquiry into Money Laundering in British Columbia, which is doing important work, and quickly implement recommendations at the federal level.
- Foreign buyers and speculation in the housing market
- Ban foreign investors not living in or moving to Canada from buying homes here for a two year period after which it will be reviewed.
- Instead, encourage foreign investment in purpose-built rental housing that is affordable to Canadians.
make mortgages more affordable
- Encourage a new market in seven- to ten-year mortgages to provide stability both for first-time home buyers and lenders, opening another secure path to homeownership for Canadians, and reducing the need for mortgage stress tests.
- Remove the requirement to conduct a stress test when a homeowner renews a mortgage with another lender instead of only when staying with their current lender, as is the case today. This will increase competition and help homeowners access more affordable options.
- Increase the limit on eligibility for mortgage insurance and index it to home price inflation, allowing those in high-priced real estate markets with less than a 20% down-payment an opportunity at home-ownership.
- Fix the mortgage stress test to stop discriminating against small business owners, contractors and other non-permanent employees including casual workers.
Canada’s Conservatives will never tax Canadians’ capital gains on the sale of their principal residence, something many within the NDP and Liberal parties are threatening to do.
Green
We will update the information as we get new details.
