Introduction

This blog post outlines some policies regarding housing that the Conservative Party of Canada leader Pierre Poilievre has announced or mentioned over the years. I shared an article a few days ago on r/canadahousing on Mark Carney’s 2024 opinion piece while he was a member of Canada’s Task Force for Housing & Climate. Overall, his article had stances but lacked substance of communicating a federal policy. Even now that he is a contender to be the next Prime Minister of Canada, his opinion piece is the best material regarding housing. Unlike Carney’s housing stances, all four of Poilievre’s stances regarding housing are policies that the federal government can pursue. If there is a policy missing or newly announced, please contact me so I can add it to the blog post.

Summary of Mark Carney (March 2024) - Affordable Homes (Globe & Mail)

You can read the article here (Internet Archive).

• abolish parking minimums (reduces costs, probably done through HAF, but cities like Red Deer fall through)
• low carbon intensity housing standards (lower operational costs, but does it increase costs to build)
• pre-fabricated houses / mass timber (not really a policy)
• don’t build in high climate risk areas

I’m impressed with his knowledge of home building however I’m left wanting more of an execution plan. If we were to include his recently announced policies regarding the carbon tax, Mark Carney’s policies would increase the cost to build condos because condos use steel and concrete, two industries he wants to tax more (industrial carbon tax). I’ll agree with him that mass timber is cool and should be used more, but that’s like telling people they should use Firefox and banning Google Chrome the next day.

Immigration Should be Lower than New Home Completions

Improves: rent affordability via demand-side policies

From the CBC - Aug, 2024,

Poilievre said a future Conservative government would tie the country’s population growth rate to a level that’s below the number of new homes built, and would also consider such factors as access to health-care and jobs.

If you’re unsure why this is good for housing affordability, consider that land lords exist and if condos are bought by land lords, they will have less people to rent them to, thus lowering rent.

Poilievre has previously said immigration levels should be tied to housing starts. The Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) reported roughly 255,000 housing starts in July. The federal government has already said it will admit about 485,000 permanent residents — immigrants who intend to settle here on a permanent basis — to Canada this year, with the target rising to 500,000 in both 2025 and 2026.

Note that after this CBC article was published, in October 2024, the incumbent Liberal government announced a decrease in the temporary and permanent immigrant levels from 2025-2027.

Year	NEW Permanent Resident Admissions	OUTDATED Permanent Resident Admissions
2025	295,000	500,000
2026	280,000	500,000
2027	365,000	500,000?

The 2025-27 Levels Plan projects a decrease in overall permanent resident admissions to 395,000 in 2025, 380,000 in 2026 and 365,000 in 2027.

Here’s an explanation video from Canada’s Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau admitting that temporary immigration was just not planned until 2024. My only criticism really is that the government took a whole year to react. Actually, I’ll say they took almost 2 years to react, since the issues were apparent to both the Bloc and Conservatives in May 2023.

On Thursday, Pierre Poilievre confirmed he is supporting a Bloc motion to restrict immigration in the middle of a national labour shortage that hurts small businesses and communities across the country. He wants fewer immigrants to come to Canada; that means fewer skilled workers and fewer Canadians reuniting with family members

Yes, I’m referencing the NDP’s criticism of Poilievre voting against immigration as evidence to prove Trudeau could’ve announced/pushed immigration cuts at least 17 months sooner.

Here is the minister of immigration, Mark Miller, boasting on Twitter regarding asking rents falling coinciding with a cut in non-permanent immigration. You cannot make this up. In one year, being against excessive immigration is harmful. The next year, it’s mainstream.

“The deceleration in rents coincides with a significant cutback in net inflows of non-permanent residents.”👇 https://t.co/l3mNfPZE2G

— Marc Miller ᐅᑭᒫᐃᐧᐅᓃᐸᐄᐧᐤᐃᔨᐣ (@MarcMillerVM) October 19, 2024

Tying Infrastructure Dollars to Housing Completion in Municipalities

Improves: municipal housing reform (supply-side)

NDP-Liberals Have Made Housing Unaffordable For Canadians

Before 2023, the debate of housing on reddit was that the federal government was not responsible at all, and neither was the provincial government, and that immigration had nothing to do with rental affordability. Many people can agree with me that criticizing immigration was not taken seriously. Even in September 2022, Poilievre had a plan for ensuring that municipalities start taking housing seriously. Municipalities have ZERO incentive to build more. They do not even care about the Laffer Curve when it comes to raising tax revenue by lowering development charges.

Timestamp Pierre Poilievre C-31 Response @ 10:08.

[En Français] The conservative government will tie infrastructure dollars for major cities where properties are too expensive to the number of housing units built. This will help to reduce the cost of construction permits, allow us to build more, and we will insist that every time the federal government has a new transit station that the land around must have houses and apartments in order to densify so that people can live near public transit. And third, we will sell 15% of the 37,000 [5,550] federal buildings in order to transform them into housing and create millions and millions places for young people to live and start their families.

Why would this work and not the Housing Accelerator Fund (HAF)? Poilievre’s approach should theoretically work because the federal government has policies such as the Canada Public Transit Fund, where cities across Canada will be getting funding regardless of housing completions. Poilievre is saying that these cities should show they deserve the funding by contributing to making housing affordable (by ensuring supply increases in their cities).

The HAF on the other hand only makes deals with municipalities regarding reforms in exchange for money but does not force municipalities to lower developer charges, even though they increased them just before making a deal with the HAF. Additionally, the HAF deals as far as I can tell don’t have performance incentives either! So a municipality can make some reforms and get the money, without a year over year increase in completions. According to Taxation of Ontario Housing,

1. Tax burden on new housing in Ontario is 31% of the purchase price.
2. Governments make three times more than a builder of a new home.
3. A new home in Ontario has a tax burden twice that of the rest of the economy
4. The federal government is the largest beneficiary of new housing at 39% share of tax revenues. It invests 7.1% in Ontario public infrastructure.

The second point is very interesting because imagine if only your income taxes are at 75% rate and when you ask for income taxes to be lower, people with much lower income taxes, maybe even people who are beneficiaries, are claiming you don’t deserve to make a living. That’s the situation.

The fourth point is relevant because the HAF is rightly increasing the Federal governments contribution to Ontario public infrastructure, however it does not come with the immediate relief of developer charges.

Red Deer is a perfect example of a city that would try it’s best to get a super bonus. They are doing everything wrong during a housing crisis. The Canadian Pacific Railway bridge investment is a perfect example where Poilievre’s policy would’ve ensured indirectly that Red Deer slash their minimum parking requirements (2 per unit even if it’s a studio).

Transforming Federal Buildings into Housing

Improves: land supply (supply-side)

In the previous quote, Poilievre said he would release 5,550 federal buildings to be transformed into housing. This is definitely possible as this is done in some USA cities. Considering our housing affordability is much worse than the USA, “cost” is not a good argument against this policy.

You know we should go back in time and cancel the Bruce Nuclear Generating Station because nuclear energy “costs too much” as well.

Poilievre has also mentioned selling federal land (probably just the land the buildings are on)

Proposing to sell federal buildings and land build housing

6,000 buildings and thousands of acres of federal land

Removing GST on Housing Prices Under One Million Dollars

Improves: primary residence affordability and housing construction competition via demand-side / pricing policies

Put simply, the last time the $450,000 GST rebate threshold was updated was when the GST was announced in November 1991. Using Statistics Canada’s New housing price index, an index of 55.9 in November 1991 is 124.5 in December 2024. Doing some math 450,000 * 124.5 / 55.9 nets us $1,002,236. Poilievre is right in saying that $1,000,000 is the new $450,000 just as $100,000 is the new $60,000.

Mike Moffatt: One simple way the federal government could save Canadian homebuyers nearly $2 billion a year

Mike Moffatt is also on the task force for Housing & Climate. Agreeing with Market Carney about his policies and then disagreeing with policies that Mike Moffatt supports is called being prejudiced (vice versa is also true).

When the Mulroney government designed the GST, they recognized that it could harm housing affordability, so they designed a rebate system to “ensure that the new [GST] system does not pose a barrier to the affordability of housing in Canada.” Since the average home price in Canada exceeds $700,000, very few new home sales qualify for any rebate whatsoever.

…In 2022, the federal government returned only $410 million in rebates, collected on an estimated $5.5 billion collected, for a refund rate of 7.4 percent. In 1992, the rate was over 30 percent.

…in 2024, GST collected on home construction for primary residence ownership homes will exceed $6 billion, and rebates will be under $300 million for a refund rate of under 5 percent.

Here’s a quote from August 1989 by the The Honourable Minister of Finance, Michael H. Wilson.

To qualify for the tax rebate, the purchaser must be a resident of Canada. The new home must also be the purchaser’s principal residence. … The government will review these thresholds at least every two years and adjust them as necessary to ensure that they adequately reflect changes in economic conditions and housing markets.

Another very important quote

The rebate will substantially offset the impact of the tax on the vast majority of new houses purchased in Canada. Indeed, over 90 per cent of purchasers of owner- occupied new houses will be eligible for the maximum 4.5 percentage point rebate. An additional 5 per cent of new homes will receive some rebate of tax. In total, therefore, the housing rebate program will affect over 95 per cent of new house purchases. As a result, the GST will not pose a barrier to the affordability of new housing in Canada.

Axe The Sales Tax on Homes

From the CBC,

People buying new homes currently can get a rebate on the GST they pay of up to 36 per cent, to a maximum of $6,300, for homes valued at $350,000 or less. For homes valued at more than $350,000 and up to $449,999, the rebate is gradually reduced until it reaches zero for homes that are $450,000 or more.

Moffat leaves us with a statement.

However, we also need a suite of supply-side reforms to facilitate the building of new homes

When non-conservative voters heard about this policy, they completely ignored Poilievre’s other policies, but that’s what this article is for.

Two sections prior we talked about how the current federal government is not mandating developer charges to be reduced in exchange for funding infrastructure. Well Poilievre’s entire shtick is that the federal government shouldn’t even have a responsibility for infrastructure and thus should not collect the GST. If the housing GST revenue isn’t even being used to fund public infrastructure in Ontario, why does it exist? It’s a subsidy from home buyers to home owners.

Poilievre said he’ll balance the budget by cutting the Housing Accelerator Fund and Housing Infrastructure Fund.

Building Homes Not Bureaucracy Act

This was release on September 14, 2023, and no one posted it on reddit before. I suggest reading the entire thing.

Building Homes, Not Bureaucracy - September 14, 2023

File Complaints Against NIMBYism

Impose a NIMBY penalty on big city gatekeepers for egregious cases of NIMBYism. We will empower Canadians to file complaints about NIMBYism with the federal infrastructure department. When complaints are legitimate, we will withhold infrastructure and transit dollars until cities allow homes to be built.