OTTAWA — He’s taking his fight to the provinces.
One week after Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre made his pre-campaign campaign promise to cut GST on new home sales under $1 million, he’s now making his case with provincial premiers, urging them to follow suit.
Last week during a press conference in the Ottawa suburb of Kanata, Poilievre announced that once he becomes prime minister, he’ll remove the federal sales tax from new home sales, potentially saving homebuyers $40,000 in mortgage payments on an $800,000 home.
In a Monday morning press release, Poilievre said he wrote letters to each of Canada’s provincial premiers, asking them to cut provincial taxes on new home sales under $1 million.
“This common sense tax cut will generate more income for construction workers and businesses, and $2.1 billion of revenue for government,” read Monday morning’s press release.
“Not only will this make housing more affordable for homebuyers, but it will also spark 30,000 extra homes built every year.”
The cost of purchasing a home in Canada has nearly doubled since the Trudeau Liberals took power in 2015 — a dream now far out of reach of much of the middle class, while attempts by the government to improve affordability largely falling flat.
Budget 2024 announced new measures, including plans to build up to 250,000 new homes on public land by 2031, permitting homes on property owned by Canada Post and the Department of National Defence, spending $1.1 billion over 10 years to convert roughly half of the underutilized federal office space into homes, and adding $400 million to the housing accelerator fund.
The Tories are also promising to do away with many of those programs, which they say have wasted upwards of $8 billion as home ownership becomes less and less likely.
“The average mortgage payment has gone from $1,400 to $3,200. The needed down payment for the average home has gone from $22,000 to $46,000. The average rent for a one-bedroom (apartment) has gone from a measly $973 to now $2,200 roughly,” Poilievre said last week.
“It used to take 39% of the average family’s income to make the average payment on the average home every month, back in 2015. Now, it takes 60%.”
The Toronto Sun has reached out to the office of Ontario Premier Doug Ford for comment.
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