Why experts say federal election housing platforms are varying degrees of unrealistic

Vancouver Sun

25-04-2025

All three of Canada's main political parties are promising to get a lot of housing built fast over the next four years as people across the country continue to struggle to afford either their rent or mortgage. But experts believe the goals they have set are varying degrees of fantastical, at least in the short-term.
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The housing crisis is an intractable crisis with no easy solutions, meaning it is unlikely that any party platform will provide a silver bullet, according to Andy Yan, director of the City Program at Simon Fraser University.
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'It really is a Gordian Knot,' said Yan, referring to the legend of Alexander The Great and the impossible-to-untie knot that he instead cut. 'The solution is then who wields the sword.'
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The federal Liberals, under Prime Minister Mark Carney, have promised to double the rate of home building through the creation of Build Canada Homes, a government-owned entity that would be tasked with developing housing on federal public land.
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Other policies put forward by the current governing party include reviving the Multi-Unit Rental Building Tax Incentive, which the Grits say helped build thousands of units of housing in the 1970s, and cutting municipal development costs in half through federal investments in power lines and wastewater infrastructure.
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Pierre Poilievre's Conservatives have promised to facilitate the construction of 2.3 million homes over the next five years through the selling of 15 per cent of public lands to developers and pre-zoning certain 'shovel-ready zones'.
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The party has pledged to bring in a number of carrots and sticks for municipalities, including tying infrastructure money to the pace of construction. Local governments that increase home building by 15 per cent annually will receive more federal funding, while those that don't will see their share reduced.
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The Liberals have also promised to partially axe the GST for first-time homebuyers purchasing properties valued at $1 million or less, while the Conservatives would scrap the tax completely on new rental housing construction, as well as on purchases of new homes worth up to $1.3 million.
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As for the NDP, Jagmeet Singh's team say they would best both of their opponents through the construction of three million new homes by 2030. This would be accomplished through the replacement of the Liberals' Housing Accelerator Fund with a permanent $16-billion fund split into two parts — the Canadian Homes Transfer and the Communities First Fund.
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The Canadian Homes Transfer would require all single-family zoning be upscaled to allow for multi-unit buildings and for municipalities to increase density around transit hubs — both measures brought in by B.C.'s NDP government.