Fix the Housing Crisis

Ottawa (Ontario) – The Hon. Pierre Poilievre, Leader of the Conservative Party of Canada and the Official Opposition, announced plans today to get big city gatekeepers out of the way and bring homes to our people:  

“After 8 years of Justin Trudeau, the dream of home ownership has died for 9 out of 10 young people in our country. Canadians are doing everything we asked of them: going to school, getting a good job, working hard, and yet they still can’t afford to own a home. And as homes have become unaffordable, rent has skyrocketed. Young and new Canadians are finding it impossible to even save for a down payment, with all their hard-earned money going into rent and paying for skyrocketing groceries thanks to Justin Trudeau’s inflationary spending and taxes. 

“We have more places in Canada where there is no one, than places where there is anyone. But Justin Trudeau’s refusal to confront big city gatekeepers has resulted in Canada having the fewest homes per capita in the G7. Under the Liberals, the down payment needed to buy a house has doubled. In Vancouver, it’s tripled. Big cities, like Vancouver and Toronto, are the world’s 3rd and 10th most unaffordable cities in the world.   

“In Vancouver, $644,000 of the total price on any given home is going to pay for government permits, zoning fees, and other bureaucratic costs. Senakw, a First Nation housing development with 6,000 homes was held up by NIMBYs because they thought it was too dense and didn’t have adequate parking. In 2022, Vancouver only managed to approve the construction of 6,269 homes. The Broadway Subway expansion, which has received $896 million in federal funding, has faced significant opposition from local NIMBYs and City Councillors for, among other things, trying to build more homes around transit stations.

“Canadians deserve better. That’s why today I am announcing my plan to bring homes people can afford. A Poilievre government will:  

• Require unaffordable big cities like Vancouver to increase homebuilding by 15% annually or face big financial penalties and have portions of their federal funding withheld.  
• Impose a NIMBY penalty on big city gatekeepers for egregious cases of NIMBYism. We will empower residents to file complaints about NIMBYism with the federal infrastructure department. When complaints are well-founded, we will withhold infrastructure dollars until municipalities remove the blockage and allow homebuilding to take place.  
• Reward cities who are removing gatekeepers and getting homes built by providing a building bonus for municipalities who boost homebuilding.  
• Require cities seeking federal funds pre-approve building permits for high-density housing and employment on all available land surrounding transit stations.  
• Sell off 15 percent of the federal government’s 37,000 buildings. We will require these buildings to be turned into affordable housing. 
• Stop printing money. We will require every dollar of new spending to be matched by a dollar of savings. This will end the inflationary bubbles the Bank of Canada created, fueling a crisis in the housing market.   

“It’s time to bring homes people can afford, by removing government gatekeepers to free up land and speed up building permits.”