2023-09-26 19:38:51
As the housing crisis rages across Canada, Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government announced Tuesday that it was immediately increasing the ceiling of its Canada Mortgage Bond program by $20 billion, to $60 billion. .
This measure, which targets the construction of rental buildings of five units or more, is in addition to the abolition of the goods and services tax (GST) for the construction of rental housing announced last week.
These are concrete measures to get more housing more quickly.
Ms. Freeland maintains that this investment will make it possible to build 30,000 additional homes per year.
The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) estimates the need at 500,000 new housing units per year in the country for the next seven years.
However, approximately 271,000 housing units were built in Canada last year, according to Desjardins estimates.
Reduce risks
With this new measure, certain projects that were put on hold will be able to begin, declared the federal Minister of Housing, Sean Fraser.
The latter says he believes that today’s announcement reduces the risk profile for lenders who are then able to lend at lower interest rates.
These may be residential building projects, student residences or residences for the elderly.
Mr. Fraser indicated that the existing program does not only favor affordable housing so as not to penalize projects promoting social diversity.
At a press conference, Ms. Freeland reiterated her call for the provinces to follow suit and in turn eliminate the provincial tax on multi-residential construction.
So far, Ontario, Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia have followed suit.
Action plans to stabilize the grocery basket
Experts say the shortage is particularly severe in the rental housing sector and is eroding access to housing across the country.
During the same press conference, the federal Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, François-Philippe Champagne, took stock of the measures taken to stabilize the price of the grocery basket.
The solution does not only lie with large grocers, but also with large international multinationals that are part of the supply chain, as well as large Canadian producers like McCain and Cavendish, said the minister.
He says he expects specific action plans from them by Thanksgiving, that is to say within two weeks.
With information from The Canadian Press
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