Ottawa, ON — Scott Aitchison, Conservative Shadow Minister for Housing, issued the following statement on the latest report from the Parliamentary Budget Office that finds Mark Carney’s new housing agency fails to build homes:
“Seven months ago, Mark Carney promised to double the pace of homebuilding to half a million a year with the ‘most ambitious housing plan since the Second World War.’ Today, the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) reported, ‘the government has not yet set out any plan to achieve this goal.’
“Instead of the promised 500,000 new homes, Mark Carney’s new housing bureaucracy will add just 5,200 homes per year. Direct development by the Liberals will see Build Canada Homes (BCH) build just 1,605 units per year, a less than 1 per cent increase in housing construction.
“At his Potemkin village announcement that cost taxpayers over $32,000, Mark Carney said that Canadians should expect affordable rents of $600 to $800. Instead, the PBO found that ‘affordable’ rents under BCH could be even higher than existing, unaffordable rents.
“Applying the Liberals’ own affordability criteria, a two-bedroom would cost $2,168 per month for the median household. That’s nearly double the $1,100 per month national median for market rent.
“It gets even worse for low-income Canadians. After being promised ‘generational investments,’ Mark Carney is slashing social, low-income and Indigenous housing by 56 per cent, and the limited number of low-income housing units will not be enough to stop the ‘decline in overall affordability support.’
“Despite spending $219 million just on bureaucrats to run the new office, it’s unclear why Build Canada Homes was ever needed. According to the PBO, ‘BCH will fund the same types of projects as were funded under CMHC’s Affordable Housing Fund, with the same unit costs and the same distribution of affordability.’
“In fact, it’s making things worse. By building just a handful of homes and doubling rents, Mark Carney’s housing agency will result in zero new homeowners. The Liberals locked a generation out of the housing market, and now their solution is for Mark Carney to become their landlord.
“Mark Carney has also broken his promise to cut development charges in half, with the Canadian Homebuilders Association saying ‘The budget unfortunately retreats from the Liberal platform’s commitment to work with municipalities to reduce development taxes by 50 percent. Over the past two decades, these taxes have soared by 700%, pricing countless Canadians out of the market.’
“The Liberal ‘Ottawa knows best’ approach is what got Canada into the housing crisis; today’s report confirms Liberals will never get us out of it. Conservatives will deliver homes, jobs and hope – solutions that restore the promise of home ownership by axing taxes on homebuilding, requiring municipalities to issue more permits and letting builders build homes where young people can start families.”