Ottawa, ON – Scott Aitchison, Conservative Shadow Minister for Housing, released the following statement on bonuses for the Liberal government’s housing bureaucracy:
“Recently, Canadians learned that the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) gave out nearly $32 million in bonuses last year, with executive payouts averaging around $44,000 per person.
“This all happened despite the fact that nearly three years ago, then-Minister of Housing Sean Fraser said that he was ‘happy to review the process by which bonuses are provided’.
“In the private sector, bonuses are awarded based on performance. So let’s take a look at the results.
“According to the OECD, Canada’s home prices have exceeded incomes by 26.1 per cent since 2015, giving Canada the worst housing affordability in the G7.
“That means it takes over half the median pre-tax household income to cover the costs of home ownership. Before the Liberals’ took power, it was under 40 per cent.
“Prime Minister Mark Carney may have run promising to increase home building, but according to the CMHC’s own analysis earlier this year, housing starts in Canada will fall from 259,000 in 2025, to as low as 212,000 by 2028, a drop of over 18 per cent.
“More recently, Carney committed the federal government to bailing out bankers and insiders by purchasing over 2,000 unsold BC condos rather than allowing prices to fall: a move that takes from the taxpayer without providing a single new building in return.
“Bonuses should reward real results: something most Canadians have yet to see.
“That’s why Conservatives are fighting to restore affordability by getting government out of the way: cutting the GST on all new homes under $1.3 million and getting a handle on red tape through measures like the Housing Cost Transparency Act, which would require clear cost and impact information for proposed changes to Canada’s national building codes.
“That’s how we restore the dream of homeownership, so that all hard-working families can have a house of their own on a safe street under a proud flag.”