Press release - Maxime Bernier proposes measures to cool down housing market

Penticton, BRITISH COLUMBIA, September 5, 2021 – The leader of the People’s Party, Maxime Bernier promised a series of measures to cool down the overheated housing market, especially in cities such as Toronto in Vancouver. He made this announcement at a campaign stop in Penticton, British Columbia.

Statement by Maxime Bernier:

“Buying a house has become out of reach for many Canadians, in particular for young families living in big cities. Vancouver and Toronto have become two of the most unaffordable urban areas in the world.

Over the past decades, the federal government has spent billions of dollars and created various bureaucratic programs to make housing more affordable, with no apparent results. The fundamental problem is the mismatch between supply of and demand for housing, that Ottawa, the provinces and municipalities are making worse with other policies, in particular mass immigration and zoning restrictions.

A People’s Party government will substantially reduce immigration quotas, from about 400k planned by the Liberal government, down to 100k-150k per year. This will help reduce the excessive demand for housing and cool down the market, especially in the large cities where most immigrants settle. It will modify the Bank of Canada’s inflation target, from 2% to 0%, which will cool down inflation in all sectors, including housing.

It will stop funding social housing, which unfairly competes with private developers and has historically been a financial, social and urban planning disaster in every city where it’s become widespread. It will privatize or dismantle the CMHC, a crown corporation that fuels the housing crisis instead of helping to cool it down. And it will work with provinces to curb speculation and money laundering by foreign non-resident buyers in Canada’s land and housing markets.”

The People’s Party’s policy on housing is available here.

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