Editor's note: This article originally appeared on Parliament Today, a Village Media newsletter devoted exclusively to covering federal politics.
There are a lot of similarities between the housing plans of Canada’s four major national political parties — but experts say there are missing pieces across the board.
Among the similarities are acknowledgements that federal land should be used for housing, high-density developments around transit stations should be permitted, development taxes and fees should be cut, and that there is a need for modular or factory-built housing.
“No matter who gets elected, there should be tremendous potential for the parties to work together on these shared goals of creating more affordable housing, taking as a starting point the things they agree on,” said Dawn Parker, professor at the University of Waterloo School of Planning, before adding, “I don’t think that’s sufficient.”
On Monday, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre revealed his plan to build 2.3 million homes in the next five years, promising to, among other things, financially reward municipalities that permit over 15 per cent more homebuilding, axe GST on new homes under $1.3 million and new rental housing construction, and identify and sell 15 per cent of federal land to be used for “affordable, privately-owned homes.”
“I know Liberals will gasp. They don't want anybody to own a home. They think everybody should live in a government dwelling,” Poilievre told reporters.
While streamlining approval and permitting processes will speed up building, Parker argues it’s “not a key sticking point.” She also disagrees with the idea of withholding funding — which Parker described as a “punitive measure” — from municipalities if they can’t hit permitting targets, noting “most cities are doing all that they practically can.”
“Cities don't build houses. Developers build houses,” Parker said. “Cities don't have enough money to maintain their infrastructure within their cities. We need to be providing that at the provincial and federal levels.”
Carolyn Whitzman, adjunct professor and senior housing researcher, agreed, telling Parliament Today that it appears as though the Conservatives are using a “stick approach and less of a carrot approach.”
“The main problem is that there's gatekeepers, and the main solution is that they're going to get rid of gatekeepers and taxes,” she said of Poilievre’s plan, adding it could enable private sector development. “But the evidence that that's going to work is a bit lacking.”
While the Liberals, Conservatives and NDP all want to use federal land to build homes, Whitzman said the main questions should be “how” and “for whom.”
“What works is a real emphasis on non-market housing, public housing, co-op housing and other non-profit housing,” she argued.
“Definitely more supply leads to lower prices. Whether they lead to affordability is a slightly different question, particularly when it comes to home ownership… if you're actually trying to make homeownership affordable for the middle class, simply increasing supply probably won't be enough.”
Parker said those federal lands should be kept in public or non-profit hands in perpetuity, something the NDP has pledged in its platform.
“Land value is like body temperature,” Parker said. “Right now the land value has a fever. It doesn't need a Tylenol of land taxes. It needs to change the structure of the market through things like getting rid of investor incentives and providing affordable housing finance.”
Do the feds need to be in the housing business?
The housing file is a shared responsibility between all three levels of government, although it often falls to the province and municipalities.
Experts say Ottawa should be involved, but they are mixed as to whether the federal government needs to create its own developer agency to do so, as was pitched by the Liberals.
Leader Mark Carney has pledged to create “Build Canada Homes,” a federal developer focused on building “affordable housing at scale.” The agency would provide over $25 billion in financing for prefabricated homes and another $10 billion in low-cost financing and capital to affordable home builders.
Other promises include cutting municipal development charges in half, building on the Housing Accelerator Fund to reduce bureaucracy and zoning restrictions, and eliminating GST for first-time homebuyers on homes at or under $1 million.
The goal, Liberal Leader Mark Carney said, would be to double the pace of construction to almost 500,000 new homes a year — more cumulative homes than the CPC by the end of five years at 2.5 million.
Whitzman says “it’s not crazy” to have a direct government developer, noting the feds were in the business in the 1940s until Ottawa downloaded responsibility to the provinces. But the “devil is going to be in the details.”
“It's not a huge, radical change from what's been going on lately in terms of housing,” she said.
But Parker says that while government financing is necessary, she is a “little puzzled” as to why the government would want to create new agencies when Infrastructure Canada and the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation are doing similar work.
“I think there are developers out there, I know there are, who are excited to build more affordable housing if they can make the numbers work.”
David Amborski, director of the centre for urban research and land development, added that “you don’t necessarily want to have government running housing.”
“I'm not sure that that's entirely the way to go,” he said. “You're better off to partner with the people who are doing the stuff now more efficiently, rather than trying to create a better wing of government doing this.”
A focus on affordable housing
The NDP has the loftiest goal of them all — to build three million homes by 2030. This, the party said, can be accomplished by replacing the Housing Accelerator Fund with a permanent, $16-billion national housing strategy to enable cities to build quickly.
Leader Jagmeet Singh has also pledged national rent control, to set aside 100 per cent of suitable federal land to build 100,000 rent-controlled homes, and to prevent “predatory financial landlords” from buying existing purpose-built rental apartments and social housing.
“The NDP is saying that they will prioritize what they call rent-controlled housing, which implies two things. One is that it'll be rental housing, because that means rent control, and the second is that generally, that means a higher level of affordability,” Whitzman said.
Parker added that the NDP, as well as the Green Party, have more of a focus on respecting the needs and rights of both vulnerable populations and Indigenous communities.
“I would talk about housing as an essential human need that the government needs to help facilitate, just like health care, education,” she said. “An investor-driven, speculation-driven market is not going to do that. So you see that message coming through on Green and NDP, not on the Liberal and Conservative parties.”
The Green Party has defined affordability as 30 per cent of a household’s income, pledging to triple the amount of social housing in Canada by 1.2 million “permanently affordable homes” over seven years. It has also advocated for stronger rent controls.
What’s missing?
Building over two million homes in five years, as the CPC, Liberals and NDP have promised, is a “very aggressive” target and will be “very hard to meet,” Amborski told Parliament Today. Amborski was on Ontario’s Housing Affordability Task Force.
Land cost is a big factor when trying to make affordable housing, he said, and once you have that, “you’ve got leverage.” If land is shovel-ready, Amborski said it can help developers build quickly when the market allows.
At the same time, governments need to focus on labour and capital, which are in short supply and more expensive, respectively.
“There's also the recognition that governments can't control the housing starts (which) depends on there being a demand in the economy,” he said. “There's also uncertainty because of, not only the election in Canada, but also because of issues in the U.S. tariffs.”
“There’s a lot of macroeconomic factors that affect this as well.”
Parker agreed, noting that investors tend to “jump on speculative opportunities, and they over-invest, and then those bubbles pop,” pointing to high-rise condos.
“To control land value uplift, we need to zone most of our cities between three stories, four units, and, you know, eight to 12 stories,” she said.
“There needs to be a conversation after the election.”
