NEWS

Federal Government Releases Canada's Housing Plan

Milton, ON, April 12, 2024 – OMDREB would like to highlight today's announcement by the federal government to release “Canada’s Housing Plan”, which is an ambitious action plan aimed at addressing Canada’s housing crisis and making housing more affordable. This extensive plan outlines the multi-pronged approach and extensive list of measures geared towards increasing housing supply, helping Canadians rent or buy a home, construction innovation, and protecting consumers.

Some of these measures may involve provincial and municipal governments, something that OMDREB acknowledges frequently. OMDREB has been actively advocating for a number of the changes contained within Canada's Housing Plan through the Halton Regional Housing Roundtable, which it helped create. The Roundtable serves to identify any new or reoccurring concerns related to housing, and review and address them on a regular basis with all levels of government and industry partners.

In addition, we know it is essential to stay informed about these developments and their potential impact. We will continue to monitor the situation closely with our Government Relations Committee, and will provide updates as more details emerge. A summary of information contained within Canada's Housing Plan is below, and the full plan can be found here.

In its plan, the government proposes to increase housing supply by:

• Introducing an Accelerated Capital Cost Allowance for apartments.
• Expanding the removal of federal taxes (GST) for rental housing.
• Increasing the annual limit for Canada Mortgage Bonds.
• Providing low-cost loans to build apartments for the middle-class.
• Making the Apartment Construction Loan Program easier and faster to use.
• Launching Canada Builds, a team Canada approach to building affordable homes for the middle class, including on under-utilized public lands across the country.
• Building homes on top of shops and businesses.
• Launching a Historic Public Lands for Homes Plan.
• Modernizing housing data.
• Offering low-cost financing for homeowners to add additional suites.
• Further incentivizing density to existing homes.
• Investing in Indigenous housing and infrastructure.
• Supporting Indigenous people living away from their communities in urban, rural, and Northern areas.
• Helping municipalities legalize housing and streamline approvals.
• Attaching housing conditions on public transit funding.
• Building the necessary infrastructure to support growing communities.
• Leveraging the Canada Infrastructure Bank.
• Implementing an industrial strategy for home building.
• Introducing a standardized housing design catalogue.
• Scaling up new tech to build new homes.
• Investing in new approaches to home building.
• Providing low-cost loans to prefabricated housing projects.
• Simplifying the way that Canada builds homes.
• Making building codes digital.
• Training the next generation of skilled trades workers.
• Improving labour mobility to connect more people to opportunity.

The government proposes to make it easier for Canadians to rent or buy a home by:

• Launching a Tenant Protection Fund.
• Creating a new Canadian Renters’ Bill of Rights.
• Leveraging rental payment history to improve credit scores.
• Extending mortgage amortizations for first-time buyers buying newly built homes.
• Strengthening the Canadian Mortgage Charter.
• Leveraging the Tax-Free First Home Savings Account.
• Increasing the Home Buyers’ Plan withdrawal limit
• Extending the grace period to repay Home Buyers’ Plan withdrawals.
• Making home cheaper to heat, and easier on the environment.
• Helping municipalities enforce regulations limiting short-term rentals.
• Removing tax deductions for certain short-term rental operators.
• Extending the ban on foreign home buyers.
• Combatting mortgage fraud.
• Cracking down on real estate fraud.
• Confronting the financialization of housing.

The government proposes to help Canadians who can’t afford a home by:

• Providing $1 billion for the Affordable Housing Fund to build affordable homes.
• Launching a new Rapid Housing Stream.
• Making the Affordable Housing Fund easier to use.
• Launching a $1.5-billion Canada Rental Protection Fund.
• Launching a new Co-operative Housing Development program.
• Keeping non-profit and co-op homes affordable.
• Introducing more supports to address homelessness.
• Reducing homelessness faster.
• Addressing encampments and unsheltered homelessness.
• Ending homelessness for veterans in Canada.
• Sheltering asylum claimants.
• Funding culturally relevant services, shelter and transitional housing.