Liberal leadership candidate Chrystia Freeland pledged to remove the GST for first-time homebuyers if elected as the next prime minister, a new strategy that bears a striking resemblance to calls made by Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre last fall.
Sources within Freeland’s campaign told CTV News she intends to make the announcement Tuesday, along with a suite of other measures aimed at mitigating Canada’s cost-of-living crisis.
According to the source, Freeland’s GST waiver would apply to homes worth up to $1.5 million and would allow first-time buyers to save as much as $75,000 on their purchase.
Freeland’s GST removal concept echoes calls made by Poilievre in November for premiers to eliminate provincial sales taxes on new homes under $1 million.
Poilievre had also previously pledged his commitment to axe the federal sales tax on new home purchases under $1 million if elected prime minister a month earlier, arguing that these tax cuts would alleviate Canada’s housing affordability crisis.
“Canadians are living through a housing hell after home costs doubled during the nine years of Justin Trudeau’s government,” wrote Poilievre in his letter to premiers last fall.
In the caption for his post, Poilievre claimed that taking federal and provincial taxes off homes would result in savings up to $150,000 on a new house.
Liberal leadership candidate Karina Gould also promised to expand on the First-Time Home Buyer Incentive (FTHB), if elected.
The program, which was discontinued last March, offered “a shared-equity mortgage with the Government of Canada, which offered 5 per cent or 10 per cent of the home’s purchase price to put toward a down payment.”
Gould’s plan proposed to increase the percentage offered through the FTHB for a down payment from 10 per cent to 50 per cent, in addition to offering a tax credit of $2,000 on the provincial land transfer tax for first-time homebuyers.
She also presented an industrial housing strategy that included building cheaper climate resilient modular homes.
The housing crisis will undoubtedly be a top-of-mind issue for the majority of voters.
“Nearly half (45%) of Canadians reported being very concerned about housing affordability because of the rising costs of housing or rent,” according to Statistics Canada’s November Canadian Social Survey.
