Last issue, we wrote about initiatives the federal government could undertake to help with the ongoing housing supply issue, as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met with his cabinet in Charlottetown, PEI to discuss exactly that.

Indeed, the provincial government and municipal counterparts throughout Ontario now have housing as a permanent high level agenda item, as they all try to find ways to address supply and affordability.

Symbol of hope

Trusting that Trudeau and company would come up with helpful measures, we then counted on the Bank of Canada to hold its target for the overnight rate at its latest announcement on Sept. 6. Thankfully, it did, keeping the influential rate at five per cent – a symbol of hope for prospective homebuyers, if not an actual financial incentive for some to take action sooner than later.

Sure enough, on Sept. 14 Trudeau announced Ottawa would remove the GST from new rental construction, including apartment buildings, student housing and seniors’ residences. This would apply to projects that begin construction on or after Sept. 14, 2023, and on or before Dec. 31, 2030, and are completed by Dec. 31, 2035. He also urged the provinces to similarly remove sales taxes from new rental construction – which Ontario has already said it would “as soon as possible.”

More to come

“The stark and deeply troubling fact is that we are in a housing crisis and face an acute shortage of supply, so it is critical that government leaders come up with steps to spur construction of more housing and purpose-built rentals,” says Richard Lyall, president of the Residential Construction Council of Ontario (RESCON). “We need millions more units and must pull out all the stops to make that happen. The moves proposed (on Sept. 14) are a good start.”

RESCON is also advocating for tax incentive programs that eliminate the collection of taxes on profits emanating from residential construction projects where the funds are reinvested into advancing similar projects. Similar programs resulted in tens of thousands of housing units in the 1960s and 1970s.

These initiatives are a good start, yes, with more to come from all levels of government.