this post was submitted on 21 Mar 2025
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PM Mark Carney Announces Elimination of GST on New Homes (www.cpac.ca)
submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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First time home buyers will not be charged GST (5%) when buying a home, as long as the place they're buying costs less than $1M. This means that people buying a home for the first time will save up to $50k on their purchase.

Edit: Note, GST is mostly only charged when buying newly built homes, so this won't have any effect for people buying used homes.

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 day ago (31 children)

Same shit different PM.

These people don't have the fucking cojones to do the right thing and just make foreign ownership of residential homes illegal. And make it illegal to have investment vehicles based on residential properties like ETFs. And straight up make it illegal for a publicly traded company to own residential property. And limit ownership of residential properties per person. And ban AirBnB and the like.

But nooooo. Just make it even cheaper for the already wealthy people to buy even more peppery.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (13 children)

Many of these things you’ve suggested have been tried in various parts of Canada, and while they feel good they haven’t been effective at lowering prices.

We need to build more homes. That’s it. That’s the thing we need to do. Build homes at a faster rate than we add potential new homeowners. Block nimby laws that prevent density and keep building until the prices go down.

Like markets? Enable the market to build em. Socialist? Have the government build em. Someone’s got to. If you want to focus on Airbnb and other feel good stuff fine I won’t stand in your way if we also just build more goddamn homes.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 23 hours ago (11 children)

We need to build more homes. That’s it. That’s the thing we need to do.

We're 3 million homes in the hole according to CMHC. Nobody is pretending we're gonna get those built in the next five years. Along with building houses, increasing density, and reducing limitations on construction; we need to lower the cost of houses.

Like the Lemmite up thread says: tax unreasonable house gains, and disincentivize rentals.

We're in a crisis, we can't wait to build.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

I’m 100% on board with solutions to help mitigate the short-term effects if we also start building now for the medium and longer terms.

The reason I was being prickly on this is that my home city and province (Vancouver) has been doing these feel-good things for years as a politically expedient distraction and excuse to not prioritize building.

So it scares me when people suggest these as the solution —and I’ll include Carneys announcement in with that same bucket. If folks suggest these as a stop-gap relief to the current situation and are also gonna build our way out? Alright I’m on board with that.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

If folks suggest these as a stop-gap relief to the current situation and are also gonna build our way out?

Yes. I think that's a pretty universal sentiment. I don't think I've seen anyone say that we should just do GST rebates - we want construction and immediate relief.

It'll probably be a generation or so until the proportion of homes to people gets back to affordable territory. That's not gonna help me, but hopefully it'll help my kids.

In the meantime, we need to adjust other parts of government to get money out of housing: remove capital gains exemptions on housing, implement the anti-money laundering stuff BC has been asking for; do all the zoning crap; train people for the trades; import trades workers (with a path to citizenship); increase density; etc etc etc.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

You're correct that no one says that, but that seems to be what's been happening. So I want the focus to be on the things that are going to deliver the actual results.

But maybe also I can get my head out of my own ass and not derail your enthusiasm for helping things in the here and now. So yeah, I'm with you. But let's make those things a comma. I want my leaders at the federal, provincial, and municipal level to start moving the needle today, and stay focused in the months and years to come and ensure that the steps they are taking are the ones that are making meaningful improvements.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) (1 children)

I’m with you.

Awesome! Please email your MP and ask them to address the housing crisis. I typically send something along the lines of:

  • task CMHC with building the 3.5 million units necessary to return housing to affordable levels,
  • restoring public housing construction to historic levels (20% of all new builds) with mixed income models to ensure sustainability and maintenance of public housing stock,
  • removing income tax exemptions on the sale of primary residences,
  • increasing the number of people in the trades through training and adjustments to the points system for immigration,
  • increasing tax on foreign owners of Canadian property and implementing a beneficial owner registry for property,
  • strengthening anti-money laundering laws and enforcement.

I've sent similar messages to my MP, MLA, and councillors over the past few years.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

I have written my MP about this multiple times, signed a counter-petition against a movement to block a high rise in my building, and promoted the development with my neighbours. I’m also meeting my MP tomorrow and I won’t shut up about this, I promise.

And if they don’t move the needle I’m gonna vote the bastards out and support the next ones instead. I don’t care if it drops my house value — because my kids deserve to be able to afford to live.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

I haven't gone as far as meeting with my MP, but I ran a mailer site so people could mail their three levels of rep. It sent a lot of messages and got some feedback from officials, but it's hard to know if any of them cared.

Meeting in person sounds more effective.

I don’t care if it drops my house value — because my kids deserve to be able to afford to live.

Same. I think there's a lot of (potential) homeowners who feel that way.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 14 hours ago

Nice! By the way I wasn’t trying to win some dick measuring contest, when I say I’m going to meet him it’s more like I’m volunteering for the election and I’ll get maybe a few minutes at most in. I appreciate your activism, you fucking rock.

But housing has been my #1 issue and only recently dropped to #2 thanks to our need to defend our country and economy. However using BC lumber to build Canadian homes and apartment buildings instead of shipping it down south ties into that at least tangentially.

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