In his successful campaign to lead the Liberal Party of Canada, Mark Carney committed to doubling the pace of overall housing construction across the country and also to doubling the number of non-profit community housing units, including co-op units. He put no timeline on the non-profit goal. This congregation’s Affordable Housing Team has been pushing for doubling and more within a decade.
“Housing with be at the heart of Mark Carney’s economic plan,” his campaign site says.
His government will “forge new partnerships across all orders of government, the private sector and civil society” to double the supply of non-profit housing “to ensure that every individual has a safe, stable place to call home.” Many organizations and housing researchers have endorsed the goal of at least doubling the supply, although housing researcher Dr. Carolyn Whitzman, in her detailed calculations of needs, suggests something closer to tripling is needed.
Canada has built about 227,000 homes of all types and price levels a year for a decade. Carney pledged that “by aggressively unlocking private risk capital for new home construction,” that number can be doubled “so that we can build 4 million homes over the next several years.” That will also require providing incentives for innovation, including in prefabrication and modular housing, growing the skilled construction workforce and providing infrastructure funding so that municipalities can reduce fees, including development charges.
The Carney platform also called for eliminating the GST for first-time homebuyers on homes under $1 million.
You can read his housing platform here: https://markcarney.ca/housing