QUESTION PERIOD — Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation
Affordable Housing
April 6, 2022
Honourable senators, my question is for the government leader in the Senate. According to the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board, in March of 2021 the average selling price of a home in the Greater Toronto Area was just under $1.1 million. Last month, in March of 2022, the average price was $1.29 million, an increase of over 18% in just a year. Our youth are giving up on their dream of owning their own homes. I think of my own daughter, who was distraught because she couldn’t find anything for $600,000, not even a cubbyhole in Toronto.
The program put forward by the Trudeau government to help them has failed. In its recent pre-budget submission, Mortgage Professionals Canada had this to say about the First-Time Home Buyer Incentive program:
The . . . FTHBI doesn’t assist anyone to qualify to purchase a home who would not have already otherwise qualified.
Leader, your government changed the criteria for this program, yet it made no difference. Will you scrap it and bring forward a program that actually helps Canadians?
Thank you for your question and for underlining the very challenging problem — there is no better word for it — for the younger generation seeking the same advantages we had when we were at that stage of life.
The government has put forward programs to help and will continue to work closely with provincial, territorial and municipal governments to do what it can within its jurisdiction to assist young people to be able to find and acquire their homes.
Leader, last month it was reported that just 66 homebuyers in Toronto have qualified under the First‑Time Home Buyer Incentive program since it was created in 2019. This is despite the fact that the Trudeau government made changes in the 2020 Fall Economic Statement that it claimed would increase eligibility for Toronto homebuyers.
Leader, when this program was created, the Trudeau government said it would help up to 100,000 Canadians become homeowners, but as of last November, fewer than 14,000 have been helped. Has your government done an analysis or review of the program to determine why it has been such a failure?
Thank you for your question. I’m not sure that the 14,000 who were assisted would characterize it as a failure, but there is no question that the challenges facing first-time homeowners and, more broadly, Canadians if they own a home and wish to change homes are real and pressing and have been for some time. The Government of Canada evaluates the efficacy of its programs and makes changes where it is appropriate and will continue to do so.
