QUESTION PERIOD — Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation
First-Time Home Buyer Incentive
May 3, 2022
Honourable senators, my question is for the government leader in the Senate.
According to the Canadian Real Estate Association, in March the average price of a home was over $874,000 — an increase of 27% in just one year. In the Greater Toronto Area, the average cost of a home has gone up another 2.7% in one month.
Right now, the maximum qualifying purchase price under the First-Time Home Buyer Incentive is lower than the average cost of a home across much of Canada. In its recent budget, the NDP-Liberal government is once again promising changes to this program — the third attempt to change this program in the three years it has been in existence.
Leader, why is the NDP-Liberal government doubling down on this failed program, which has never worked in the way it was promised?
Thank you for your question and for underlining the challenge to Canadians, especially those seeking to buy their first home, not only in Toronto, where I had the pleasure of living for many years, but really all across this country, even in smaller communities.
The government continues to try to do its part along with the provinces, municipalities and the private sector to address this very pressing problem for Canadians. It designs programs based upon the best judgment and information as to what would help, and when experience shows that adjustments need to be made it will make those adjustments. That’s the prudent and responsible thing to do.
I don’t want to go off on a tangent, but public policy-making is and should be a matter of, in some sense, trial, and when there is error, failed results, incomplete results or inadequate results, to make adjustments.
This is not a matter, senator, of doubling down on a failed program. This is a matter of doing the government’s part and its best to tailor programs and adjust as circumstances change, as they certainly have changed in our economy throughout this pandemic and as we emerge from it.
So in that regard, the Canadian government will continue to work to do its part to assist Canadians seeking to enter this rather overheated and challenging housing market.
