Trudeau's budget eyes young voters with affordable housing push

Housing will be the focus of Canada’s upcoming budget, with Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland emphasizing measures to speed up construction and boost the supply of affordable homes — possibly using government land to do it.

The budget, which is still being drafted ahead of its April 16 release, is likely to include a strategy for building homes on government-owned property, according to housing experts who spoke with Bloomberg. Freeland’s options include a program that would offer long-term, cheap leases to developers of affordable housing projects and setting up a fund to buy provincial and municipal land for the same purpose.

Another idea that’s being floated in Ottawa policy circles involves the use of temporary tax incentives to nudge real estate investors to sell buildings to non-profit housing organizations, with the goal of creating a larger number of cheaper homes to rent out of Canada’s existing supply. The government may also consider tax credits to investors who provide capital for affordable housing projects, similar to a longstanding U.S. program.

“They’ve got to find a way to unlock private capital,” said Tim Richter, president of the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness, who has given presentations on housing policy to members of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s cabinet twice in the past year. “This is a multitrillion-dollar problem. The federal government and provinces together can’t solve it on their own.”