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Budget 2019: An Affordable Place to Call Home

Wednesday, 20 March 2019 02:25.PM

Every Canadian deserves a safe and affordable place to call home. Yet for too many hard-working Canadians, especially for young people, it feels like an impossibility. That makes finding a good place to live too expensive – beyond what many people can afford. The measures in Budget 2019 will help to increase the supply of housing, and help more middle class families find an affordable home today through new, targeted support for first-time home buyers.

Today, Jean-Yves Duclos, Minister of Families, Children and Social Development was in Vancouver to highlight Budget 2019, Investing in the Middle Class. The Budget details how the Government is making sure middle class Canadians benefit from Canada's economic growth. That includes helping more Canadians find an affordable home, prepare for well-paid jobs, retire with confidence and afford prescription drugs when they need them.

"Far too many Canadians are being kept out of the housing market by high costs. The very people that make our communities livable – the fire fighters, nurses, and teachers – can no longer afford to live in our communities. Safe and affordable housing builds a stronger sense of security and more resilient communities. So, from supporting first-time home buyers, to helping increase the supply of homes, our Government is working to help Canadians across the country realize their housing goals."
- Jean-Yves Duclos, Minister of Families, Children and Social Development

The Government of Canada is building on the National Housing Strategy by investing to increase supply in the housing and rental markets, and implementing plans to make homeownership more affordable so more middle class families can realize their dream of owning a home.

Through Budget 2019, the Government proposes to:

- Make homeownership more affordable by introducing the First-Time Home Buyer Incentive, a $1.25 billion shared equity mortgage program that is expected to help approximately 100,000 first-time home buyers over the next three years reduce their monthly payments required to own a home.
- Provide first-time home buyers with greater access to their Registered Retirement Savings Plan savings in order to buy a home by increasing the Home Buyers' Plan withdrawal limit from $25,000 to $35,000.
- Help boost supply in Canada's rental market by making an additional $10 billion over nine years in financing available through the Rental Construction Financing Initiative, which will help build a total of 42,500 new units across Canada. This investment will focus on areas of low rental supply such as Vancouver and Toronto.
- Launch a new Housing Supply Challenge to encourage innovative solutions that would break down barriers limiting new housing, and work with other levels of government on long-term housing supply opportunities.
- Promote the recently announced Expert Panel on the Future of Housing Supply and Affordability with British Columbia. The Expert Panel will consult with stakeholders to identify and evaluate measures that could build on recent investments and initiatives to increase the supply of housing to meet demand.
- Increase fairness in Canada's real estate markets by taking action to improve the Government's compliance and enforcement framework for anti-money laundering and taxation.

With these investments, the Government is working to increase access to housing that is affordable, and to help middle class Canadians realize their dream of owning a home.

Quick Facts

- Historic investments in infrastructure, including the National Housing Strategy which is helping more Canadians secure a safe and affordable place to call home. The Strategy is expected to build 100,000 new affordable housing units, repair 300,000 others, and reduce chronic homelessness by 50 per cent over the next 10 years.
- As part of this Strategy, the National Housing Co-Investment Fund was launched in May 2018, and is expected to help build 60,000 new units and repair or renew 240,000 existing units of affordable and community housing.
- Seven provinces and territories have signed bilateral housing agreements under the new multilateral Housing Partnership Framework. These agreements will see more than $7.7 billion in new federal funding flow to provinces and territories over the next decade, to support the stock of community housing and address regional priorities.


SOURCE: Department of Finance Canada

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