Conservative Plan to Build Homes, Not Bureaucracy

CHILLIWACK– Mark Strahl, Member of Parliament for Chilliwack—Hope, released the following statement on the introduction of Canada’s Conservatives’ Building Homes Not Bureaucracy Act, a common sense plan to bring homes Canadians can afford by forcing municipalities to let builders build.

“Every day, I hear from people in Chilliwack and Hope who are struggling to make ends meet because their housing costs have doubled since Justin Trudeau took office eight years ago,” stated MP Strahl. “As the cost-of-living crisis rages on, people in our community can’t afford more of the same from the costly Liberal-NDP coalition.”

“Conservatives have a plan to bring homes people can afford by removing gatekeepers and red tape, fining big city governments that block new homes, giving bonuses to cities that free up land, and making federal transit funding dependent on getting more homes completed,” concluded MP Strahl.

The Building Homes Not Bureaucracy Act Will:

Require cities to build more homes and speed up the rate at which they build homes every year to meet our housing targets. Cities must increase the number of homes built by 15% each year and then 15% on top of the previous target every single year (it compounds). If targets are missed, cities will have to catch up in the following years and build even more homes, or a percentage of their federal funding will be withheld, equivalent to the percentage they missed their target by. Municipalities can be added if the region that they are a part of meets these criteria.
Reward big cities that are removing gatekeepers and getting homes built by providing a building bonus for municipalities that exceed a 15% increase in housing completions, proportional to the degree to which they exceed this target.
Withhold transit and infrastructure funding from cities until sufficient high-density housing around transit stations is built and occupied. Cities will not receive money for transit until there are keys-in-doors.
Impose a Not In My Backyard (NIMBY) penalty on big city gatekeepers for egregious cases of NIMBYism. We will empower Canadians to file complaints about NIMBYism with the federal infrastructure department. When complaints are legitimate, we will withhold infrastructure and transit dollars until cities allow homes to be built.
Provide a “Super Bonus” to any municipality that has greatly exceeded its housing targets.
Cut the bonuses and salaries, and if needed, fire the gatekeepers at CMHC if they are unable to speed up approval of applications for housing programs to an average of 60 days.
Remove GST on the building of any new homes with rental prices below market value. This will be funded using dollars from the failed Liberal Housing Accelerator fund.
Within a year and a half of this law passing, list 15 percent of the federal government’s 37,000 buildings and all appropriate federal land to be turned into homes people can afford.

Statement from Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre on the Building Homes Not Bureaucracy Act:

“In Canada, we had a deal. You get a job; you get a house. Justin Trudeau has broken this promise. What’s worse? This wasn’t his promise to break. Politicians break promises all the time. But this wasn’t a simple promise put together by backroom political staffers in an election platform. This was Canada’s promise to her people.

“Today, 90% of young Canadians believe they’ll never be able to afford to buy a home. Even the Liberal government is now warning immigrants that when they arrive in Canada, they’ll have to spend half of their income on shelter alone.

“A Poilievre Government will restore the promise of Canada by building homes people can afford. Liberals think more photo ops are the answer – our strategy relies on a strict mathematical incentive to get Canadians the homes they need. We will stop giving dollars to gatekeepers who get in the way of homebuilding and ensure municipalities build 15 percent more houses every year while giving big bonuses to municipalities that exceed this number. As Prime Minister, I’ll also link federal dollars to the number of homes actually being built and make it as easy as possible for our builders to get shovels in the ground. It’s just common sense.”