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Federal Politics

TAS said:
Pierre Poilievre proposes no gst on new home purchases of up to $1million.

On a $500k home, that's a savings of $25k for purchaser.

To pay for it, though, he plans to cut the federal housing accelerator fund (Edmonton was granted $175 million) as well as the $5billion housing infrastructure fund.

The housing accelerator fund was based on incentivizing cities to relax zoning bylaws like Edmonton has already done. The accelerator fund was based on a multi-party housing panel chaired by Don Iveson and former federal conservative MP Lisa Raitt.

www.ctvnews.ca

Poilievre promises to abolish federal sales tax on new homes under $1 million

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre says if his party forms government, it will scrap the federal sales tax on new homes sold for less than $1 million and push provinces to do the same.
www.ctvnews.ca www.ctvnews.ca
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I am skeptical on how he is going to fund this, because I believe in the early years the two funds will not cover this, but it is the sort of simple idea that can be sold easily.

In Canada's more expensive housing markets, it does make housing more affordable for people who can pay $1 million or so, but I don't think it will help those who can't. I suppose those people will be out of luck.
 
policyenthusiast said:
Gives sellers an easy excuse to charge 25k more.
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It wouldn’t surprise me if they have to charge at least that much just to break even. As I understand it, all of the GST that is paid through the course of construction of a new home is an “input tax credit” against the GST paid by the purchaser and remitted to CRA. This is so that there is no duplication on the total GST paid in delivering the final product. This is true for everything that is not “GST exempt”. What will happen if housing becomes exempt for the end purchaser is that all of the GST paid by the seller will now have to be added to the sale price in order to simply “break even” on the GST. One way or the other the purchaser will pay for the GST on construction whether the price is more or less than a million dollars. This is nothing but politicking in search of votes
 
Housing affordability is a legitimate concern/issue, so the GST proposal does addresses that. But one could argue by getting rid of the two housing funds to pay for it, it may be one step forward/one step back with no net benefit.

Also, how it is implemented matters too. As pointed out, just making it GST exempt will embed all the GST already charged before the final product resulting in a smaller saving on the margin and costs that don't include GST. I assume that is not the intention. It seems to me the better way to do this would be to increase the existing GST rebate for new homes accordingly.
 
archited said:
Amen to that! But Alberta is not immune as per last Provincial election.
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Yes, its not just the US, voters everywhere are really grumpy there days, the last few years have been a really roller coaster and not everyone is headed up now.

If Harris, who was fairly energetic, articulate and had some experience couldn't prevail, the current Federal government here is going to lose very badly unless some big changes happen soon.
 
David A said:
If Harris, who was fairly energetic, articulate and had some experience couldn't prevail, the current Federal government here is going to lose very badly unless some big changes happen soon.
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Now would be a good time to project some very prospective people-benefiting plans and make them well engaged with the public, especially rural communities.
 
Sadly, after hearing Americans tell people "that's not who we are", it turns out that's exactly who they are.

What will be interesting to watch is that with the Republicans in control of the House and the Senate, the 47th President won't have anyone to argue or fight with or to fight with him going forward...
 
kcantor said:
Sadly, after hearing Americans tell people "that's not who we are", it turns out that's exactly who they are.

What will be interesting to watch is that with the Republicans in control of the House and the Senate, the 47th President won't have anyone to argue or fight with or to fight with him going forward...
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I guess it is who they are: well off, but angry, powerful, but fearful. The world will have to carry on again as best as they can without consistent US leadership. In some ways, this is what we should be doing anyways.

Too many countries including Canada have been using the US as a crutch for years, for instance in not covering their own defense costs, which just creates resentment there and makes us overly dependent on the US.

If we want to be independent, then we have to be willing to cover this ourselves, not rely on the US.
 
kcantor said:
Sadly, after hearing Americans tell people "that's not who we are", it turns out that's exactly who they are.

What will be interesting to watch is that with the Republicans in control of the House and the Senate, the 47th President won't have anyone to argue or fight with or to fight with him going forward...
Click to expand...

The Republicans don't control Congress though.
 
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