The high cost of buying or renting a home in Ontario – and what to do about it – is likely to be a major theme in the 2022 regional election campaign.
Premier Doug Ford and the Progressive Conservative Party have shown plenty of signs of concern about the potential political impact of rising home prices across the province.
The prime minister is holding a housing summit with mayors of Ontario’s 29 largest cities scheduled for January, urging municipalities to speed up development approvals, and polling PCs polling voters on what the government should do to make housing affordable.
The latest figures from the Canadian Real Estate Association show the average home sale in Ontario is 44 percent higher than it was two years ago, and is expected to rise by another 11.5 percent in 2022.
While the Ford government is focused almost entirely on boosting the supply of new housing as a way to rein in those high prices, opposition New Democratic, Liberal and Green parties are putting forward a host of other ideas as well.
“There is no doubt that the show has to be part of the solution,” said NDP housing critic Jessica Biel. “What the Ontario government has failed to do is the other crucial pieces of the puzzle.”
Opposition parties are united in their opinion that the cost of the house will echo in the campaign in 2022.
“Affordability of housing will be the critical issue in the upcoming elections,” Bell said.
“Every community I go to, housing affordability is the number one issue that interests me outside of COVID,” said Green Party leader Mike Schreiner.
“Now it’s no longer just a concern, it’s a whole real crisis of supply and affordability,” said Liberal leader Stephen Del Duca.
The National Party set housing policy in 2020, and senior party officials say they plan to strengthen it for the election campaign. The Green Party released the 61-page housing strategy in June 2021.
The Liberals haven’t yet launched a housing platform, but Del Duca promises a promising platform early in the new year.
The NDP proposes helping first-time homebuyers make the down payment through a combined equity loan of up to 10 percent of the value. The loan will not have to be repaid until the home buyer sells or moves abroad, and the program will only apply to people with household incomes under $200,000.
To boost the housing supply, the New Democrats are pledging to work with municipalities to implement a range of planning and zoning changes they say will encourage the development of so-called “lost” homes, such as duplexes and townhouses.
Targeting real estate speculation is an important part of the NDP’s plan.
“This government consistently fails to recognize … that our housing market has become a speculator’s paradise,” Bell said. She said investors were “easily outbidding first-time home buyers and driving up home prices.”
The NDP proposes an annual speculative tax and a vacant tax on residential property, similar to the British Columbia version. The tax – which is 2 percent of the assessed value of the property – will apply to homes throughout the Great Golden Horsehoe region to owners who do not live in the home or who do not pay taxes in Ontario.
“It incentivizes investors to rent out that house to a long-term tenant or to sell the property,” Bell said. The tax proceeds will go to a fund designated for affordable housing.
The NDP also includes measures to tighten regulation in the condominium market and expand rent control to apply to units even when tenants change.
The Green Party’s housing strategy shares many similarities with the NDP’s plan, although there are differences in some details.
The Greens are promising to develop a down payment support program to help first-time low- and middle-income homebuyers, but they’re leaving open exactly how it will work. They also propose a tax on vacant homes, and put the revenue into affordable housing programs, but suggest that it be rolled out across the county.
“We have to take speculation out of the housing market,” Schreiner said. “Homes should be for the people.”
Zoning and planning changes that encourage what the Greens call “inclusive, accessible neighborhoods where we live, work and play” form the backbone of the strategy.
“We need to build sustainable, livable and affordable communities, and increase the supply of housing within our existing built environment because that is more cost effective and also protects our environment,” Schreiner said.
Other themes shared by the Greens and the NDP: a big push to build more affordable housing subsidized by the government, regulating short-term rents and tackling money laundering in the housing market.
Additionally, the Greens are proposing an unspecified increase in the provincial land transfer tax on all single-family homes valued at more than $3 million.