Pierre Poilievre focused heavily on the cost of housing at his Powell River rally [“Political rally in Powell River outlines Conservative policies,” January 15]. He stirred emotions with hyperbolic rhetoric alleging that the federal Liberals and NDP are primarily responsible for the high cost and low supply of housing. Get rid of the Liberals and NDP, elect him, and Shazam!, everything will be rosy.
While taxes, fees, legal costs, zoning and building regulations do factor into the cost of building homes, they don’t approach anything close to the “60 per cent of the cost of a new home built in Vancouver” supposedly going to the government as Poilievre fallaciously claims. In fact, most of those costs are beyond the regulatory authority of any federal government.
Vancouver and Toronto have vied for the most expensive city in Canada for decades. Greater Toronto’s expansive geography produced an increasingly massive low-rise sprawl while Metro Vancouver’s constrained geography forces growth up rather than out. Our mild climate and Pacific Rim location made Vancouver a premiere global city dramatically propelling land values.
The key drivers of housing costs are not the various fees, rather it is land values and the commodification of residential housing. Under federal tax law only 50 per cent of capital gains, including on housing, is factored into personal or corporate income tax, making corporate investment in residential housing particularly lucrative.
The federal Liberals, pressured by the NDP, passed legislation, effective this coming June 25, to increase the inclusion rate on capital gains to 66.67 per cent, with an exemption on the first $250,000 for individuals and certain trusts, but none for corporate investors.
Poilievre promises to eliminate the five per cent GST on new homes only and block the June 25 increase in the capital gains inclusion rate, giving his wealthy backers profiting from the commodification of residential housing a big break. What a “man of the people!”
Jef Keighley
Garden Bay, BC
Join the Peak's email list for the top headlines right in your inbox Monday to Friday.
