Monday, November 27, 2023 
Monday, November 27, 2023
April 8, 2022
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland tabled the 2022 federal budget on Thursday. The Trudeau government aims to tame home prices by spending billions of dollars for new home construction, curbs on speculation and foreign buyers, and help for Canadians hoping to buy their first home, including a new Tax-Free First Home Savings Account.
Every order of government has a role to play in building more homes and making housing more affordable for Canadians. Provinces and territories oversee the frameworks guiding land use, planning, and their targets for increasing the number of new homes. Municipalities implement policies in a manner best suited to their communities.
To help double our rate of construction over the next ten years, make our housing and building stock more environmentally friendly, and address homelessness, the federal government is proposing a range of measures that will:
Budget 2022 proposes to provide $4 billion over five years, starting in 2022-23, to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation to launch a new Housing Accelerator Fund. The fund will be designed to be flexible to the needs and realities of cities and communities, and could include support such as an annual per-door incentive for municipalities, or up- front funding for investments in municipal housing planning and delivery processes that will speed up housing development. Its focus will be on increasing supply, but government supports will be targeted to ensure a balanced supply that includes a needed increase to the supply of affordable housing.
Budget 2022 signals the government’s intention to create flexibility within federal infrastructure programs to tie access to infrastructure funding to actions by provinces, territories, and municipalities to increase housing supply where it makes sense to do so. This flexibility would be included within the Canada Community-Building Fund, when its current administrative agreements with provinces and territories are renewed; and other future infrastructure programs.
The pandemic has had an extraordinary impact on public transit ridership and the revenues that municipalities count on. On March 25, 2022, the government tabled a bill to authorize up to $750 million in 2021-22 to support municipalities as they address their public transit shortfalls.
To increase the impact of this investment, the proposed funding will be conditional on provincial and territorial governments committing to match the federal contribution and to accelerate their work with their municipalities to build more homes for Canadians.
Budget 2022 proposes to provide $1.5 billion over two years, starting in 2022-23, to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation to extend the Rapid Housing Initiative. This new funding is expected to create at least 6,000 new affordable housing units, with at least 25 per cent of funding going towards women-focused housing projects.
Budget 2022 proposes to advance $2.9 billion in funding, on a cash basis, under the National Housing Co-Investment Fund, so that all remaining funds will be spent by 2025-26. This will accelerate the creation of up to 4,300 new units and the repair of up to 17,800 units for the Canadians who need them most.
Budget 2022 announces the government’s intent to reform the Rental Construction Financing Initiative by strengthening its affordability and energy efficiency requirements. Developers who significantly exceed these requirements and build highly affordable and energy efficient units will be eligible to have a portion of their repayable loans converted to non- repayable loans.
Budget 2022 proposes to provide $475 million in 2022-23 to provide a one-time $500 payment to those facing housing affordability challenges. The specifics and delivery method will be announced at a later date.
Budget 2022 proposes to reallocate $500 million of funding on a cash basis from the National Housing Co-Investment Fund to launch a new Co-operative Housing Development Program aimed at expanding co-op housing in Canada. This new program will be co-designed with the Co-operative Housing Federation of Canada and the co-operative housing sector.
Budget 2022 also proposes an additional $1 billion in loans to be reallocated from the Rental Construction Financing Initiative to support co- op housing projects.
Budget 2022 proposes to provide $150 million over two years, starting in 2022-23, to support affordable housing and related infrastructure in the North. Of this amount, $60 million would be provided to the Government of Nunavut; $60 million to the Government of the Northwest Territories; and $30 million to the Government of Yukon.
Budget 2022 proposes to introduce a Multigenerational Home Renovation Tax Credit, which would provide up to $7,500 in support for constructing a secondary suite for a senior or an adult with a disability.
Budget 2022 proposes to provide $150 million over five years, starting 2022-23, to Natural Resources Canada to develop the Canada Green Buildings Strategy. The strategy will include initiatives to further drive building code reform; to accelerate the adoption and implementation of performance-based national building codes; to promote the use of lower carbon construction materials; and to increase the climate resilience of existing buildings.
Budget 2022 proposes to provide $200 million over five years, starting in 2022-23, to Natural Resources Canada to create the Deep Retrofit Accelerator Initiative, which will provide support for retrofit audits and project management for large projects to accelerate the pace of deep retrofits in Canada, including a focus on low-income affordable housing.
Budget 2022 proposes to provide $33.2 million over five years, starting 2022-23, to Natural Resources Canada, including $6 million from the Green Infrastructure – Energy Efficient Buildings Program to implement a Greener Neighbourhoods Pilot Program in up to six community housing neighbourhoods to pilot “Energiesprong” model in Canada.
Budget 2022 proposes to provide $183.2 million over seven years, starting in 2022-23, with $8.5 million in remaining amortization, and $7.1 million ongoing to the National Research Council to conduct research and development on innovative construction materials and to revitalize national housing and building standards to encourage low-carbon construction solutions.
Budget 2022 proposes to provide an additional $458.5 million over the program duration, starting in 2022-23, to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation to provide low-interest loans and grants to low- income housing providers as part of the low-income stream of the Canada Greener Homes Loan program.
Budget 2022 proposes to provide $562.2 million over two years, beginning in 2024-25, for Infrastructure Canada to continue providing doubled annual funding for Reaching Home. This funding will provide longer term certainty for the organizations doing vitally important work across the country and ensure that our communities have the support they need to continue to prevent and address homelessness.
Budget 2022 proposes to provide $18.1 million over three years, starting in 2022-23, to Infrastructure Canada to conduct research about what further measures could contribute to eliminating chronic homelessness.
Budget 2022 proposes to provide $62.2 million over three years, beginning in 2024-25, for Infrastructure Canada, with support from Veterans Affairs Canada, to launch a new Veteran Homelessness Program that will provide services and rent supplements to veterans experiencing homelessness in partnership with community organizations.
From big cities to small towns, the cost of owning a home continues to rise. Young people are finding it more and more difficult to imagine buying a one- bedroom condo—to say nothing of a three-bedroom house. Many of those who’ve been saving for years are being pushed further and further away from where they work in order to find something they can afford.
To help address this, Budget 2022 is proposing a series of new measures to support first-time home buyers and help make the path to ownership a reality for renters.
Budget 2022 proposes to introduce the Tax-Free First Home Savings Account that would give prospective first-time home buyers the ability to save up to $40,000. Like an RRSP, contributions would be tax-deductible, and withdrawals to purchase a first home—including investment income— would be non-taxable, like a TFSA. Tax-free in, tax-free out.
Budget 2022 proposes to double the First-Time Home Buyers’ Tax Credit amount to $10,000. The enhanced credit would provide up to $1,500 in direct support to home buyers.
Budget 2022 announces an extension of the First-Time Home Buyer Incentive to March 31, 2025, and that the government is exploring options to make the program more flexible and responsive to the needs of first-time home buyers, including single-led households.
Budget 2022 proposes to provide $200 million in dedicated support under the existing Affordable Housing Innovation Fund. This will include $100 million to support non-profits, co-ops, developers, and rent-to-own companies building new rent-to-own units.
Buying a home is often the most significant financial decision that someone will make in their life. However, some real estate practices are putting even more pressure on home buyers and leaving them questioning whether or not they paid too much for their home.
Budget 2022 announces that the Minister of Housing and Diversity and Inclusion will engage with provinces and territories over the next year to develop and implement a Home Buyers’ Bill of Rights and bring forward a national plan to end blind bidding. Among other things, the Home Buyers Bill of Rights could also include ensuring a legal right to a home inspection and ensuring transparency on the history of sales prices on title searches.
Budget 2022 proposes to provide $5 million over two years, starting in 2022-23, to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.
Budget 2022 announces a federal review of housing as an asset class, in order to better understand the role of large corporate players in the market and the impact on Canadian renters and homeowners. This will include the examination of a number of options and tools, including potential changes to the tax treatment of large corporate players that invest in residential real estate. Further details on the review will be released later this year, with potential early actions to be announced before the end of the year.
Increasing our housing supply will help make housing more affordable, but it isn’t the only solution.
There is concern that foreign investment, property flipping and speculation, and illegal activity are driving up the cost of housing in Canada
Budget 2022 proposes new measures that will ban foreign investment in residential real estate, crack down on illegal activity in our housing market, and make sure that property flippers and speculators are paying their fair share of tax.
Budget 2022 announces the government’s intention to propose restrictions that would prohibit foreign commercial enterprises and people who are not Canadian citizens or permanent residents from acquiring non- recreational, residential property in Canada for a period of two years.
Budget 2022 proposes to introduce new rules to ensure profits from flipping properties are taxed fully and fairly. Specifically, any person who sells a property they have held for less than 12 months would be considered to be flipping properties and would be subject to full taxation on their profits as business income. Exemptions would apply for Canadians who sell their home due to certain life circumstances, such as a death, disability, the birth of a child, a new job, or a divorce. Exemptions will be set in forthcoming rules and Canadians will be consulted on the draft legislative proposals.
Budget 2022 proposes to make all assignment sales of newly constructed or substantially renovated residential housing taxable for GST/HST purposes, effective May 7, 2022.
To help prevent financial crimes in the real estate sector, the federal government is announcing its intention to extend anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing requirements to all businesses conducting mortgage lending in Canada within the next year.
