Trudeau needs to stop home tax studies | Jan 11, 2022

Ottawa, ON – Matt Jeneroux, Conservative Shadow Minister for Housing and Diversity and Inclusion, today sent the letter below to the Liberal Housing Minister calling on him to halt all future plans to study a tax on homes and to reject the government-funded study to tax Canadians’ homes:

Dear Minister,

As you know, your government funded a study by the group ‘Generation Squeeze’ to look into housing policy in Canada. In the study, it makes the policy proposal of taxing homes worth over $1 million in Canada.

This proposed new tax will push the dream of homeownership even further away from Canadians and take more than $5 billion from homeowners, forcing them to pay tens of thousands of dollars when they sell. This is devastating news for Canadian homeowners in skyrocketing real estate markets like in Victoria, Vancouver and the Lower Mainland, Toronto, and Oakville where the average home price is over $1 million. The simple fact is that this new tax would affect over 20 per cent of homeowners in British Columbia alone and more than one in ten homeowners in Ontario.

Your government has looked into taxing Canadians on the sale of their principal residences before and this is yet just another example. Canadians work hard to save and invest in their homes and their futures, and they expect their government to work equally as hard to find solutions to the problems they face, and to not add to them.

For many Canadians, this is a time of great uncertainty and financial stress. The last thing they need is a new tax that will rob them of their ability to secure their future. That’s why we unequivocally reject this new proposal to tax Canadian homes.

Canada’s Conservatives will never support taxing Canadians on the sale of their principal residence, and we will oppose any attempt to impose a new tax on Canadian homeowners. We are calling on you to be clear and to publicly reject the recommendation funded by your government to tax the sale of primary residences and tell Canadians this will not be implemented now or at any time in the future. We are also calling on you to immediately stop all plans to fund home tax studies in the future.

Chris Lewis MP - Essex

Constituency Office

Ottawa Office