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An NDP government would only provide federal home-building money to cities and towns that have strict rent controls, leader Jagmeet Singh promised on Sunday. He said he has no qualms wading into rent control, a matter of provincial jurisdiction, because the housing shortage is a "national crisis." "I could look for excuses all day long," Singh said from Halifax, where the median rent of the oldest apartments increased by more than 40 per cent in the last four years.
"I think a leader is not one who looks for excuses, it's someone who looks for solutions...
. We can absolutely find ways to protect people at the federal level." Under the NDP's plan for national rent control, it said access to federal housing funding would be tied to rent controls and the banning of certain practices that turf people from their homes, such as fixed-term leases, renovictions and demovictions.
These new conditions would be an extension of the limits already in place with the Liberal government's Housing Accelerator Fund, which provides money to local governments that streamline land-use planning and development approvals in order to build more homes. WATCH | NDP vows to convince provinces to tighten rent controls : Singh promises national rent control if elected 3 hours ago Duration 1:23 NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, speaking in Halifax on Sunday, announced that he would tie federal funding for building homes to provincial regulations that would protect renters. The NDP plans to keep that fund, while the Conservatives promised to cut it to partially fund its promise to eliminate the GST from sales of new homes costing less than $1.
3 million. Singh said rent controls will ensure Ottawa isn't helping build homes that only address the lack of affordable options in the short term. "Why would we invest in building homes that are affordable if then, in a couple of years, those homes are no longer affordable? That would be a bad investment," he said.
Some examples of rent control by the provinces could include new rules on rent increases, bans on above-guideline rent hikes and changes to new unit exemptions, the party said in a news release. Singh also pledged to bring rent controls to federally regulated housing, such as military housing and homes on federally owned land, and to ban rent price-fixing. Housing proposals during federal campaign hearken back to a different kind of war Carney unveils signature housing plan he says will double pace of home building in Canada His party's candidate in the Halifax riding is Lisa Roberts, a former Nova Scotia MLA who served as the provincial NDP's housing critic.
After she became a MLA in 2016, Roberts recalls for the first time seeing a person sleeping in a tent in the constituency. Rent controls will help to prevent those outcomes, she said. "It's been really quite dramatic over the past eight years how prevalent visible, persistent homelessness has become," she said.
The Conservatives and Bloc Québécois are slated to make campaign announcements later on Sunday. The Liberals have no announcement scheduled..
