April 17th, 2025
More Homes Canada is a coalition of pro-housing groups from across the country. We believe that building more homes - and a lot of them - is the only way out of our housing crisis. Together, we've developed a housing policy rubric and evaluated proposals from the major federal parties.
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Here's what we wanted to see in Party Platforms:
Use new or existing federal funding as leverage to get municipalities to:
upzone land in major cities to permit apartments and townhouses
accurately track and share data on building permits and demolitions, including number of housing units, square footage and number of bedrooms, in a standard format.
streamline and accelerate the permitting process
eliminate parking minimums near transit
eliminate overzealous setbacks, floor space maximums and angular plane requirements
Require municipalities to permit high density housing around all federally funded mass transit projects
Make changes to the National Building Code to:
allow wood framed construction for taller buildings
allow single-stair case designs for multi-family buildings
harmonize with elevator standards used in Europe and Asia.
Eliminate or reduce GST/HST on all new housing.
Use new or existing federal funding as leverage to get municipalities and provinces to
Reduce development charges and other fees levied on new housing
Eliminate land transfer taxes
Provide funding for the infrastructure needed to support more homes, including sewerage, water, transmission lines, and transportation.
Create/expand training programs for skilled labour
Prioritize immigration of construction trades and related workers and fast-track their integration into the labour force.
Invest in scaling up more efficient home building techniques, including modular and factory-built housing.
Convene a royal commission or intergovernmental expert panel to provide an actionable plan to reduce infrastructure costs, which have risen much faster than inflation and are much higher than many peer nations.
Incentivize private sector investment in home construction
Expand tax incentives and low-cost financing programs for housing projects, like the Apartment Construction Loan Program.
Provide direct funding or low-cost financing for below-market housing projects.
Increase the efficiency of public investment in below-market housing, with the goal of building more units of housing per dollar spent.
Sell prime lots and use proceeds to build on cheaper land
Eliminate cost-escalating frills and project requirements
Make federal land available for affordable housing projects
Read our detailed methodology for a rationale for each Party's grade in each category.