In Edmonton, Prime Minister Mark Carney announces that his government will eliminate the GST on all new homes under $1 million for first-time homebuyers. The prime minister also highlights another announcement he made earlier the day, committing $187 million to help Jasper rebuild after the 2024 wildfires. Responding to questions from reporters, Carney comments on his meeting earlier in the day with Alberta Danielle Smith and is asked about his commitment to building new pipelines to get energy to new markets. The prime minister is also a faces questions on the impact of U.S. tariffs on Alberta’s energy sector. (March 20, 2025)

First time home buyers will not be charged GST (5%) when buying a home, as long as the place they’re buying costs less than $1M. This means that people buying a home for the first time will save up to $50k on their purchase.

Edit: Note, GST is mostly only charged when buying newly built homes, so this won’t have any effect for people buying used homes.

  • wise_pancake
    2·
    23 hours ago

    Yes, but making new homes cheaper and more in demand will increase demand for them and that’s where developers can increase supply

    • merc@sh.itjust.worksOP
      2·
      16 hours ago

      Your economics is all screwed up.

      The whole point is that this isn’t making homes cheaper, it’s making homes more expensive, but the government is picking up part of the tab. First time home buyers will be willing to pay a higher price for a given newly built house because some of the money they’ll be spending won’t be their own. If people who aren’t first time home buyers want to compete, they’ll also have to pay more for the same house.

    • howrar
      2·
      21 hours ago

      Isn’t high demand the whole reason that prices are so high to begin with?

      • wise_pancake
        2·
        20 hours ago

        The issue is elasticity of supply

        Housing is relatively inelastic, it’s expensive and takes a long time to build and is sensitive to interest rates.

        Improving demand for the most flexible portion of the market might result in increased supply from developers.