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.

  • UraniumBlazer@lemm.eeEnglish
    1·
    1 day ago

    It’s still a step in the right direction tho, eh? Of course, it needs other policies in addition to it like:

    • MANY preapproved house designs to spend less time in bureaucracy. I think Carney’s already doing that, right?
    • Removing single family zoning. This comes under provincial/municipal governments from what I know. My municipality has already done this.
    • The big tax thing you suggested. I would go ahead and say that there should be an outright ban on owning more than 2/3 properties by private individuals/corporations (this excluded non profit housing coops). But yeah, it’ll be wildly unpopular. See how the carbon tax turned out.
    • merc@sh.itjust.worksOP
      4·
      1 day ago

      Yeah, it will help a bit. But it’s a really, really big problem. I think it’s going to take decades to fix. But, if they can at least make it so house prices stabilize and only increase at the same rate as everything else in the economy, that would be a big step in the right direction.