Singh’s comments come as provincial NDP leaders and the real estate industry in B.C. have been asking Ottawa to connect its spending on housing initiatives with plans to accept half a million new permanent residents by 2025 to cope with an extremely tight labour market and the need for people with certain skills, experience and education.
B.C. Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon said in late March that he had spoken to the federal (Liberal) Minister of Housing several times, urging the Trudeau government to widen federal funding to increase both housing starts and affordable housing units.
“We know it’s going to be critically important to build that stock for people that are coming, not only the new immigrants, but also the temporary residents that are being recruited to come to Canada. We want those that are coming to be successful,” said Kahlon.
Singh emphasized the federal NDP and federal Liberals are not in a coalition. They have a confidence-and-supply agreement that started in 2021 when the federal Liberals were re-elected with a minority government. It lasts until the next election in 2025 and means the NDP agrees to not vote against the Liberals in exchange for advancing certain NDP priorities.
“We’re not in cabinet or sworn into treasury board and I don’t have any of the kind of commensurate powers that come with being in a coalition,” said Singh.
The B.C. Real Estate Association currently estimates that in order to offset the impact of record levels of immigration on the housing market and keep a check on rising prices the province will need to build 25 per cent more homes than it has been averaging and sustain this for the next five years.
Singh was in Burnaby Sunday morning alongside Jenny Kwan, the MP for Vancouver East and the NDP Housing Critic, and Bonita Zarrillo, the MP for Port Moody-Coquitlam. He announced a plan for a national acquisition fund that would support non-market housing providers in buying buildings so they aren’t bought by REITs and other corporate landlords who can significantly increase rents every time they are able to find a new tenant.
They stood outside Cardston Court, a co-op housing development the provincial government bought in July 2022 for $136.2 million, including $22.5 million for renovations, in order to preserve 425 units of affordable housing for seniors.
Since then, the B.C. NDP has announced a $500 million Rental Protection Fund to help more non-profit housing providers compete against deep-pocketed private landlords.
Singh said a national acquisition fund could support what some provinces, such as B.C., are already doing. He did not give a ballpark figure as to how large this fund would be, but said the idea would be for it to be significant enough to support a moratorium on apartment buildings being purchased by for profit landlords.
Critics who support REITs and larger companies buying older apartment buildings counter that many of these are in need of extensive renovations in order to improve their condition.
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