Outgoing Saskatoon mayor says Poilievre's pledge to cut housing fund could kill hundreds of housing units
CBC
Saskatoon's outgoing mayor Charlie Clark says a recent pledge from the federal Conservative Party to cancel the national Housing Accelerator Fund (HAF) would put hundreds of already-approved housing units in peril.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilivere announced on Monday that if his party forms government after the next federal election, he would cut the GST on new homes under $1 million.
Poilievre said he would pay for the plan by cutting two government programs — the Housing Accelerator Fund and the Housing Infrastructure Fund — which he described as costly bureaucracies.
The Conservatives say the move would save Canadians $40,000 on a $800,000 house and would spur the construction of an additional 30,000 homes in Canada every year.
Clark said he wants Poilievre to reconsider his position.
"I think trying to figure out measures that will reduce the cost of housing like GST or PST are things that are are worth looking at, but there there is a real risk for the City of Saskatoon of using Housing Accelerator Fund dollars to do that," Clark said of the promise.
He argued the city has already leveraged the HAF to approve 1,600 new "badly needed" rental units, including more than 500 units of below-market housing. He said those units will only be built with the incentives used from the HAF.
The HAF is a dedicated fund of $4.4 billion meant to encourage building in cities across the country, with an objective of 100,000 new units.
In late September, Saskatoon city council approved a plan to divvy out more than $13 million in HAF incentives to housing developers, plus five year incremental tax abatements over $3 million.
"To cancel that [HAF] when we've already put up the the tender and we've already got the proposals in place, would lose all that momentum and even potentially create some some legal or financial headaches that I don't think anybody wants to be dealing with right now," Clark said.
"It is concerning that when you do all that work and you move very quickly to respond to a [housing] crisis, you could see a setback in terms of being able to actually get the units out there and built."
SaskNative Rentals and Camponi Housing Corporation — a non-profit that provides housing for Métis people — got approved for almost $5 million in HAF money for two projects with 184 combined affordable housing units.
Angela Bishop, the chair of the Trustees of Camponi Housing, said the non-profit's projects won't be able to advance without the HAF money.
Bishop said the organization has 700 families on it's waiting list for housing. She said the biggest concern is what would happen to those families if the funding was cancelled.
