Poilievre pledges measure to cut home prices; some supporters skeptical of polls

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This article was published 10/04/2025 (201 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

MILTON – Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre says his party’s plan to incentivize municipalities to cut development charges would make it easier to build housing and make homes cheaper for first-time homebuyers.

Poilievre was west of Toronto on Thursday at a building site in Milton, Ont., where he proposed a plan to reimburse cities for half of every dollar they cut in development charges.

Development charges, paid by builders ahead of construction, help to fund new supporting infrastructure such as roads and sewers.

Poilievre said these rising costs are adding to the price of homes.

“More money from a new home today built in Canada goes to bureaucrats in office buildings than goes to the carpenters, electricians and plumbers that actually build the homes,” he said.

One of the workers who appeared with Poilievre at the announcement in Milton bore a sticker on his helmet that read “F*ck Trudeau.”

The Conservative campaign did not respond to questions via email about whether it was aware of the sticker before the announcement.

Poilievre finished the day with a rally in Woolwich, Ont., just north of Kitchener-Waterloo, where hundreds of Conservative supporters filled an aircraft hangar.

Reporters were taken to a holding room before the rally, separated from supporters filing into the space, before being led to a roped-off area where media could film and observe.

Waving a white sign that read “Pierre 4 PM” in the crowd was Kapish Dokania, who said after the rally that he had never seen such support for Conservatives in the region.

“I love Pierre. I mean, he’s the only one who can change Canada for good, you know. So yeah, we have a lot of hope in Pierre,” he said.

Bonnie Boyce said she came out to see Poilievre speak live. After the rally, she said he seemed “very trustworthy” and instilled confidence in his plan for Canada.

“I’m so glad that we have him fighting for Canada. We need him,” she said.

Both Dokania and Boyce said they were not discouraged by polling that has shown the Conservatives trailing the Liberals in recent weeks.

“I don’t think they’re getting the true picture at all,” Boyce said, referencing the turnout at the rally in Woolwich.

Dokania said he does not trust mainstream polls, calling them “rigged,” and said he has seen alternative polls that project a big victory for the Conservatives.

Poilievre was asked Thursday if he would commit to accepting the results of the federal election, to which he replied, “yes.”

Asked a similar question Thursday, Liberal Leader Mark Carney and NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh both said they would respect the results of the federal election on April 28.

Poilievre did not respond to a portion of the same question asking if he believes in the veracity of national polling data that shows the Conservatives falling behind the Liberals.

The Conservative campaign did not respond to followup inquiries seeking clarification on Poilievre’s position.

Some supporters at Poilievre’s rally on Wednesday night in Brampton, Ont., wore clothing and carried a large sign with the slogan: “Do you believe the polls?”

According to a party backgrounder document on Poilievre’s housing announcement, the Conservatives are promising to reimburse municipalities 50 per cent of the amount they cut from development fees, up to a maximum of $25,000 per home.

The Conservatives say that, combined with their plan to lift the GST from purchases of new homes under $1.3 million, the total benefit for homebuyers would be up to $115,000 per home.

Mike Moffatt, executive in residence at the Smart Prosperity Institute and who advised deputy ministers on innovation policy in 2017, said reducing development charges and lowering the cost to build likely would help with housing affordability — but only indirectly.

Affordability would improve not because builders are “benevolent” and would pass on the savings from lower development charges, he said, but because an overall growth in housing stock would help to keep price growth in check.

Moffatt said development charges have “absolutely contributed to affordability challenges” in recent years, particularly in Ontario and British Columbia.

In cities such as Toronto, development charges can be well over $100,000 depending on the form of housing, Moffatt said. Those costs, alongside other fees, are at the point where they’re holding up the pace of new construction because projects are no longer economically viable, he said.

“That’s before you get a shovel in the ground or even buy the land,” he said. “They’re a big, big driver of increasing home prices.”

The Liberal party’s housing platform also includes a plan to cut development charges in half while working with provinces and territories to “keep municipalities whole.”

The NDP, similarly, has pledged to secure a freeze on development charges and work with provinces to cut those fees in half.

The federal government’s existing Housing Accelerator Fund already looks to incentivize cities to lower barriers to home construction in exchange for funding.

Moffatt said he’s not convinced the parties’ proposals to freeze or lower development charges will have their intended effect without a sweeter deal for cities.

Development charges have been the “least controversial” source of revenue for municipalities in recent years, as provincial funding for housing tightened and cities were reluctant to hike property taxes, he said.

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Moffatt said the Conservative proposal doesn’t sound like it would offer enough to convince municipalities to take the deal.

“Basically, what the Conservatives are doing is saying, ‘Well, if you lower development charges by $2, we’ll give you $1 back,” he said.

“And I think a lot of municipalities would say, ‘Well, yeah, but I’m still a dollar short.'”

— With files from Anja Karadeglija in Ottawa

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 10, 2025.