Canada can build more homes without 'getting rid of Greenbelts', Poilievre says

Federal Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre says there is no need to build homes on protected Greenbelt lands, as governments look to address the housing crisis across Canada.

"We have to free up land and build more homes, and we can do that without getting rid of Greenbelts or ecologically sensitive lands," Poilievre said during an interview on Newstalk 580 CFRA's The Morning Rush with Bill Carroll.

Poilievre says his plan to build more housing in Canada will include selling off 6,000 federal buildings and "thousands of acres of federal land."

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The Greenbelt in Ottawa comprises of 20,000 hectares of green space, including farms, forests and wetlands. The National Capital Commission owns most of the Greenbelt in the national capital region.

The Ontario government announced last fall that it was removing 7,400 acres in 15 different areas in the provincial Greenbelt to build 50,000 homes, while adding 9,400 acres elsewhere.  Ontario's auditor general suggested the Progressive Conservative government's decision to open up parts of the Greenbelt for housing "favoured certain developers", lacked transparency and failed to consider environmental, agricultural and financial impacts. 

Carroll asked Poilievre whether the Greenbelt is off-limits for the federal Conservative Party when it comes to housing.

"I don't actually know a lot about the provincial Greenbelt issue and I can't comment on that controversy because it's provincial," Poilievre said Thursday morning, asking Carroll if he was referring to the federal or provincial Greenbelt.

"I would say that we don't need to build on the Greenbelt. If you look at Canada, we have the fewest houses per capita of any country in the G7 even though we have the most land to build on.

"If you take an aerial view, not just of the countryside but even around our cities, there's plenty of unused lands right around Vancouver, right around Toronto, right around other big metropolitan centres that is not ecologically sensitive. It's the same kind of land that your house is built on today."

• LISTEN: Opposition leader Pierre Poilievre's interview with Bill Carroll on The Morning Rush, News Talk 580 CFRA

Poilievre says if the Conservative Party wins the next election, his government will take steps to create housing, including selling 6,000 federal buildings and providing cities incentives to boost building permits.

"I'm going to link the number of dollars big cities get for infrastructure to the number of homes that actually get completed," Poilievre said.

"I will require every big city in Canada boost building permits by 15 per cent per year or they will lose federal grants. Those that beat the 15 per cent target will get a building bonus."

Poilievre says he will also require every federal funded transit station to be pre-permitted for high-rise apartments, "so students and seniors can live next to the bus or train."

As the federal Liberal cabinet wrapped up a multi-day meeting on Wednesday in Charlottetown, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the rising cost of housing would be a "core" priority for the government this fall. However, no new initiatives were announced.

"Everyone agrees that it's a complex issue that requires solutions that bring together all orders of government, the private sector, and the non-profit sector… Middle-class Canadians who want to build equity through homeownership feel increasingly like that dream is out of reach. And now, more and more renters in the housing market means rising demand is causing rent to rise for everyone," Trudeau said.

Poilievre says housing costs have increased 100 per cent since the Liberal government came to power, and it's a federal responsibility to address housing affordability.

"It's now 50 to 75 per cent more expensive to buy a home in Canada than it is in the U.S.," Poilievre said. "So, eight years after Trudeau promised he was going to make housing affordable, we have pretty much the worst housing market in the OECD."

With files from CTV News Senior Digital Parliamentary reporter Rachel Aiello and CTV News Toronto's Katherine DeClerq