VOTE 2022: Vaughan-Woodbridge candidates discuss how to ensure affordable housing exists

Yorkregion.com
May 18, 2022

We asked Vaughan-Woodbridge candidates running in the June 2 election five questions.

Here, they tackle an important issue in affordable housing.

The candidates each had a maximum of 150 words to respond.

QUESTION: What steps can we take to ensure everyone can afford adequate housing?

Progressive Conservatives' Michael Tibollo: We have a plan to build 1.5 million new homes over the next 10 years.

Liberal's Steven Del Duca: Ontario Liberals will make buying and renting affordable by building urgently needed homes. We will double the pace of home building this year, keeping that pace until we have built 1.5 million homes. The Liberal plan will create a new Ontario Home Building Corporation to finance and build affordable homes for first-time buyers and housing of all types. We will work quickly with municipal partners to end exclusionary zoning policies. We will ban new non-resident ownership. We’ll also tax empty homes and put a use-it-or-lose-it levy on speculators with serviced land and approved building permits.

Ontario NDP's Will McCarty: Make rent more affordable by helping 311,000 households pay the rent with direct financial support, bringing back rent control and ending “renovictions." Make it easier to buy a home and strengthen homebuyers’ protections by giving you 10 per cent of the purchase price for your down payment. Take on speculators to cool the market by increasing the Non-Resident Speculation Tax (NRST) to 20 per cent, expanding it to the whole province and introducing a speculation and vacancy tax on those who don’t pay taxes in Ontario. Begin to end homelessness by building 100,000 new affordable homes, building 60,000 supportive housing units and restoring the goal of ending chronic homelessness within 10 years.

Green's Philip Piluris: Paving over our green spaces and farmland would be an unacceptable loss to our future sustainability, let alone ecological integrity. Our tax focus will include a vacant property tax, a surtax on turnaround sales, and to steeply increase the Non-Resident Speculation Tax. We will also update zoning laws to incorporate alternative housing strategies that increase residential density while maintaining the spirit of the neighbourhood.

New Blue's Luca Mele: The first step is to audit every level of government and taxes. Second step is we need to implement transparency and remove government over reach on corporate business, homeowners, land owners.