Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you to all of you for being here today.
I have in front of me a report from the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness, “A Multi-Sector Approach to Ending Canada's Rental Housing Crisis”. Are any of you familiar with this particular report?
It's a very interesting report. I have to admit that I haven't read the entire thing, but I'm going through it. One of the authors is Tim Richter, the president and CEO of the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness. Naheed Nenshi, the former mayor of Calgary, is a participant in the report. There are a number of recommendations, but what caught my eye was recommendation number 3. I'll just read it to you. It says:
The federal government should help reform CMHC fees and the federal tax system, including changes to capital cost provisions and eliminating the GST/HST on purpose-built rental housing to incentivize the construction of purpose-built rental housing.
Then it goes into some detail, points “a” through “f”. Point “a” is the removing of the GST on purpose-built rental housing, which the government has now introduced legislation to do.
There are a number of other recommendations here on which I want to get your opinion. I'd like to find out whether you've done any analysis of these recommendations. For example, one of them is:
Defer capital gains tax and recaptured depreciation due upon the sale of an existing purpose-built rental housing project, providing that the proceeds are reinvested in the development of new purpose-built rental housing.
That recommendation comes from a report entitled “Encouraging Construction and Retention of Purpose-Build Rental Housing in Canada”.
Do you have any thoughts about that particular measure? Is there any analysis that you've done?