If we don't build more supply, we will never escape the housing crisis. The decision to eliminate GST from new apartments is designed to build more supply. We have estimates that between 200,000 and 300,000 new apartments will come online as a result of that one policy change. It is a big deal. What gives me comfort that we're going to achieve that is that we saw provincial governments line up afterwards to say that they want to do this, too. In fact, some were out in front of us.
The key difference between what the parties were proposing is whether we're going to have a broad-based program to grow supply or whether we're going to cut it off for apartments above a certain value. That would have the unfortunate consequence of creating an enormous level of bureaucracy. It would slow down the process of building and it would also eliminate the ability of builders to build mixed-use developments, which I described in favourable terms earlier.
My view is that we need to do everything we can to build as many homes as possible, including a blanket waiver of the GST.