British Columbia has finally got its long-awaited housing deal from Ottawa, but it’s not quite as lucrative or popular as the package given to Ontario.

Prime Minister Mark Carney showed up to Vancouver on Thursday with a very different deal for this province, one that prioritizes helping the development sector over lowering prices for homebuyers.

Carney announced $5 billion over 10 years on housing, health care and transit.

The core is $1.6 billion—cost-matched by the B.C. government to $3.2 billion—to help municipalities in “priority communities” cut development cost charges on multi-unit housing projects and still fund the water, wastewater and road infrastructure.

It could shave off as much as $40,000 per unit in a high-rise condo, according to the prime minister.

Whether those savings go directly to new condo buyers, or are gobbled up by B.C.’s beleaguered developers, is one critical question.

Another is why B.C. did not get the same kind of tax relief as Ontario, where the federal government cut the 13 per cent HST on new home sales up to $1 million, saving people as much as $130,000.

Premier David Eby took a stab at explaining why he didn’t consider that necessary in his made-in-B.C. housing package.

“The federal government has eliminated GST already for first-time homebuyers here in B.C.,” said Eby.

“We’ve eliminated the property transfer tax for first-time homebuyers on properties in British Columbia. And we don’t have PST on those homes. So if you’re a first-time homebuyer, you’re already getting the Ontario program in B.C.”

Not quite. Ontario’s tax cut applies to all new homes—whether a person is a first-time buyer or not. That’s already resulted in a 160 per cent jump in sales in Ottawa in the first month, according to CBC.

Overall, B.C.’s aid package is far less focused on the buyer side. For example, the province is getting an undisclosed amount of money from Ottawa for “condo conversion” of empty developer units.

“There’s too many completed condos sitting empty,” said Carney.

“In Metro Vancouver alone, around 2,500 finished units are standing vacant with no buyers. With higher interest rates, weaker investment demand, developers are stuck. They don’t want to sell at a loss. They can’t afford to hold those empty units indefinitely.

“And the problem is that those empty homes don’t just sit idle, they also disincentivize new construction, unsettle lenders and investors, create a housing market that, in effect, feels frozen.”

There are few details on how that program will work.

Carney suggested it could involve the two levels of government buying empty units and renting them, or purchasing them and using preferred government financing to stretch out borrowing and interest costs to drive down the price.

Unlike Ontario, some of B.C.’s federal deal included money for health care. Ottawa and B.C. will split $1.2 billion in funding to expand hospitals, ERs and other health facilities. That’s not only a reflection of how bad the health-care issue is in British Columbia, but also how cash-strapped the B.C. government is in tackling it during a record $13-billion deficit year.

There’s also federal money for transit. But it’s oddly limited.

Carney offered $2.5 billion over 10 years for projects like the Surrey-Langley SkyTrain extension, which Ottawa was already supporting anyway. There’s no money for the George Massey Tunnel replacement project, which is spiralling out of control after the B.C. government fired the design-build companies this week.

In the end, don’t expect B.C.’s new federal aid package to supercharge housing sales like in Ontario. In that province, the tax holiday has created a major public buzz. Here, for most ordinary British Columbians, the deal will be met with a shrug.

Rob Shaw has spent more than 18 years covering B.C. politics, now reporting for CHEK News and writing for BIV. He hosts the weekly show Political Capital and has a NEW daily podcast, Political Capital Daily.

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