Hon. Salma Ataullahjan: Honourable senators, my question is for the government leader in the Senate. According to the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board, in March of 2021 the average selling price of a home in the Greater Toronto Area was just under $1.1 million. Last month, in March of 2022, the average price was $1.29 million, an increase of over 18% in just a year. Our youth are giving up on their dream of owning their own homes. I think of my own daughter, who was distraught because she couldn’t find anything for $600,000, not even a cubbyhole in Toronto.

The program put forward by the Trudeau government to help them has failed. In its recent pre-budget submission, Mortgage Professionals Canada had this to say about the First-Time Home Buyer Incentive program:

The . . . FTHBI doesn’t assist anyone to qualify to purchase a home who would not have already otherwise qualified.

Leader, your government changed the criteria for this program, yet it made no difference. Will you scrap it and bring forward a program that actually helps Canadians?