The Ontario government is set to lay out its plan to boost the province’s housing supply on Wednesday, a day after it announced it would hike the foreign homebuyers tax to 20 per cent from 15 per cent, effective Wednesday, in a move designed to help stem soaringThe provincial housing plan will be introduced as a bill at Queen’s Park that looks at changes to planning procedures at the provincial and municipal levels in an effort to build more housing faster.
The foreign homebuyers tax, known as the “non-resident speculation tax,” is also being expanded to include home sales across Ontario. It had previously been confined to the Greater Golden Horseshoe. The changes come at a time when the government says a shortage of housing is helping drive up prices beyond the means of many households. The average cost of a house or condo in the GTA hit $1.3 million last month. A detached house in the city of Toronto was selling for $2 million on average.