Sidebar sponsored by
Q&A on national housing issues RHB: What would you like the federal
RHB: What one systemic barrier in limiting rental
government to focus on to support rental housing and rental property owners / developers across Canada?
housing supply nationwide, and what could the government do to help overcome those barriers?
Tony Irwin: The federal government should
barrier is the lack of coordination between all three levels of government. Even with federal low-cost financing, municipal red tape and provincial tax structures keep many projects stalled. To fix this, the federal government should use infrastructure funding as a lever. Transfers should be tied directly to municipal performance, requiring cities to adopt as-of-right zoning, faster approval timelines, and time-limited development charge waiver. The federal government must also work with provinces to create a unified tax environment. Through increased collaboration, all three levels of government can work to remove the layers of cost and delay that currently prevent thousands of units from moving to the construction phase.
modernize tax policy to encourage long-term reinvestment in the rental sector. One of the most impactful changes would be adopting a “like-kind exchange” model similar to Section 1031 in the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. In the U.S., developers can defer capital gains taxes if they reinvest the proceeds from a sale into a new property of equal or greater value. This keeps capital within the housing sector and creates a continuous cycle of investment. RHC is calling on the Canada Revenue Agency to implement a similar program here, provided the proceeds are reinvested into new housing construction. This would provide the market stability and private equity needed to meet our national supply targets.
18 | March 2026
Tony Irwin: The most significant systemic