Manitoba PCs promise to waive land-transfer tax for 1st-time homebuyers
Progressive Conservative Party announces new tax cut on 2nd day of official campaign
Manitoba's Progressive Conservatives are promising to eliminate the land-transfer tax for first-time homebuyers if the party wins a third straight term in office.
Rochelle Squires, the PC incumbent for Riel, made the promise Wednesday on the lawn of a home up for sale in Meadowood, a neighbourhood in her south Winnipeg constituency.
Eliminating the tax for first-time homebuyers would make it easier to purchase homes, said Squires. The land-transfer tax for the average detached single-family home is about $5,700, she said.
Tories estimate the land-transfer tax brings in roughly $130 million to $140 million every year among all homebuyers, Squires said. Waiving it for first-time buyers would reduce provincial revenue by $35 million to $40 million a year, she added.
Squires noted former NDP premier Howard Pawley brought in the land-transfer tax in 1987, while Gary Doer's NDP government increased it in 2004.
"It was an NDP government that created the land-transfer tax, which is among the highest in Canada," she said, flanked by PC Burrows candidate Navraz Brar.
Tory Leader Heather Stefanson did not attend the announcement.
Squires said the Progressive Conservatives will start waiving the transfer tax as soon as possible after the election, assuming they remain in power after the Oct. 3 election.
The Manitoba Real Estate Association said in a statement it is thrilled with the PC pledge.
"Manitoba is the only Prairie province to impose a land-transfer tax, making home ownership less affordable, especially for first-time and low-income buyers," president Chris Dudeck said in a statement.
Homebuyers cannot add the tax to their mortgages, forcing them to save up more money to buy a house, said real estate agent Dustin Lagasse, a PC supporter who attended the Squires announcement.
Speaking at a Wednesday campaign announcement of his own in Winnipeg's Crescentwood neighbourhood, NDP Leader Wab Kinew called the PC pledge "another one of these back-of-the-envelope announcements" and chided Stefanson for not attending her own campaign pledge.
Liberal Leader Dougald Lamont said in a statement the Tories' invocation of the Pawley and Doer governments "is yet another example of the PCs villainizing the NDP with short-term Band-Aids, and Manitobans are caught in the crossfire."
This is the second straight day the PCs announced a tax cut. The party is making affordability the theme of its re-election campaign, while the NDP focuses on health care.