Liberal MPs on the House of Commons ethics committee shut down debate on a Conservative motion to investigate the government’s plan to buy vacant condos in British Columbia.
The federal and B.C. governments have announced a plan for Ottawa to buy 2,200 vacant condo units to convert into affordable housing, which Prime Minister Mark Carney has said would cost around $1.5 billion. Conservatives are calling the policy a “bailout” for condo developers, and are asking for disclosure on who initially asked for the policy.
On July 7, Conservative MP and critic for ethics and accountable government Aaron Gunn tabled a motion requesting that the ethics committee undertake an “urgent study” into the policy, and invite several ministers and businesspeople to testify during a minimum of six committee meetings.
The Liberals majority on the committee shut down further debate and the meeting was adjourned shortly after.
Gunn’s motion calls for testimonies from federal Housing Minister Gregor Robertson, Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim, B.C. Liberal Party Chair Duncan Wlodarczak, condo marketer Bob Rennie, and representatives from Brookfield Asset Management, which Mark Carney chaired before becoming prime minister in 2025.
Gunn’s motion said that the Liberals’ plan would bail out housing developers, bankers, and investors using taxpayers’ money, and would fail to make housing more affordable by preventing “a price correction from taking place, preserving high prices for developers rather than lowering them for British Columbians trying to enter the housing market.”
He said the policy raised some “pretty obvious ethical questions” about who lobbied for the policy, if it will be expanded to more cities, and “which well-connected developers, big banks, and foreign investors stand to benefit the most?”
Carney told reporters last week that no condo developer had “asked for this from me directly,” and said the B.C. government had “initiated the idea.” B.C. Premier David Eby told reporters that the federal government was “enthusiastic about us announcing this [policy] before all the details were out.”
The Liberal government says the program will help accelerate homebuilding in B.C.
Conservative MP Gabriel Hardy told the committee that in February, Rennie organized a fundraiser to meet with Carney, which cost $1,750 to attend. He said 17 condo developers were present at the fundraiser.
Hardy added that in May, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation reported a 76 percent surge in unsold completed condos in Vancouver. He said that on June 3, Brookfield made a deal involving eight industrial properties with Concert Properties, which owns thousands of unsold condos in B.C., just 15 days before the government announced the condo policy.
“Then, all of a sudden, there’s announcements in cities and sectors that would interest Brookfield and in which Brookfield has made investments. Should we investigate? Yes, it’s the goal of our committee to do so,” Hardy said.
NDP MP Jenny Kwan told the committee that her party had questions about whether the Liberals’ condo policy was “addressing the root causes of housing and affordability.” She also said that the policy is a “bailout for developers, even though the prime minister wants to pass it off as affordable housing.”
“I don’t agree with my Conservative colleagues very often, but this scheme has major problems, and it does not pass the public smell test,” she said, adding that taxpayers’ money should instead be spent on constructing new social and co-op housing.
Liberal MP Wade Chang, who represents a Vancouver riding, told the committee that the policy would allow units to be acquired below the market rate and converted into affordable housing for “people that otherwise would not have been able to own a home.”
“At the end of the day, this committee has a choice: spend more time debating speculation instead of solutions, or spend it getting families into homes,” Chang said.
