Tenants and politicians are warning Toronto will see more people experiencing homelessness if action isn’t taken to address the city’s housing crisis.
NDP Housing Critic and Vancouver MP Jenny Kwan is travelling in Ontario calling for the federal government to bring in a moratorium on the acquisition of housing by corporate landlords, and to close tax loopholes associated with Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs).
“Those investors right now do not pay the corporate tax rate. Even though they operate like a corporation. And the government has given them a tax break for all these years. The corporate tax rate is 38 per cent, but they don’t pay that corporate tax,” Kwan said at a press event in St. James Town, in northeast Toronto, on Tuesday.