Converting British Columbia\u2019s glut of unsold condos into affordable housing is about supporting Canadians, not distressed developers, Prime Minister Mark Carney said Thursday as he defended his government\u2019s proposal.<\/p>\n
Speaking to reporters at a press conference in Ottawa, Carney acknowledged the Liberal government had done a poor job of explaining the program laid out in Vancouver a week earlier.<\/p>\n
A press release issued by the Prime Minister\u2019s Office on June 18 said Ottawa and the B.C. government plan to \u201cleverage innovative financing tools to convert more than 2,200 vacant condo units in priority growth areas into affordable homes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Carney said Thursday the federal government would put up 10 per cent of roughly $1.45 billion in total potential spending to convert the units, with the B.C. government footing the rest of the bill.<\/p>\n
These vacant units would be offered to Canadians under a rent-to-own framework.<\/p>\n
Carney used the word \u201cpotentially\u201d multiple times Thursday to describe the proposal and stressed that no specific transaction is on the table yet.<\/p>\n
Critics, including Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, have accused the Liberal government of offering a bailout to developers who built too many condos and are now facing the prospect of steep losses if they\u2019re forced to sell in a slow market.<\/p>\n
Poilievre said at a separate news conference on Thursday that those developers ought to be the ones to swallow the loss \u2014 not taxpayers.<\/p>\n
Carney said no developer asked him for the proposal, which he said was \u201cinitiated\u201d by the B.C. government.<\/p>\n
He said the idea is meant to support aspiring homebuyers who struggle to save for a down payment in one of Canada\u2019s most expensive housing markets.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t care about the developer. We care about the person, the family that can potentially move into the home,\u201d Carney said.<\/p>\n
Figures from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation show 5,849 unabsorbed apartments across B.C. in May 2026, with 4,376 unabsorbed apartments in Metro Vancouver, accounting for 75 per cent of all unsold units.<\/p>\n
Carney said at last week\u2019s news conference that with higher interest rates and weaker demand, developers \u201care stuck\u201d and don\u2019t want to sell at a loss.<\/p>\n
That could create an opportunity for the federal government to buy \u201cdistressed condos\u201d at a reduced price, Carney argued Thursday.<\/p>\n
\u201cBuying them at a discount at the right time, financing, terming that out, setting up a rent-to-own structure for truly affordable housing \u2014 that\u2019s an opportunity. We will look at any opportunity across the country that gets more affordable housing to Canadians,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Critics have pointed out that buying at a discount would mean prices that are below market value, and anything above that would represent a premium on the prices where condos aren\u2019t already selling.<\/p>\n
Poilievre said Thursday bidding against homebuyers for existing housing stock will only drive prices higher.<\/p>\n
\u201cMr. Carney says he wants an innovative financial solution to make expensive, empty condos into affordable, occupied ones. I have that innovative solution \u2014 let the prices drop,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
B.C. Conservative housing critic Linda Hepner said earlier this week that the housing crisis won\u2019t be solved by \u201cwasting taxpayer dollars on artificially propping up developers.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf prices are set too high for condo units to be sold, market forces will cause the prices to lower until people can afford them,\u201d she said in a statement. \u201dBut if developers know that the government will simply bail them out if the condos sit vacant long enough, they will never drop their prices, making the housing crisis even worse.\u201d<\/p>\n
The condo conversion proposal was announced alongside a plan for the federal government to invest more than $5 billion in B.C. infrastructure over the next 10 years. A portion of that funding is contingent on municipalities slashing development charges.<\/p>\n
\u2014 with files from Wolfgang Depner in B.C.<\/p>\n
This report by Craig Lord, The Canadian Press, was first published June 25, 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Converting British Columbia\u2019s glut of unsold condos into affordable housing is about supporting Canadians, not distressed developers, Prime…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":760949,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[45,49,48,46,47,714,17128],"class_list":["post-760948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-economy","tag-national","tag-politics","tag-prairies-bc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/760948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=760948"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/760948\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/760949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=760948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=760948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=760948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}