Liberal vs Conservative GST Cuts on New Homes: April 2025 Comparison

As of April 2025, both federal plans remove the 5% GST from new builds but draw the line differently. Mark Carney's version exempts new homes up to $1 million and only for first-time buyers who will live in them. Pierre Poilievre's goes to $1.3 million and covers every buyer.

I am Moe Asgarian, a real estate broker in Toronto and ranked 47th in RE/MAX worldwide, and I spent the spring of 2025 reading both housing platforms properly. My honest view: neither one performs a miracle. But each has a real argument behind it, and the differences change who saves money.

How GST and the HST Rebate Work on a New Build in Ontario

Buy a new build and you pay sales tax, provincial and federal. Each province sets its own rate and some run their own rebates, but both party promises were about the federal portion, so that is where this comparison stays.

In Ontario the federal and provincial pieces are combined into HST, and on a pre-construction condo or house that HST is already inside the price on your agreement. Buy a $1 million condo and part of that $1 million is tax you are paying.

Some of it comes back as the HST rebate. Live in the unit and you claim it as the owner-occupier. Rent it out and the order reverses: you pay CRA first, then once the unit is leased you send the lease and supporting documents and, under the rules in place as of April 2025, claim back a rebate of twenty-some thousand dollars. Budget for the gap between paying and getting it back.

Carney's Plan: No GST Up to $1 Million, First-Time Buyers Only

At the time of writing, in April 2025, GST on a new build was 5% anywhere in Canada, with a rebate only if the price was under $450,000. As of April 2025, virtually no home in a major city sold under $450,000, so effectively nobody qualified. Both parties wanted the threshold raised.

Under Mark Carney's plan you could buy a new home up to $1 million with no GST, a saving of $50,000 right at the cap. A cheaper home means a smaller saving, since it is 5% of the price either way. The restriction matters more than the number: it applies only to first-time home buyers who will live in the home themselves.

Poilievre's Plan: Up to $1.3 Million, Open to Everyone

In his April 2025 platform, Pierre Poilievre proposed lifting the ceiling to $1.3 million. A new home priced at exactly $1.3 million would have carried no 5% tax, a saving of $65,000, and his version had no buyer restriction at all. On paper it covered many more people.

His stated goal in April 2025 was to put more buyers in front of new builds so that builders are pushed to build more of them, and he claimed the measure would produce 36,000 more new homes than would otherwise go up. The mechanism makes sense to me, because dropping GST only on new construction does not raise overall housing demand. It lowers the cost on the new-build side specifically.

The Tax Cliff and the Small Slice of the Market It Touches

Remember the break only applies to new construction. A resale home that somebody has already lived in is not subject to GST at all, and new builds are a small share of the market. As of April 2025, reports suggested these plans touched about 150,000 homes across Canada, while the city of Toronto alone was trading roughly 100,000 resale homes a year.

The cap is also a cliff, not a slope. If the home you like sits a little over the line, say $1,050,000 or $1,100,000, you get nothing. They do not tax only the amount above the threshold; you pay on the whole home. The reasoning is that a multi-million-dollar buyer should not be exempt, but the side effect is that homes which genuinely need building may not get built because of where the price line falls.

There is a local problem too. As of April 2025, in Toronto and around it, $1 million or even $1.3 million did not buy a four-bedroom detached, a townhouse, or often even a semi. You were limited to condo apartments. Builders would then chase the exemption with small units that finish under the cap, buyers get steered into those floor plans, and a family that needs a larger unit cannot use the break at all.

Who Really Benefits: First-Time Buyers or Investors

New builds usually cost more than comparable resale, so first-time buyers are less likely to buy new and pre-construction is rarely their first choice. An Ontario survey found that in 2023 only about one third of new-home buyers were first-time buyers. That is the weak point in the Liberal design: the money is aimed at the group least likely to be in that market.

Picture a retired couple in the Toronto suburbs living in a big four-bedroom house. Help them into a new two-bedroom condo and the house goes to a young family. Everyone gains, and the Conservative plan allows for that because it includes every buyer.

The counter-argument is real as well. In pre-construction most buyers are investors: in London, Ontario in 2022 about 86% of condos were investor-owned, and in Windsor, Kitchener and Waterloo the share was over 60%. Carney's plan helps first-time buyers only; Poilievre's helps everyone, investors included, and critics say that sends most of the benefit to investors rather than to families.

What I Tell Clients in Toronto

My other criticism of Carney's platform in April 2025 was that it never explained how an ordinary Canadian household is supposed to buy a home. Read the plan and you find good ideas for social housing and no clear route to ownership. The Liberals had been in office nine years by then, prices had risen a long way and affordability had left the market, so that is not a small gap.

Neither platform performs a miracle. To me the bigger lever is still interest rates. If rates ease with political stability behind them, and the tariff fight stops hanging over people, the next few years can be decent. A tax threshold on new builds is a nudge, not a cure.

If you are weighing a pre-construction purchase and want the tax and rebate math run on your specific deal, fill out the form at the bottom of this page or book a free consultation with our team. Stay well and take care.