The 2025 federal election comes at a time of deep political, social, and economic uncertainty and turmoil. The escalating housing and homelessness crisis remains a top concern for millions of people across Canada, with renters facing increasingly precarious conditions, few affordable options to turn to, and limited protections to help them stay in their homes. Now, with the onset of an unprecedented trade war with the United States, they face even greater instability, with job and income loss already making its way through the Canadian economy. Without safe, secure, affordable homes, renters are facing housing precarity, displacement, and homelessness now more than ever before. To ensure a healthy, equitable, and sustainable future, the next federal government must prioritize those most impacted by the housing and homelessness crisis: renters and people experiencing homelessness.
To help inform voters ahead of election day on April 28, we have summarized commitments made by the Liberal Party, Conservative Party, New Democratic Party and Green Party to tackle the housing and homelessness crisis, as identified in their 2025 federal election party platforms and other announcements they have made during this period. We have organized these commitments under our top three housing priorities that require urgent action by the next federal government.
Read the federal parties’ commitments to:
- Support renters and people experiencing homelessness
- Protect renters from excessive rents and unfair evictions
- Build and protect deeply affordable housing
The information on this page was last updated on April 17, 2025.
Provide immediate support to renters and people experiencing homelessness
Urgent support is needed now to keep renters in their homes and to house people experiencing homelessness. Rapidly rising rents, alongside other rising costs, are forcing low- and medium-income renters out of their homes and preventing people from accessing housing in the first place. Expanding and directing immediate financial and other support to those in greatest need is critical to tackling the housing and homelessness crisis in the short-term. At the same time, urgent action is needed to ensure that the human rights and dignity of people experiencing homelessness are upheld and respected.
Note: To date, none of the parties have made any commitments related to rent supplements or subsidies, such as the Canada Housing Benefit or other housing-specific income supports. Also, we have not listed tax relief proposals here, as they do not provide immediate or targeted support.
Federal party commitments
Liberal
- Immediately develop homelessness reduction targets with each province and territory to inform Housing First investments and end encampments.
- Increase the Guaranteed Income Supplement by five per cent for one year.
Conservative
- There has been no explicit mention of immediate support for renters and people experiencing homelessness.
NDP
- Create an $8 billion Communities First Fund to support provinces and territories to expand housing-enabling infrastructure, including by requiring housing security strategies to end encampments and homelessness.
- Double the Canada Disability Benefit and increase the Guaranteed Income Supplement.
Green
- Expand investments in Housing First programs and wraparound support services.
- Expand federal funding for youth shelters and transitional housing, with dedicated housing supports for young people at risk of homelessness.
- Introduce a Guaranteed Livable Income.
Protect renters from excessive rents and unfair evictions
Rent supplements are an important stop gap measure, but in the absence of strong rent regulations and protections against evictions, they will not ensure safe, secure, and affordable homes for renters. Renters across the country are facing excessive rents, arbitrary and unfair evictions, renovictions, demovictions, disrepair, discrimination, and many other issues. While landlord and renter matters are primarily governed by provincial and territorial governments, there is an important role for the federal government to play in helping to regulate rents and prevent evictions, as it has done in the past. Renters and advocates are increasingly looking to the federal government to play a stronger role in renters’ rights and protections.
Federal party commitments
Liberal
- There has been no explicit mention of measures to address excessive rents or unfair evictions.
Conservative
- There has been no explicit mention of measures to address excessive rents or unfair evictions.
NDP
- Introduce a Renters’ Bill of Rights that ties access to federal funding for provinces, territories, and municipalities that introduce strong renter protection measures.
- Implement national rent control.
- Ban fixed-term leases, renovictions, demovictions, and other predatory and exploitative practices.
- Ban rent price-fixing and collusion, including the use of shared data platforms and coordinated pricing tools.
- Recognize the right of tenant unions to negotiate with landlords.
Green
- Require provinces and territories to implement strong rent and vacancy controls and sufficiently fund landlord/tenant dispute resolution agencies as a requirement to access federal housing funding.
Build and protect deeply affordable housing
For decades, the federal government withdrew from its role in building and protecting affordable housing. Despite the government’s recent re-engagement in affordable housing development, federal housing investments have failed to produce truly affordable housing that meets the needs of those most impacted by the housing and homelessness crisis. This is due in large part to the government’s over-reliance on the private sector to build new housing, which has not produced housing that is affordable for low- and medium-income renters due to insufficient affordability requirements. At the same time, the government has provided inadequate support for the non-market sector (e.g., Indigenous, public, non-profit, and co-operative housing) to build new and protect existing affordable housing, including rent-geared-to-income housing. This approach has also contributed to the increasing financialization of the housing sector.
Federal party commitments
Liberal
- Act as a developer to build affordable housing at scale, including on public lands, and provide $10 billion in low-cost financing and capital to affordable homebuilders, of which:
- $4 billion would be directed towards long-term fixed-rate financing.
- $6 billion would be directed towards rapidly building deeply affordable housing, supportive housing, Indigenous housing, and shelters.
- Reintroduce the Multiple Unit Rental Building (MURB) tax incentive.
- Reduce the tax liability for private rental housing providers when they sell their building to a non-profit operator, land trust, or non-profit acquisition fund, with requirements for the proceeds to be reinvested in building new purpose-built rental housing.
Conservative
- Sell 15 per cent of federal government buildings to be turned into affordable housing.
NDP
- Create an $8 billion Canadian Homes Transfer to support cities to build affordable homes quickly, including by committing to 20 per cent non-market housing in every neighbourhood.
- Ban corporations from buying existing affordable rental buildings.
- Restrict large corporate landlords from accessing low-interest federal loans, preferential tax treatment, and mortgage loan insurance.
- Boost the Rental Protection Fund to help community housing providers purchase and acquire private rental buildings.
- Set aside 100 per cent of suitable federal land to build over 100,000 rent-controlled homes by 2035.
- Redesign and double the Public Land Acquisition Fund to invest $1 billion over five years into acquiring more public land to build more rent-controlled homes.
- Develop a new Community Housing Bank to partner with non-profit housing developers, co-operative housing operators, and Indigenous communities.
Green
- Clearly define “affordable housing” to ensure that government-funded housing costs no more than 30 per cent of a household’s income.
- Use covenants to ensure that housing built with public funds stays affordable over the long term.
- Close loopholes to prevent the use of real estate for money laundering.
- Eliminate preferential tax treatment for Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) and other corporate landlords.
- Prevent corporations from buying single family homes.
- Launch a public housing construction program, including building 1.2 million non-market homes over seven years.
- Transfer federal land to Indigenous-led housing organizations to support community-driven housing solutions.