Province to ‘consider’ suggestions made for Sask. housing solutions

Saskatchewan’s finance minister Donna Harpauer said on Tuesday the province would consider and analyze all suggestions made in “Secure Homes, Strong Future” housing blueprint, but the province won’t likely implement all of them.

Housing providers launched the housing blueprint on Monday for the provincial government and fall election candidates to consider when looking at housing affordability.

The road map for decision makers contained a number of suggestions such as reducing PST and providing more financial help for municipalities, tenants, and landlords.

It also suggests a number of rebates should be made permanent, such as the Secondary Suite Incentive grant program that provides homeowners with up to 35 per cent of the cost of constructing a secondary suite at a primary residence.

Harpauer said that to date 145 applications had been processed through the incentive, with approximately $3 million going back into the pockets of homeowners.

Harpauer said the province has also supported another rebate highlighted in the blueprint — the construction rebate for new houses, which provides a partial refund of up to 42 per cent of the PST.

Number of challenging factors

The housing report says Saskatchewan needs 60,000-80,000 new housing units by 2030 to keep up with growth in the province.

While Harpauer called that statistic “daunting”, she said there are a number of challenging factors such as a supply chain and labour when it comes to meeting that goal.  She noted those issues can be partially addressed by government, but not entirely.

“There’s no doubt”  families and individuals are facing stress when it comes to affordability, said Harpauer.

She said the province takes a “balanced approach” to address affordability, such as maintaining the lowest personal income taxes in the country.

Harpauer said a family of four living in Saskatchewan with $100,000 in total income pays $2,627 less in combined provincial income tax and sales tax in 2024 then in 2007.

Harpauer also said the province maintains a competitive cost of living to other Canadian jurisdictions, and the government is taking measures to keep life affordable such as putting more than $2 billion dollars into targeted affordability measures in each provincial budget.

“Can the government do all things? No we can’t,” she said. “But we try to balance things as much as we can,” she said.

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