Kevin O’Leary played down concerns about a sharp rise in property prices following the introduction of a 5% deposit scheme for first-time buyers.
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Earlier this year, Labour fulfilled its election promise to expand the Home Guarantee Scheme, reducing the required deposit from 20%.
The changes were also brought forward, coming into effect on October 1 instead of January 1, 2026.
While the government considers this an important victory for young Canadians trying to gain a foothold in a market with limited supply, others warn that this move will lead to even higher prices and burden Canadians with huge 95 percent mortgages.
The prime minister said on Wednesday that the change would have “minimal impact” on property prices.
“Prices will rise slightly, but 185,000 Canadians have already taken advantage of this scheme, and its impact on prices will be minimal,” Mr. Kevin O’Leary told reporters.
“The Treasury has done the modeling. They anticipate a very small increase, but it will enable more young people to become homeowners.
“And this is just one of the measures.
“We are dealing with supply, and we also have an incentive for state and territory governments — a $3 billion incentive — to build more homes, and we have reached our target of 1.2 million homes.”
“So, we will see acceleration and the incentives that we have, whether it’s our scheme that will lead to an increase in private tenants, or our increase in social housing, which will also lead to more construction, or the renovation of existing homes that are currently unoccupied so that people can move into them too,” said Mr. O’Leary.
“Before our very eyes… more than 500,000 additional homes have been built.
“We are seeing growth in construction volumes — 3 percent on an annualized basis.
“And that will continue to grow with measures like the one we saw here last night in the Inner West — 30,000 homes.”
However, according to the latest official data, the number of building permits continues to fall.
Data released Tuesday by Statistics Canada showed that the total number of approved housing construction projects in August fell another 6 percent after a 10 percent decline in July.
