CONSERVATIVE Leader Pierre Poilievre announced on Monday that if he becomes the prime minister, he will axe the federal sales tax (or GST) on new homes sold for under $1 million, a tax cut that he said will spark 30,000 extra homes built every year.

Poilievre said that he will also push provinces to remove their sales tax from new home sales, which would save tens of thousands of dollars more for homebuyers.

He said that the move comes after housing costs have doubled in the past nine years, rising faster than in any other G7 country. Back in October of 2015, the month before Justin Trudeau became Prime Minister, it took only 39 percent of the median pre-tax household income to cover home ownership costs. Now, it takes nearly 60 percent.

Poilievre said that while it used to be normal for working class youth to buy homes, now 80 percent of Canadians tell pollsters homeownership is only for the very rich and there are now 1,400 homeless encampments in Ontario alone.

He noted that in Ontario and British Columbia, government charges account for more than 30 percent of the cost of a new home. The federal government takes the biggest share. In Ontario, about 39 percent of the total taxes on a new home go to politicians and bureaucrats in Ottawa. One such tax is the GST, adding $50,000 in costs to a $1 million home.

Poilievre said that Conservatives will fund this big homebuyers’ tax cut by eliminating $8 billion of bureaucratic programs that Liberals admit have not built a single home. Also, the tax cut will spark 30,000 extra homes built each year, generating more income for construction workers and businesses, and $2.1 billion of revenue for government.