Ontario Advocacy Day Update

On March 6, a team of Mortgage Professionals Canada staff and members attended day of meetings with a diverse group of stakeholders, including elected officials, ministerial staffers and senior civil servants.

The advocacy day was an opportunity to expand our relationships at the provincial level, educate stakeholders about the role of a broker, and to reiterate some of our provincial requests with decision makers. The Ontario budget for 2023 will be tabled on March 23.

We submitted our pre-budget letter in February with the following requests:

• Double the land transfer tax rebate from $4,000 to $8,000 and indexing it to inflation to keep pace with today’s housing prices
• Prohibit the extension of a municipal land transfer tax to municipalities, a penalizing “double tax” to home buyers
• Update the provincial HST rebate to reflect current home prices and begin indexing the thresholds to housing prices
• Support the mortgage industry's request to the federal government to grant digital income verification to the mortgage industry to crack down on fraud

We look forward to keeping you updated on the outcomes of our advocacy efforts, including budget measures targeting housing supply and affordability on March 23.

We will continue to push the federal and provincial governments for policies that help ease housing related cost pressures, to help Canadians to achieve the dream of homeownership and stay in their homes.