WINNIPEG – Manitoba Liberal Leader Dougald Lamont says that provincial tax breaks totalling $10M for True North Square should be scrapped.
A Liberal Party statement says if the City is going to waive the Tax Incremental Financing requirement that 10% of the units be set at affordable market rents, “Pallister’s public funding of luxury living can’t be justified.”
“It is perverse for the Pallister government to offer millions in tax breaks to Canada’s wealthiest to subsidize luxury housing while the PC’s are selling off Manitoba public housing and kicking people off rent assist,” said Lamont, who was elected as MLA for the St. Boniface riding in a summer bye-election.
“Developers are not building a luxury hotel in downtown Winnipeg as an act of charity, there is already an incentive for them to invest, which is making a profit.”
The statement noted that True North’s Jim Ludlow told CBC that “the project would have gone ahead regardless of any help from any government.” in a 2016 interview.
“The Pallister government believes in the free market for health care, education and emergency services, but turns socialist when it comes to luxury housing owned by billionaires,” concluded Lamont.