OTTAWA — The federal government’s GST rebate on new homes should be extended to seniors who want to downsize, a new report says, to help boost the supply and cut the price of family homes.

The report, released Tuesday by the Ottawa-based Missing Middle Initiative, says that Canada’s housing crisis is being partly fuelled by market bottlenecks preventing seniors from downsizing.

The document says that Canada’s housing supply problems include a lack of smaller homes with access to seniors’ preferred facilities and services, which creates disincentives for empty nesters to downsize. That leaves many seniors with homes that are larger than they need, while further restricting the supply of family homes and raising prices.

This under-appreciated piece of Canada’s housing crisis is exacerbate

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