WATCH: Poilievre urges feds to cancel condo bailout, tells developers to 'lower the sale price' instead

RICHMOND — Pierre Poilievre has called on the federal government to cancel their plan to convert more than 2,200 unsold condominium units into affordable housing through a partnership between Build Canada Homes and BC Housing.

The Conservative leader equated the move to a "bailout," and questioned why developers aren't being asked to simply "lower the sale price" if they want to fill empty homes.

During a press conference in Richmond on Monday, Poilievre accused the Liberals under Prime Minister Mark Carney of having "inflated a housing bubble with too much money printing and immigration driving up demand and too much red tape and taxes blocking supply."

"Having created the housing bubble, and now bursting that bubble," he continued. "Now they want to bail out to bankers and developers that benefited from it."

Poilievre suggested it was "another example of a tiny club of Liberal elites, billionaires, and insiders getting rich by making hardworking Canadians poor."

"Some say the developers will lose money," he added. "Somebody's gonna lose money, so who's it gonna be? Is it gonna be the waitress and the welder paying for it on their taxes, or is it gonna be the developers and bankers who were trying to profit off the bubble in the first place?"

Ottawa, BC announce new housing and infrastructure partnership

The agreement includes more than $5 billion in federal funding over the next decade for public transit, health-care infrastructure, housing-related projects, and community infrastructure.

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On Thursday, Carney said the federal government could "convert" over 2,200 unsold condo units from developers into affordable homes.

An exact dollar figure was not provided, though if you multiply 2,200 by an average of $700,000, it works out to over $1.5 billion.