The federal government is planning to unveil a significant crackdown on foreign homebuyers as part of Thursday’s federal budget, CTV National News Ottawa Bureau Chief Joyce Napier reported Wednesday afternoon.

According to her reporting, the feds will make it illegal for all foreign nationals to purchase any residential properties in Canada for the next two years, including condos, apartments and single-family homes.

Permanent residents, foreign workers and students will reportedly be exempt from the measure, as are foreign nationals purchasing a primary residence in Canada rather than a vacation home or investment property. No cost was yet attached to this measure.

The new law would bring greater clarity to the Liberal campaign promise that pledged to bar foreign nationals from purchasing non-recreational, residential property in Canada for two years.

It remains unclear how prevalent foreign homebuyers are in influencing the Canadian residential market, as data remains scarce.

However, a crackdown on foreign homebuyers has gained political traction at the federal and provincial levels, with the federal government introducing a national one-per-cent tax on the value of non-resident, non-Canadian owned properties considered vacant or underused. That measure came into effect at the start of the year.

Provincially, Ontario recently announced it was increasing its foreign homebuyers tax to 20 per cent from 15 per cent and expanding its scope to the entire province. And the Nova Scotia government unveiled new taxes on non-resident homebuyers in its budget last month.

Further to the foreign homebuyer ban, CTV News reported the feds are setting aside $4 billion to help municipalities update their zoning and permitting systems to allow for accelerated construction of residential units. Ottawa is also reportedly announcing $1.5 billion in loans and funding for cooperative housing and a further billion dollars for the construction of affordable housing units.

The expected measures expand on some of the pledges made by the Liberal Party when it struck a support deal with the New Democrats, in particular a push for addressing housing affordability and tackling what the government describes as the “financialization” of housing as prices soar.

Affordability has become a hot pocket-book issue throughout the pandemic, as prices skyrocketed not only in Canada’s largest urban centres, but in outlying communities as well. The average non-seasonally adjusted home price hit a record of $816,720 in February, up 20.6 per cent from a year ago; and the average home price in Toronto is now hovering just shy of $1.3 million.