While the Ottawa-area MP and his family live in a $550,000 lakeside home in Greely, Ont., south of Ottawa, his wife, Anaida Poilievre, owns a rental property in a semi-detached home in the Ottawa suburb of Orleans.
She paid $238,000 for the home in 2012, before they were married, but last June took out a $250,000 mortgage on it from Tangerine Bank, which registered a $425,000 charge against the property.
With interest rates climbing, economists have cautioned Canadians against using their homes as “ATMs” – borrowing against their rising equity. But Poilievre defended his wife’s decision to leverage the value of the property.
“She followed all of the rules and used the equity that she has built up through a very responsible and intelligent investment, to maximize the best interests of her financial position,” the MP said Thursday.
After the press conference, Anaida Poilievre approached a CTV News journalist to say she was proud of her investment and that, next time, the reporter should ask her to her face.
Pierre Poilievre also followed up with CTV News after the event to say, “My wife started off with humble beginnings and she invested in a rental property to protect her financial independence.”
He said he was proud of her investment savvy.
Poilievre controls 50 per cent of the voting shares in Liberty West Properties Inc., an Alberta corporation that owns a unit in a townhouse complex on 90th Ave. S.E. in Calgary.
The remainder of the shares in the firm are controlled by his friend, former Alberta justice minister Jonathan Denis, and Denis’s mother, Marguerite, according to corporate records.
The company bought the home in 2006 for $249,000.