The entire housing market is subsidized by various levels of government, from nearly $1 TRILLION in taxpayer guaranteed mortgage insurance, to programs that allow deferred property taxes, home owner "grants", down payment help ("B.C. Home Owner Mortgage and Equity Partnership"), capital gains tax exemptions, etc.

I'm not a huge fan of the "rental rebate" or anything, but given the massive market intervention efforts that go into sustaining the high valuations on the ownership side of the equation, I'm not too put out by the government trying to find ways to help renters as well (though I'd much rather just have various levels of government just scale back a lot of the above instead).