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by Carlito Pablo on April 20th, 2021 at 9:38 AM 1 of 1 2 of 1 Five years ago, Burnaby resident Raymond Wong launched a parliamentary petition against foreign buyers of Canadian real estate, particularly in Greater Vancouver. That was on April 8, 2016, a time when foreigners were being blamed for high prices of homes. Not long after, the government of then B.C. Liberal premier Christy Clark around summer that year announced a foreign buyer tax in Metro Vancouver. In 2017, after John Horgan and his B.C. NDP assumed power, the tax was increased and its coverage expanded to other regions in the province. Foreign purchases decreased over the following years, and when the COVID-19 pandemic hit and closed immigration and travel, these dropped to almost zero. ....
by Ng Weng Hoong on March 11th, 2021 at 8:51 PM 1 of 2 2 of 2 Yes, it is different this time. As Metro Vancouver’s housing prices surged to yet another record high, the public’s response today stands in stark contrast to what it was a few years ago. During the housing boom or crisis of the 2010s, politicians and opinion-makers angrily blamed foreign investors for allegedly killing affordability in the region. The outrage against the supposed foreign invasion, led by newspaper columnists being mistaken for real estate experts, created a new type of populism. Politicians were quickly on the bandwagon as they campaigned to crack down on the so-called “toxic demand” emanating from out of Asia, notably China. ....