20 | fall 2016 cmba-achc.ca CMB MAGAZINE
O
n a cold November night
in 2011, a week before
Vancouver's municipal
election, Sandy Garossino,
a former crown prosecutor
and an independent candidate for city council,
laid out an argument against the rising tide of
offshore investment in Vancouver homes. "If
you look at the investment climate everywhere,
there's almost nothing better than Vancouver
real estate," she said. Later, in an op-ed in local
weekly newspaper the Georgia Straight, she
wrote, "Professional politicians are loath to
address this issue, but the people cannot wait."
It was a simple critique – and prescient. It
would now seem that it came five years too early.
As home prices skyrocketed, pushing young
Vancouver families to exurbs like Abbotsford
and nudging the value of eastside teardowns
past the $1 million mark, a clear culprit for the
city's affordability woes emerged. Amidst the
mix of market forces that drive up land values
– record-low interest rates, population growth,
a limited supply of land in a region constrained
by geography – it was the "foreign buyer" that
captured the imagination of Vancouverites.
at narrative reached its climax this past July,
when the B.C. government announced, out of
the blue, that a new tax would be imposed on
foreign buyers, effective immediately.
As Vancouver's real estate market becomes evermore expensive,
the media and the masses alike have tried to condemn a single
scapegoat. The reality is much more complex. BY JACOB PARRY
The
Blame
Game
