Re: “B.C. premier rejects Greens’ call to ban foreign homebuyers,” Jan. 17.
Green Party Leader Andrew Weaver’s call to implement a New Zealand-style law to prevent the purchase of existing homes by foreigners will not ameliorate our housing crisis.
Victoria now has the third highest housing costs, trailing only Vancouver and Toronto. Local prices are partially due to a Vancouver “ripple effect,” with some homeowners cashing out and moving here. However, greater forces are driving our overpriced housing market.
The number of homes purchased by immigrants, Canadians citizens living abroad and unidentified foreign investors acting through local Canadian agents is unknown. Some such “bolt hole” homes are vacant, and neither local nor national statistics confirm responsibility for our overpriced housing.
Related are the 300,000 foreign-domiciled Canadians with dual or multiple citizenship living in Hong Kong, plus an increasing number on the Chinese mainland. Some own housing in Canada. How many and how much is unknown.
“Canadians of convenience” can prove expensive. In 2006, the $94 million we spent evacuating 14,000 at-risk Canadian citizens from Lebanon was followed by about 7,000 returning to Lebanon within a month. Let’s accept that Lebanese-Canadians and Chinese-Canadians are best qualified to assess their respective current at-home risk.
The 2006 Lebanese-Canadian $94-million cost would only be a small down payment for costs incurred in any evacuation of many of the 300,000-plus Canadians in China. Such likely exorbitant costs warrant federal review and contingency planning.
Canadian-only citizenship could both reduce future citizen rescue missions and end domestic “bolt hole”-driven home-pricing pressures.
Ron Johnson
Saanich
