A year ago, the federal government instituted a foreign buyer ban after passing the Prohibition on the Purchase of Residential Property by Non-Canadians Act in 2022. The two-year ban, which came into effect on Jan. 1, barred non-citizens, non-permanent residents and foreign controlled companies from buying up Canadian property as an investment.
But Wallace says that ban didn’t do much for her family.
“There’s all of these very luxurious buildings going in all around us that are outrageously priced,” said Wallace, after attending an open house at a promising $1.1-million condo. “The foreign buyers tax … I don’t think that’s making an iota of difference.”
Critics say the foreign buyers ban, which was aimed at making housing affordable for Canadians, had many exemptions and was more of a political manoeuvre. They say it’s clear housing remains out of reach for too many in Canada, and that the country should look to other places in the world to find strategies to foster home ownership.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Though Housing Minister Sean Fraser’s office declined an interview request, his spokesperson said the government had worked with cities across the country to help “over 250,000 new homes get built over the next decade.”
The CMHC said Ottawa is “working to ensure every Canadian … has an affordable place to call home,” citing moves to forgive GST from newly constructed rental units, $20-billion in apartment financing and other initiatives.
Earlier in November, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said that rather than helping to make housing affordable, the government’s policies have instead “made the problem worse.”
Thomas Davidoff, an associate professor at the University of British Columbia’s Sauder School of Business, and UBC PhD student Keling Zheng studied the effect of foreign buyer taxes in B.C.
According to Davidoff, high-end home prices did plummet initially after the foreign buyers ban — but he says the real driver was soaring interest rates that triggered an economic slowdown.
The retired UBC Urban Geography professor says Canada could learn from success stories like Singapore, which boasted one of the highest home ownership rates in the world in 2022 at 89 per cent.
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