加拿大政客為什麼百般袒護外國購屋者

Most municipal politicians are quiet about foreign investment in Metro Vancouver real estate, in part because they accept it as a 'Faustian bargain,' says West Vancouver Councillor Craig Cameron. HANDOUT / PNG
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Why have the great bulk of Metro Vancouver’s suburban politicians stayed quiet about the impact of foreign capital on the over-heated housing market?

After the announced retirement of City of Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson, many commentators said the calamity of his otherwise useful decade in office has been his slow response to the causes of the housing affordability crisis.

But what does that say about the almost complete inaction of the more than 140 suburban mayors and councillors in Metro Vancouver’s other 20 municipalities, who are responsible for three-quarters of the region’s 2.5 million residents?

Almost all these elected suburban officials quietly make decisions that open the gates for tens of billions of dollars, much of it from offshore, to each year pour into commercial and residential real-estate projects.

With rare exceptions, we’ve heard only silence from the region’s mayors and councillors, whether of the political right or left. Indeed, some mayors have openly denied foreign capital is even an issue.

It’s true the mayor of the city of Vancouver, with its unique charter, has a bit more influence in shaping housing policy than a suburban mayor. And it’s definitely accurate that provincial and federal politicians have more power to influence Metro Vancouver’s housing market, since they create, and supposedly enforce, immigration policy, most tax and money-laundering laws and foreign trade.

To that end B.C.’s NDP Premier John Horgan made news this week when he took a firm stand and said: “What we know with absolute certainty is money raised in other parts of the world is distorting our housing market, and we want to take steps to address that.”

But the fact the B.C. government has more responsibility for what drives housing prices should not be an excuse for the stupor that seems to have overtaken so many suburban politicians.

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Fortunately, a handful of outspoken municipal politicians haven’t played the easy game of silence on foreign capital and why there is no connection between outrageous house prices and tepid wages across Metro Vancouver.

I asked a few outspoken councillors from West Vancouver, Richmond and Port Coquitlam why the overwhelming majority of their colleagues have been mum. Their responses helped me determine four key reasons:

1. Group Think

The belief that the only solution to rising house prices is to build more housing units more quickly is emphasized so insistently by powerful real-estate industry lobbyists that many local politicians seem to blindly accept it as an article of faith.

Port Coquitlam councillor Brad West, 32, whose wife recently had their first child, says most municipal politicians are afraid to speak out about how foreign capital is helping make housing unaffordable. He’s one of the few taking a stand for the sake of ordinary residents who are being squeezed out of Metro Vancouver’s housing market, including members of his generation, and the next. HANDOUT / PNG
“Some politicians truly think it’s all about supply. There’s a lot of group think on the issue at meetings of the Union of B.C. Municipalities,” said Port Coquitlam Councillor Brad West.

West thinks increasing supply is just one part of the answer, though. “We’ve been building in Port Coquitlam like you wouldn’t believe. The volume of development is staggering. But prices keep going up, out of the reach of ordinary people, including of my generation,” said West, 32, whose wife recently had their first baby.

2. Political manoeuvring

“Some councillors may think the benefits of increased foreign investment are worth the drawbacks. It’s a Faustian bargain,” said Craig Cameron, a member of West Vancouver’s city council, which has arguably done more than any other in the region to raise alarms about foreign capital.

Many municipal politicians think it enhances their reputations to publicly emphasize how rapid housing construction can create jobs, hike business revenues, bolster tax coffers and inflate the dollar value of some voters’ homes. But they are usually mute on the bigger issue: Most locals can’t afford the new dwellings.

Most suburban politicians devote their political energy to saying their hands are tied on housing prices. The few who at least speak up about the dangers of foreign capital, like West Vancouver’s Nora Gambioli and Coquitlam’s Bonita Zorrillo, tend to stress it’s up to provincial and federal politicians to act.

And when the mayors of Burnaby, North Vancouver, Coquitlam and Surrey finally came out of their shells, as they did in 2016 when they reluctantly suggested they might support a tax on non-resident owners (just before the B.C. Liberals imposed a 15-per cent tax), West said they were just engaging in “an exercise in butt-covering.”

“Up to then it was deny, deny, deny, neglect, neglect, neglect. And then, when it was clear people were angry, and a political price was going to be paid, they showed an interest.”

More questionably, the outspoken councillors say, they are often warned by municipal colleagues that opposing foreign capital in housing could hurt their chances with the many voters from the “Asian community.”

But, West, who has topped Port Coquitlam’s polls in the past two elections, says it’s the opposite. “They’re just as angry as anybody, if not more.”

3. Fear of being accused of being racist

This may be the biggest censoring factor. Richmond Councillor Harold Steves, a politician for more than four decades, shakes his head at the many times builders have tried to intimidate councillors, including those of Asian heritage, by calling them “racist” and “xenophobic.”

It’s a nasty tactic the real-estate development industry perfected in the 1990s to silence community opposition to the rush of Hong Kong and Taiwan money entering Metro Vancouver real estate, UBC geographer David Ley said in his classic book, Millionaire Migrants.

Steves, a long-time champion of the Agricultural Land Reserve, can tell many tales of property developers, some of whom have been political donors, trying to bully city officials into allowing them to break zoning bylaws by charging that “staff and councillors were racist.”

Cameron, who topped the polls in West Vancouver, echoed that many politicians are “concerned about ‘political correctness, or more specifically, about being perceived as racist for singling out a problem that is driven predominantly by investment from one country (China).”

Most of Metro’s civic politicians, added West, are “so wrapped up in identity politics” that they seem unable to see the clear-cut difference between being racist and bringing in laws that contribute to the community’s common good.

“There’s this paralysis of political correctness,” said West.

4. Ties to vested interests

It’s a relief the new B.C. NDP government last fall overruled longstanding B.C. Liberal policy and forbid provincial and municipal politicians from accepting hundreds of millions of dollars of donations from corporations, unions and foreign nationals, says West.

“Obviously, the real-estate industry was very active in making political donations.”

But the new legislation doesn’t mean the cosiness won’t remain. “Some politicians may still be reluctant to say anything because they have ties to the development community,” said Cameron.

In addition, West has more recently become discouraged by how more municipal politicians are opening themselves up to undue foreign influence by accepting trips to China, subsidized by the People’s Republic.

Whether it is mainly these four factors or others causing the vast majority of municipal politicians to say virtually nothing about foreign capital, West said Metro Vancouver residents are increasingly suspicious aebout the “staged” positions most take on affordability.

“How it is so many people are being pushed out of their own communities?” West says. “People are losing faith in the democratic process. They’re hungry for authenticity.”

dtodd@postmedia.com
Twitter.com/douglastodd

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