Harper Pledges to Guard Canadians From Foreign Home Speculators

In Vancouver, Liberal leader Justin Trudeau has begun his election campaign, accusing the Conservatives of planning to grow the economy by making “wealthy people wealthier”. For those hoping to buy their first home, he offered incentives in the form of a $5,000 tax credit (which is not a new measure).

The spending Stephen Harper promised at an occasion in Vancouver might finally result in strict guidelines about what sorts of houses – present or new – overseas buyers are allowed to personal. Harper said that real estate pundits have been arguing foreign speculators are pushing home ownership beyond the reach of “average families in some parts of the country”.

Canada has welcomed more than 22,000 refugees to date from Iraq and Syria, according to government data.

The Tories sourced their “15 per cent” claim to a 2013 study led by Andy Yan, a senior planner with Bing Thom Architects and a researcher with BTAworks, the firm’s research and development division.

Robertson was not available to comment on Harper’s pledge. However in 2014 Vancouver real estate consultant Ozzie Jurock predicted that after cancelling a popular immigrant investor scheme mostly used by Chinese investors, the Conservative government would go even further.

Rapidly rising house prices in Toronto and Vancouver are a “growing concern”, said BMO senior economist Sal Guatieri, given they “could encourage some households to take on larger mortgages than they can handle when interest rates rise”. But no matter the anecdotal popularity of the theory that offshore owners are behind the so-called ghost towers quietly gathering dust in Vancouver, Yan says nobody can yet prove anything either way.

Harper’s foray into the debate over foreign home ownership is something of a reversal of past Conservative positions on data collection.

“By expanding our apprenticeship program our government is again sending a strong and clear message to Canadians, particularly young Canadians, that vocational training matters”, he said. Harper’s plan could address that gap.

“We want to help him stay in office”, he said.

A re-elected Conservative government would spend half a million dollars next year to figure out just how many foreign investors have eaten up condos and homes across Canada, many of them sitting empty year-round.

“These types of policies are definitely encouraging homeownership, but we’re encouraging it at a time when there is clear evidence that the market is overvalued and therefore there’s a much greater than normal risk of a correction at some point”, Mr. Madani said.