[ksaj]

This is pretty much the story when it comes to foreign home buyers in Toronto and Vancouver, Canada. The argument is that it is pricing everyone out. The average 1 bedroom apartment here in Toronto is now more than $1900, and more than $2000 downtown, so it certainly appears that way.

This plays out with talk of taxing people who own houses they do not live in, if they also do not live in Canada, and therefore not adding to the economy in any way. Nobody but the foreign investors have a problem with that.

[brailsafe]

In one of our house of commons committee meetings about a bill tabled by a conservative, a Bloc member opposed it on the basis that the U.S might retaliate and piss off boomer snowbirds in their riding. Meanwhile, every Liberal MP voted it down, before a month later implementing their own very similar initiative. So it's not just foreign investors, it's also local profiteering locals who fear change and anticipate having their easy lifestyles cut off. Arguably much more of the latter in some form if you dig into the numbers and urban planning factors.