Pete's Viewpoint

Lets not understate the fact that BC's new speculation tax isn't without controversy. It is. There are some folks unhappy that they're now subject to a tax that didn't exist until now. But lets also discuss why we are here and the big mistake that BC Liberal leader Andrew Wilkinson is making. We are here because of the 2005 legislation passed by the BC Liberals to de-regulate the real estate trade. It became a self regulated industry with significantly reduced government oversight. In fact, oversight passed to the industry itself. Land speculation has been a thing since land has been able to be purchased and sold. It can be a high risk venture, but most often pays off well. By deregulation, rules and oversight to said speculation slipped away and the practice of 'shadow-flipping ' took root in some of the province's hottest markets. In short, it allowed shady realtors to manipulate home sales in such a way to make hundreds of thousands extra in commis...

Again, I don't want to minimize the struggle by middle and modest income earners who already struggle to pay rents in BC, but this call for a 'rent freeze' by some civic political candidates I believe is misguided and fraught with risks. A Rent Freeze by definition is a price control mechanism. BC already has a rent control device, which apparently is inadequate for it to allow a 4.5% annual maximum increase for 2019. Its true that the regulatory framework that the Residential Tenancy Branch uses to establish such rate controls could use some reform. But to arbitrarily freeze rates would open a can of worms that I believe are unintended consequences of their intended goal. In real world experiences where this has been done, its triggered an ironical result of higher rent increases and a drop in rental supply; almost the same result as general price controls in the early 70's in the OPEC Oil embargo, fuel shortages were triggered. I haven't signed up to the neo-...

The BC Liberals have done something unique. They have managed to rake in an unprecedented sum of hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue from the overheated Vancouver Real Estate market while simultaneously crashing it with their new "Foreign Buyers Tax" (more after images) That escalated quickly. Toronto, your move. pic.twitter.com/SMX52TLUY8 — Donut Shorts (@DonutShorts) September 15, 2016 (cont'd) The BC Liberals are on their typical pre-election spending spree and promise making. Today it was their pledge to cancel the planned 4% hike to MSP premiums. This amounts to an extra $3 per month that won't be charged any more. Predictably, the governing party is making a lot of noise about this after having a rough go of it lately. They had been rightly skewered for increasing said premium by 100% since taking office in 2001. More recently, far more controversially, the government announced that while increasing the monthly allowance for disabled Britis...