Canadian Politics Today

Another question I'd like answered is why we're encouraging more millionaires to buy property in BC.  Seems like a dumb question on the face of it I know but I really think we should be careful about what we wish for.

I mentioned to a couple of guests of mine how the effect of a hot real-estate market in Vancouver is spilling over hereabouts in the form of people cashing in on the big bucks, buying a really nice place here with a third of their gains and retiring on the rest.  They seemed surprised and told me they were exactly what I was talking about and were in the area shopping around.

The problem I have with the money coming into BC is not where the people bringing it are from but the values and principles they used and abused to earn it.  I suspect much of the wealth buying its way here was created on the backs of exploited workers and at the expense of the environment these workers and their families live in and will likely die in.  Instead of staying at home and using these millions and billions to bring their own countries up to a better standard its coming here where it's clean, green and much safer and nicer.

If we were really serious about screening people for their values out of a concern for preserving our's we'd probably only have to look at their wealth to get the gist of where it and the people it belongs to are really coming from.  When I think about how wealth and power here appear to be working together to make it tougher for little people to stay and make a buck I can't help but get the sense its to force them out to make room for those who've already got it made - like addressing this issue by making it harder for local first time buyers for example or to squeeze people in the manner I mentioned in my previous post.

I think maybe a lot of those values and principles I mentioned are already well established here. Perhaps we should change the name of BC to Elysium.