The Hongcouver | Relax, Vancouver voters: linking affordability and immigration doesn’t make you a Nazi

CITY OF VANCOUVER MEDIA CENTRE

PRESS RELEASE: Vancouver’s newly elected Mayor X has used his/her first day in office to call on the federal and Quebec governments to halt all wealth-based immigration schemes, citing their inordinate impact on the city’s housing affordability. Mayor X, whose statement was issued jointly with defeated candidates Y and Z, cited a range of data to support his/her view that foreign money had helped detach Vancouver’s housing market from local income levels.

“This has come to the great and unfair detriment of those who now live and work in our city,” Mayor X said. “It is not within my power to wind back all the forces that have created this situation, but I will do everything I can to ensure that my position and the facts are clear to those who can help, and that these matters are discussed freely.”

Real estate marketer Bob Rennie also attended the press conference, announcing that he was stepping back from the city’s business and political scenes to devote himself to a life of silent reflection.

Not going to happen, of course. But those who worry about Vancouver’s outrageous housing prices have some slight reason for optimism ahead of Saturday’s municipal elections.