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. For one thing, they know they are not alone. Housing affordability is resolutely front-and-centre for Vancouverites. According to survey results issued on Monday by the polling agency Insights West, it’s the single most important election issue for 44 per cent of residents. That is as it should be; nothing else has impoverished so many through no particular fault of their own. The fact that the same phenomenon has enriched a great many fellow citizens only makes the unfairness of it all so glaring. The understanding that the housing market is a proper subject at election time is crucial, as is a frank debate about the factors that have helped make homes in Vancouver the second-most unaffordable in the world, according to Demographia 's* study of 378 cities in nine major markets. For the longest time, the twinning of immigration and housing prices was restricted to nervous dinner party chatter – after all, who wants to be called out as a racist for daring to loudly suggest that tens of thousands of millionaire migrants converging on Vancouver might have swayed the city’s home prices? But the subject is now being dragged out into the sunlight, thanks to the likes of UBC professor David Ley – whose peer-reviewed research found an “unusually decisive” +0.94 correlation between immigration and prices in Vancouver – as well as ethnic Chinese activists such as David Wong and Sid Chow Tan . Despite the obvious concerns of voters, the campaign itself has been pretty devoid of big ideas on affordability from Mayor Gregor Robertson and his main challenger, Kirk LaPointe. It was left to the Hong Kong emigrant Meena Wong, standing as mayor for the left-leaning Cope team, to confront the issue head-on. Her proposed vacancy tax on wealthy owners who leave their homes empty captured the public imagination, cutting across party lines to attract 72 per cent support, according to the Insights West poll. Wong stands little chance of being elected – the same poll said she was the preferred candidate of only 9 per cent of voters – and it’s also doubtful whether a vacancy tax in isolation could have a major impact of affordability. Yet she deserves credit for daring to take a stand and helping remove the stigma about discussing the impact of Vancouver’s rich absentee owners. The voters’ focus on housing affordability must come as a great frustration to those who would rather everybody shut up about it and move along. On October 17, The Vancouver Sun columnist Pete McMartin branded affordability a “non-issue” , and said targeting immigration in response was the “xenophobe’s answer” to the situation. The only candidate who would dare support such measures, McMartin opined, would be “the one with the swastika tattooed on his bicep”. Faced with such a grotesque misrepresentation, is it any wonder municipal politicians have been reluctant to wade in? What McMartin fails to understand is that not all immigration is equally worthy, and not all immigration programmes have the same impact. And no (as if it needs to be said), worrying about the results of millionaire migration on Vancouver’s housing affordability doesn’t make you a Nazi. The wealth-based Immigrant Investor Programme was a demonstrable failure, and it was rightly shut down this year. But the federal government is now in the final stages of drawing up its replacement scheme. There could be no better time for some vocal input from City Hall’s next occupant. [*Update: This story has been updated to include a link to the latest Demographia study and to describe its scope] The Hongcouver blog is devoted to the hybrid culture of its namesake cities: Hong Kong and Vancouver. All story ideas and comments are welcome. Connect with me by email ian.young@scmp.com or on Twitter, @ianjamesyoung70