Based move from one of my favorite North American cities. Now crack down on foreigners buying up all the housing and pricing out locals and I may actually considering moving there with my Aunt whose a local.
Vancouver and British Columbia already have a speculation and vacancy tax that addresses this issue quite a bit. Unfortunately, there are many people who want to move to Vancouver and area which keeps pushing the housing costs up.
https://vancouver.ca/home-property-development/empty-homes-tax.aspxThere is no question there is a problem with NIMBYISM in Vancouver and some of the suburbs, but from 2016 to 2021 the population of Vancouver proper increased by about 30,000 from around 635,000 to around 665,000. Keep in mind, that Vancouver is a peninsula, so has a definite finite amount of space.
The mainstream right wing media here in Vancouver (The Vancouver Sun, radio station CKNW) have gone after both.
The Vancouver Sun published a complaint from somebody that it took them 15 minutes to fill out the 'confusing' online Speculation and Vacancy tax form, but received a whole host of replies stating "it took me two minutes and wasn't confusing at all."
I no longer subscribe to the Vancouve Sun, but radio station CKNW has tried to refer to this litigation as 'out of touch politicians' not focussing on their jobs, as if climate change isn't going to add enormous expenses to city maintenance costs. The right wing grandstanders on CKNW, Mike Smyth, Jill Bennett and Jaz Johal have always been out of touch with reality.
Prominent lawyer before his untimely death, Joseph Arvay, was representing some of the litigants in this case (there is no question as to the non suspicious nature of Arvay's death) and provided the legal base of the case to The Vancouver Sun:
“There is nothing unfair in a municipality suing the fossil fuel companies to recover the costs associated with climate change even though the municipality, like all of us, have and continue to contribute to climate change in one way or the other,” Arvay said Wednesday. “The courts would be called upon to determine
proportionate responsibility and liability, not sole responsibility. And there can be little question that it is the fossil fuel companies who bear significant responsibility for GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions.”
“There are some parallels with similar lawsuits against Big Tobacco and Big Pharma. The fossil fuel companies have created our addiction to oil and at the same time knew how damaging that oil was to our planet and yet concealed that danger from us for a long time,” Arvay said. “The ‘polluter pay’ principle is pretty basic in our law. And the companies that caused or contributed to that pollution, and from which they profited greatly, ought to pay their fair share to help remediate the damage it has caused and will continue to do so.”
https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/dan-fumano-vancouver-councillor-seeks-climate-emergency-declaration
