Three Vancouver housing experts who have long cautioned policy makers of the perils of foreign capital in residential real estate markets are now warning of revisionist attitudes unfolding within a neoliberal, developer-led “growth machine” that's attempting to capture Canadian discourse on housing affordability.
Study authors Josh Gordon, Andy Yan and David Ley are cracking back at peers who have characterized policies that limit foreign capital in residential real estate — such as the federal foreign buyers’ ban, and provincial speculation and vacancy tax — as xenophobic “housing nationalism.”
In their peer-reviewed paper, Crafting the narrative: wealth migration, growth machines and the politics of housing affordability in Vancouver, Canada, the authors contend there has been an effort to negatively mischaracterize such policies as racist since the mid-2010s, following a massive flight of capital from China to B.C..
In the March 2025 edition of Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, the authors contend this misinformation is spun from the “growth coalition” or “growth machine,” which is broadly defined as those individuals and organizations who foster more housing demand resulting in higher house prices. They may include homeowners hoping for more equity, developers whose profits increase with ever-increasing land prices, and the real estate services industry—such as Realtors and mortgage brokers who benefit from higher sales volume.
And since real estate represented around 45 per cent of all assets held by Canadian households in 2024, this machine lobbies for a “powerful political coalition favouring rising house prices and efforts to expand, rather than contain, housing demand,” the authors assert.
The “growth machine” also posits root causes of unaffordability as development charges, restrictive zoning, rent control and public hearings while “rendering taboo” discussion of policies that might reduce asset values.
Much of the paper is in response to a 2023 paper in the same journal authored by University of B.C. sociology associate professor Nathanael Lauster and co-author Jens von Bergmann, who characterized the policies as racist and “reactionary housing nationalism.”
Lauster and von Bergmann later had to issue a correction to their paper after not citing their interests, including paid work in the real estate sector and advocacy on behalf of an individual who challenged the B.C. foreign buyer tax on grounds of discrimination.
That case ultimately went to the B.C. Court of Appeal, which sided with the decision from the B.C. Supreme Court that the tax was not discriminatory.
Gordon, Yan and Ley note how Lauster and von Bergmann dismissed how much of the initial mid-2010s opposition to foreign buyers and foreign capital as well as support for so-called “housing nationalism” came by way of grassroots groups with “multiethnic leadership,” such as Housing Action for Local Taxpayers (HALT).
The Crafting the narrative authors note during this time support for immigration remained steadfast, according to public opinion polling. Rather, at play was opposition to foreign ownership, and the perils it brought for local income earners, not the broader immigration system.
Ultimately, while they acknowledge there would have been racially motivated ancillary support for so-called “housing nationalism,” such policies were grounded in economic concern.
"There is also a long history of growth machine actors instrumentalising charges of racism to support neoliberalagendas. Scholarship should avoid reproducing this strategy, which can undercut and taint legitimate debates and concerns that exist around racism in all societies, including British Columbia," the study concludes.
The study also argues that “revisionism” is taking place against the proven facts that foreign capital drove up land prices first in Vancouver, then in Toronto.
The revisionism is rooted in the notion that the since the COVID-19 pandemic home prices have surged even higher and without the apparent influx of foreign capital.
The authors note the pandemic surge has occurred across all of Canada as a result of monetary policy (rock bottom interest rates) and, later in the pandemic, a surge in the number of immigrants to Canada.
The authors also lay out their continued support for housing taxation measures to curb speculation. (See chart in photo gallery)
“In B.C., and specifically Vancouver, there is clear evidence that demand management through taxation policies did cool the housing market,” the study states.
“More aggressive action is also possible, such as property surtaxes that can be offset by income tax paid, with exemptions for seniors, which would more comprehensively tax foreign capital-based homeownership.
“They would also contribute to addressing the basic tax fairness questions raised by foreign ownership: that international buyers with sources of wealth or income abroad can purchase property without paying the high, ongoing income taxes that local buyers must pay.”
But they note while the BC NDP maintained the foreign buyers’ tax, and speculation and vacancy tax, the revisionism worked to some extent, since maintaining them was opposed by the BC Liberals and subsequently the BC Conservatives.
But, the study notes, BC NDP Premier David Eby has shown a greater tendency to buy into supply-side economics, such as with “aggressive new supply-side legislation” in late 2023 when his government forced most B.C. municipalities to pre-zone for higher density.
Gordon is a visiting research fellow in the Digital Society Lab at McMaster University; Yan is associate professor in urban studies and the director of the City Program at Simon Fraser University; and Ley is a professor emeritus of geography at UBC.
The authors claimed to receive no funding from any source for the article.
