I'm not sure if you've read Gordon's work, but he actually advocates a surtax based on whether an owner's worldwide income is filed in Canada rather than an n%

I'm not sure if you've read Gordon's work, but he actually advocates a surtax based on whether an owner's worldwide income is filed in Canada rather than an n% tax on foreign owners at purchase. There are more effective ways to cool the market and he's well aware of them. I suspect if you sat him down for coffee he'd tell you that the BC Liberals wanted to be able to point to a measure to say they were doing something to slow the market, while being fairly confident the market wouldn't slow down that much at all.