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All the cash flooding in has impacted a lot of people by driving up the cost of living, especially in Vancouver. Report finds $5B laundered through B.C. real e

• asdf21 7y ago
  But heaven forbid you question the wisdom of these sorts of immigration policies, because if you do you must be a evil bad mean racist. Edit, sure, downvote away. Even if the government prosecuted everyone who did this 100% fairly, the police and government would endlessly be called racist for targeting minorities. It's absurd.
  • scarejunba 7y ago
    The following are all simultaneously true: * There are racists who want to curb immigration * There are immigrants exploiting real-estate laws to launder money * There are non-racists who want to curb immigration * There are immigrants who move to Canada and contribute to society there
    • larnmar 7y ago
      I’m not convinced of the existence of non-racists. I suspect everyone is somewhat racist in one way or another.
      • saagarjha 7y ago
        Everyone has biases and prejudices to some extent. When we talk about preventing racism, we're should work towards identifying and counteracting them.
      • golergka 7y ago
        Then you're changing the definition of this word in such a way that it wouldn't have any real meaning.
    • GhettoMaestro 7y ago
      > * There are immigrants who move to Canada and contribute to society there And somehow this one point magically has more weight than all the others combined. It is a real stumper (not really).
      • steve_adams_86 7y ago
        Would it be magic if it's simply that most immigrants contribute to society in Canada? I'm not sure what you're implying, but I also don't see why it needs to be 'magic'. Immigration seems to be a net benefit for Canada - especially in the next decades as our worker:retiree ratio moves towards 2:1.
  • munk-a 7y ago
    As someone who emigrated up to Canada can I ask you to please not push American preconceived notions on immigration onto Canada? Canada has a fair and accessible immigration system that has allowed a lot of people seeking work to quickly and easily get settled and find a job - it also has a buy your way in system that allows anyone to immigrate assuming they can put up a big enough pile of cash. I'm a big fan of merit based immigration when that term isn't used to discriminate low wage workers and various ethnic groups and I'm really not a fan of the American equation of assets to merit. Canada has it's fair share of racists attacking the immigration opportunity of low and medium earning immigrants. The PPC ran on an intensely regressive platform, but thankfully they captured a marginal 1.6% of votes only. The real debate up here is the question of whether the money these rich immigrants bring in yields more tax earnings into the system than it takes out. So please don't drag American craziness into Canadian politics.
    • Scoundreller 7y ago
      > it also has a buy your way in system that allows anyone to immigrate assuming they can put up a big enough pile of cash. Not really. It's more of a "show that you have a pile of cash" immigration scheme rather than a "create X jobs" or "write the government a big cheque" form of immigration scheme. Quebec's scheme requires you to loan the government (now) $1.2m for 5 years at 0% interest.
      • munk-a 7y ago
        That is buying your way in, though you've mentioned a good point - the quantity of money needed to do that isn't actually that high, and, while you lose the ability to earn off those assets it's easier to lose future earnings on 1 mil than losing the mil itself. Anyone living in a reasonably expensive (like east coast USA) area who owns their own house can probably afford the cost by leveraging their property value. The Canadian government does get the utility of having the money available though, and usually the money put up will be put into projects that end up deferring adding immediately to the deficit. I think the philosophy here is that anyone who can afford to do this will be paying lots of luxury taxes or employing people, that's just more of a hope than anything concrete and I think the recent trials and tribulations of the BC Liberals (big L - a political party) has shown how little money ends up being added to the system by these asset gifted immigrants.
  • dang 7y ago
    Please don't post flamebait to HN. You started a flamewar with this comment. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
• hogFeast 7y ago
  The last point is fairly well-established and almost certainly not linked to organised crime: most immigrants work at businesses owned by other immigrants who might not formally employ people. This is why most immigrant communities end up having to create their own banks - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Chinese_American_banks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Chinese_American_bank... - because they fail most credit tests but are usually pretty good credits.
  • larnmar 7y ago
    Isn’t employment fraud a form of organised crime?
    • hogFeast 7y ago
      In most cases, no.
• mgh2 7y ago
  Could this explain the "cliquey and flaky" nature of the city? There is no community, locals just don't care other than superficial niceties. Combine the two most exclusive cultures: rich and Asian, this is what you get with 27.7% of Chinese in Vancouver (2011). http://worldpopulationreview.com/world-cities/vancouver-population/ http://worldpopulationreview.com/world-cities/vancouver-popu... Challenge my theory please...I would like to understand why this city is so isolating.
  • munk-a 7y ago
    I think the modern world is just more isolated than those golden memories of yore (I can't really speak to their accuracy). That said, downtown vancouver wouldn't really feel like a community (except maybe Davie) due to the fact that's it's mostly business with a bit of random housing interspersed. If you look out to Burnaby, Surrey, or even better New West, you'll find city centers with a decent bit of community around them. Technically Vancouver does include the DTES along with Kits and various south side neighborhoods, these are more reasonable but are suffering from pretty severe gentrification. In the downtown core everyone I know living there just lives "between stuff" - between stadium and false creek, between granville and burrard station - there aren't any really good nexuses of activity that aren't wholly given over to commercial, but that's sort of alright, Vancouver is a big city and everything in the downtown core is easily accessible to people as far out as Richmond and Surrey.
    • deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  • katbyte 7y ago
    Where you born in van or moved here? I find locals already have social circles and new people have a hard time breaking into them. Can’t say why but seems to hold water with my social circles
    • peteretep 7y ago
      Sounds like London. Lots of people friends with people they knew from their home towns who also moved in. Any time I went to an expat event there, people complaining they never made any British friends.
• msie 7y ago
  As one who has followed the reporting and the reports: the reporting is sketchy. Don't believe the hype. [Edit]: Also don't rely on Douglas Todd's opinion piece. He plays fast and loose with the "facts" in that piece and he's notably against immigration.
  • swebs 7y ago
    Feel free to go into detail or link some sources. "Dude, trust me" isn't going to convince many people.
    • msie 7y ago
      Most of the stuff by global news is written by Sam Cooper. If you read his pieces he reports on a lot of hear-say, letting the reader's imagination fill in the pieces. Also he likes to inflate the effect of money laundering such that it is the source of all the problems: high real estate prices and the opioid drug epidemic - which is highly simplistic. In a way he is giving what the people want. If you read the government report on money laundering, they don't really go into detail about how they came up with that 5 billion dollar figure. And then they estimate the effect of money laundering could affect RE prices from 5-20%. So, a lot of guessing. A billion here, a billion there...who cares, right? All the reporters just report on these numbers as facts.
  • 99_00 7y ago
    Douglas Todd cites his sources: University of British Columbia professors.
• mymythisisthis 7y ago
  That is about 10,000 homes a year (for a $500,000 property). Over 10 years that would be 100,000 homes. With about 300,000 dwellings that a 1/3 of the homes being involved in money laundering.
  • wahern 7y ago
    You can repeatedly use the same asset to launder money. And an appreciating asset like housing is ideal as the laundering costs can be covered and even exceeded by appreciation. Probably don't want to do it too often for any particular property if you're worried about getting caught, though.
    • Tiktaalik 7y ago
      Yeah one of the reports had some data that pointed to this being a major thing. There was a house that had 20 mortgages on it. Take out a home equity loan, pay it off with shady drug cash, then do it again, etc.
• thbr99 7y ago
  (QIIP) Québec investor immigration programme has a major contribution to Vancouver housing crisis. It's basically a "pay for citizenship scheme" Québec gets to keep the money for 5 years before returning it to the investor and BC pays the price for it. These investors have no obligation to set foot in Québec or start a business in Québec ! All other provinces have discontinued this programme except Québec.
  • apkallum 7y ago
    The program was suspended in the latest immigration reforms: https://www.immigration-quebec.gouv.qc.ca/en/immigrate-settle/businesspeople/applying-business-immigrant/three-programs/investors/index.html https://www.immigration-quebec.gouv.qc.ca/en/immigrate-settl...
    • thbr99 7y ago
      Suspended doesn't mean it's cancelled. CAQ govt. is revamping their immigration policies. So far it seems they favor culturally fit Francophones from Europe than any other merit. They also have policies (Bill 21 & Bill 9) in place to discourage immigration from Francafrique countries. I am sorry to say this but, IMO I feel like CAQ govt. is trying to cherry pick white French immigrants to keep Québec white. Everyone can argue that it's not the case, but they are implementing this system piece by piece over the years. The immigration system of Québec has removed 'D' Diversity from its name. MIDI => MIFI
      • Valgrim 7y ago
        Even french white immigrants are rejected for no good reason. https://nationalpost.com/news/french-national-denied-quebec-residency-over-language-proficiency https://nationalpost.com/news/french-national-denied-quebec-... The CAQ is very anti-immigration on all fronts.
        • thbr99 7y ago
          It was a case of an over zealous employee following rules. That individual was lucky that she is white & French. She has also friends in Montreal CBC media. Hence the outcry."How dare you reject one of us" There are many unlike her, who is not white & French whose applications got rejected in Québec immigration department's cherry picking. We will never hear their story. The CAQ is pandering to its 37% of voters. Makes one wonder whether rest of Canada is ok with this openly racist policies of a provincial govt. "Immigrants Not Being Able to Read Their Hydro Bill Won’t Save the French Language" https://thelinknewspaper.ca/article/immigrants-not-being-able-to-read-their-hydro-bill-wont-save-the-french-language https://thelinknewspaper.ca/article/immigrants-not-being-abl... "Anti-immigrant sentiments hurt Quebec" https://www.mcgilltribune.com/opinion/anti-immigrant-sentiments-hurt-quebec-1911 https://www.mcgilltribune.com/opinion/anti-immigrant-sentime...
• vpcs111fm 7y ago
  I usually don't comment on these, but I do look things differently. Yes -- there are problems, but money coming into a country can be a great addition to the national and local economy. Yes, it drives the cost of real estate price and etc, but if the demand for real estate goes up, the logical answer should be building more highrises. If you look at Vancouver (your example), there are ample of areas that need to be wiped out and replaced with highrises. By building more, we create tremendous jobs, not just the construction workers, but also the bankers, developers, financiers, brokers, furniture sellers, movers, electricians, car salespeople etc. etc. At the end of the day, whether you live in the States, Canada, or China, the housing market is the most common way of moving economic growth. People say being the money haven is a bad idea. Why? I don't really understand. You look at Switzerland, Delaware, Ireland, Hong Kong, Singapore, Netherlands, etc etc, it is not a bad thing to structure your system to incentivize so that your domestic businesses want to stay in and foreign business wants to come. Every headquarters that they build, they hire hundreds of accountants, middle-level managers etc. etc. In my opinion, Canada needs more of those tax haven seeking companies, not less. Why would you ever reject free money? I understand this is a competition to the bottom. But I have to let you know that there will always be corporations and 1% people who will evade the taxes, and there are always too many countries to offer those services. If Canada hits a foreign buyer's tax, the Chinese and Russians will go to NZ. If Kiwis run a foreign buyer's tax, they go to Australia. If Aussies do it, they go to Portugal. The list goes forever. Again, the right answer to surge in demand is more supply, not restricting the demand, as what many Canadians think. It's always easy to blame for richer people. Blame on Chinese and Persians in Vancouver, but you have to understand, whether you like it or not, it is the Chinese and Persian people who pushed Vancouver's overall wealth level to the next. Many of their sole job is flipping hosuses, and they don't pay labor taxes. But, they pay more taxes in the end, every time they flip the house. They hire people, move the economic needle every time they flip. Without them, Vancouver would be another sleepy town. There's no other industry here. And I used to work in Zurich and New York City for over a decade. IMO, Vancouver's rent, housing price, and the overall price level is cheaper than most global cities. You need to compare the prices with where people want to live -- like New York, LA, Paris, London etc, not Calgary or Louisville, Kentucky. Despite being ranked as among the best places in Vancouver is relatively cheap. Its overall price level can be compared to Barcelona, Moscow, Seoul, or Tokyo, where prevailing wages are a lot lower than Vancouver. In short, (1) Vancouver's prices are reasonable, (2) we need more of those evasive money, (3) answer to suge in housing demand is to building more and increasing supply, and (4) letting rich people park the money in your neighbour is a good thing! Let them gentrify -- or you can always move to Detroit or Baltimore.
• godelmachine 7y ago
  >>Richmond is majority Chinese. >nine of 10 recent Chinese immigrants arrive in Metro Vancouver with enough money to immediately buy homes. How come Chinese have that kind of money while entering? Are they all rich and well-bequeathed?
  • mgh2 7y ago
    Who knows? But one theory might be from selling jacked up prices in Amazon (Western market)...being the suppliers themselves. I know people who did this, there are also ecommerce companies that source from China and market the hell out (FB, Adsense) of crappy products to Westerners...those counterfeit and fake product reviews from Amazon- most are Chinese...
    • godelmachine 7y ago
      There’s a similar app we have in India called “ClubFactory” All products are Chinese made though they do a good job making it look Western and branded
  • Mikeb85 7y ago
    Lots of relatives of officials or industrialists in China hiding money from authorities over there by laundering it over here.
  • throwaway35784 7y ago
    The average person in the top 1% in China has over $2.1 million CAD. That's 14 million people, which is half the population of Canada. Canadian homes are their safe deposit boxes. They buy homes in Canada, one of the safest places in the world to protect their assets from the Chinese govt. They walk into a casino with a suit case of dirty cash, then walk right out and it's clean, Tax free money. Then they buy a house. No wonder locals can't afford a home. A studio apartment costs $500,000.
• sunkenvicar 7y ago
  China issues exit visas to Chinese nationals. These people buy citizenship in Canada, fly to Vancouver, and launder their money through our housing market. How does this improve Canada? Seems like a no-brainer to push the pause button on Chinese immigration. Let’s take this opportunity to do an A-B test.