ktomlinson

I hope it will be effective but I believe the province must do what it promised to do and that is have enough auditors to scrutinize all the transactions and drill into beneficial (hidden) ownership, corporate structures etc. Otherwise yes some people will find a way around it

That photo was taken by Ben Nelms, who waited on the public street in front of Mr. Gu's home in the early morning. Ben got the shot as he was leaving home to get in his car

I do believe the CRA was reticent to go after this hard for quite some time. I believe it didn't want to target a particular demographic and it didn't have the auditing staff and expertise it needed to have, esp out in Vancouver. Not willful negligence, but complacency yes. And that impression comes from talking to CRA insiders and accountants.

I do believe politics are playing a big role here. And I agree. The complacency on the part of politicians at first as many people were ringing the bell is upsetting to many people. The government has been criticized for listening to the real estate industry and therefore being blind to some of the holes in the system frankly being exploited by some people in that same industry. People have made a ton of money from real estate here in the past few years - and that is not a bad thing - but it needed to be more carefully monitored and regulated.

My understanding is the federal finance dept is very actively looking at this and all aspects of the real estate situation. So we shall see