{"id":75050,"date":"2025-08-16T22:39:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-16T22:39:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/75050\/"},"modified":"2025-08-16T22:39:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-16T22:39:08","slug":"canadas-real-estate-economy-fueled-by-mass-immigration-and-offshore-cash-is-unsustainable-mayor-brad-west-warns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/75050\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada\u2019s Real Estate Economy, Fueled by Mass Immigration and Offshore Cash, Is Unsustainable, Mayor Brad West Warns"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Port Coquitlam Mayor Brad West meets with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in 2023 to discuss American concerns over fentanyl trafficking and money laundering tied to transnational crime groups operating in British Columbia.<\/p>\n

British Columbia, and much of the country, is confronting the consequences of an economic model that was never built to last. For years, we have been told a comforting story about growth \u2014 that as long as cranes dot the skyline and property values climb, prosperity will follow. But beneath that veneer lies a stark truth: our economy is not driven by value-added manufacturing, groundbreaking technology, innovation, or by unlocking our vast natural resource potential. It is built almost entirely on real estate and relentless population growth driven by mass immigration. And it relies on the building and selling of homes to the next wave of newcomers.<\/p>\n

This is not diversification. This is dependency. And like all dependencies, it eventually demands a price.<\/p>\n

In the not-too-distant past, B.C.\u2019s prosperity came from sectors that created enduring value: forestry and mining that supplied the world; fisheries that sustained communities; manufacturing that turned raw materials into products; and, in more recent years, tech companies that could compete globally.<\/p>\n

Today, those industries are shadows of their former selves in our economic mix \u2014 thanks, in part, to the strangulation of over-regulation and inordinately lengthy approval processes easily weaponized by those ideologically opposed to resource extraction. Their demise is not a naturally occurring phenomenon \u2014 and it is reversible \u2014 but it reflects the agenda and decisions of policymakers. In their place, real estate has become the dominant force, representing nearly 30 percent of B.C.\u2019s GDP with its ancillary sectors. That\u2019s a hell of a lot of eggs in a single basket, and the province\u2019s balance sheet has become frighteningly tied to this cycle.<\/p>\n

As the government oversaw this reorganization of the economy, it sent out the proverbial bat signal that investment capital didn\u2019t belong in business development, but in land. Message received. Billions upon billions poured into bidding up land prices. Among the many consequences of this misallocation of capital are high land values squeezing out industrial employers and gnawing away at industrial land, weakening our capacity to make and export things. Today, industrial land makes up barely 4 percent of Metro Vancouver\u2019s landmass.<\/p>\n

This new growth machine runs on people \u2014 specifically, the rapid influx of newcomers. In theory, immigration is a tool to strengthen an economy, replenish a workforce, and foster innovation. But in practice, B.C. and Canada have relied on it as the primary fuel for real estate demand. In 2023 alone, Canada added 1.27 million people \u2014 the most in 66 years, and almost entirely through immigration. No other G7 country comes close.<\/p>\n

The country\u2019s notorious Temporary Foreign Worker Program and unprecedented number of international students have figured prominently in this surge. Programs once intended to fill specific gaps or foster academic exchange have morphed into de facto population pipelines.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s all about feeding the beast: bring in more people than the market can comfortably absorb, then build and sell homes to meet the stimulated demand. Rising prices are framed as a sign of economic health, when in reality, they are a sign of scarcity and strain. In B.C., the government has clung to this model by throwing community planning out the window with legislation that overrides local decision-making and forces blanket upzoning without regard for infrastructure capacity or livability.<\/p>\n

But all the smoke and mirrors in the world can\u2019t obscure the reality. Hospital emergency rooms close not sporadically, but routinely. More and more students are educated in portables rather than properly resourced schools. Infrastructure \u2014 from roads and public transit to sewers and utilities \u2014 is under immense strain. It was never designed for the pace of expansion we\u2019ve seen, and the costs of playing catch-up are staggering.<\/p>\n

And still the cycle continues \u2014 because without that constant flow of new buyers, the whole structure starts to wobble. And wobbling it is.<\/p>\n

To call this a Ponzi scheme is not to say it is literally fraudulent in the legal sense. But the comparison is apt: returns for current \u201cinvestors\u201d depend on recruiting new participants at ever-higher prices. The moment the influx slows, the math stops working.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve seen this movie before. Jurisdictions from Ireland before the 2008 crash, to parts of Spain\u2019s coastal boom towns, to U.S. \u201cSun Belt\u201d cities in the lead-up to the subprime meltdown \u2014 all rode a similar wave. And when it broke, the fallout was severe: construction job losses, collapsing home values, public finances in crisis, and a wave of personal bankruptcies.<\/p>\n

In B.C., the warning lights are already flashing. Housing sales have cooled. Developers are shelving projects. Construction employment, once a driver of job growth, is faltering. Debt loads \u2014 both personal and governmental \u2014 are dangerously high. In the case of the Government of British Columbia, that would be a historic $133 billion. Youth unemployment in the province reached 14.6 percent in July \u2014 the highest level since September 2010.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the sectors that could cushion a downturn \u2014 manufacturing, technology, value-added resource development \u2014 suffer from the province\u2019s unilateral disarmament.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s be honest: status quo politicians have taken us too far down this road to turn back without consequence. The damage is already being felt \u2014 and more is coming. But that doesn\u2019t mean we can stay the course. We must act deliberately, and with purpose, to shift away from an economic model where our primary export is real estate, toward one where we build and produce the goods, technology, and services the world actually needs.<\/p>\n

The turnaround won\u2019t be easy, and it won\u2019t be quick. But the longer we wait, the higher the cost of inaction. That means unshackling our resource sectors from endless regulatory gridlock so they can innovate and compete. It means investing in productivity-enhancing infrastructure, research and development, and the skills of our own workforce. And it means having an honest conversation about immigration levels \u2014 balancing economic benefits with our capacity to house and integrate new arrivals without fueling a speculative frenzy.<\/p>\n

B.C. can either confront these realities now, or wait until the market forces a reckoning upon us. One path allows for a managed, strategic shift toward long-term prosperity. The other leaves us at the mercy of the same \u201chouse of cards\u201d economics that has collapsed elsewhere \u2014 only this time, we will have no one to blame but ourselves.<\/p>\n

Brad West is the Mayor of Port Coquitlam, British Columbia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Port Coquitlam Mayor Brad West meets with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in 2023 to discuss American…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":75051,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[45,49,48,46],"class_list":["post-75050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75050\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}