Are Vancouver people happy after all

Vancouver people are actually not happy.

Vancouver has been rated as one of the most livable cities in the world by various organizations or media for many years, but a research data released by Statistics Canada last week showed that Vancouver people are the unhappiest people in Canada, and the happiness index ranks first from the bottom among 33 cities in China. Moreover, at the beginning of 20 15, Demographia, a well-known American urban planning website, surveyed the housing affordability of 378 big cities in 9 countries around the world (including 86 big cities with a population of over one million), and Vancouver ranked second from the bottom, barely better than Hong Kong. The median household income of 20 14 in Vancouver is 66,400 yuan, while the average house price in this city is 704,800 yuan, which is 10.6 times!

Some people in Canada criticized the federal government's investment immigration policy in the past 30 years, which led to the abnormal rise of the Canadian real estate market, especially the Vancouver real estate market. Although the housing affordability of Vancouver is barely better than that of Hongkong, the influx of wealthy immigrants from China has resulted in the abnormal development of the real estate market in the two places. Citing the research conclusion of geography professor of the University of British Columbia, the author thinks that the rising curve of Vancouver real estate market is consistent with the number of rich people in China introduced by the Canadian federal government's investment immigration policy in the past 30 years. However, the government has been ignoring and trying to "suppress" the debate on this issue for so many years, leading to such a situation; Harper's government finally closed all investment immigration plans last year and started again.

In such happy places as Sagaine, sudbury and Sander Bay, there are manufacturing, dairy, forestry and mining, and the neighbors are harmonious and polite. But Vancouver people rely on any real estate they are lucky to own to earn most of their income. This trend will only make people lose their sense of belonging to the city. If we look back on how the Canadian federal government's immigrant investor program made China rich people flood into Canada step by step, we can trace it back to 1986. London and Beijing just signed the agreement on the return of Hong Kong to China at 1997. Marloni's Conservative government wants to take the opportunity to give full play to Canada's advantages. So the Canadian government hastily launched a plan to attract worried Hong Kong capitalists to Canada. Under the leadership of Maroni's successor, the Liberal Party, the "Investment Immigration Plan" became a "passport printing machine". 20 1 1 When Harper's Conservative government returned to power, there were 300,000 people holding Canadian passports in Hong Kong and about 20,000 people in Chinese mainland.

Some people have commented on the source and flow of funds brought by these investment immigrants: In the first decade of 2 1 century, more than 8,000 executives of state-owned enterprises in China were found to have used fake joint ventures, underground banks disguised as overseas study institutions, fake service expenditures and fake offshore subsidiary accounts to transfer funds out of China. The People's Bank of China estimates that in the past ten years, 654.38+026 billion yuan has been embezzled through these methods, and Canadian real estate, especially the real estate in Dawen area, is one of the places where the money finally flows. At present, the investigation team of "Skynet Action" in China is investigating the real estate industry in Vancouver. The police station in BC province will not say whether they will cooperate, but even if they do, it will not be easy. In the last decade of the "Investment Migration Plan", more than 30,000 rich people from China were attracted to BC Province.

Many people criticized that "the Canadian government's investment immigration plan has been showing kindness to China local tyrants", and also accused the federal government of taking away tens of yuan of interest-free loans that should have belonged to the BC provincial government, and shamefully spending the money on thousands of "back door keys" provided by the Canada-Quebec Agreement, so that "China local tyrants" can immigrate to Vancouver smoothly, because it only needs to blink and nod through this agreement.

In other words, those so-called Quebec investment immigrants finally came to Vancouver. No one seems to know where these big investors have gone. According to the survey of China Merchants Bank, as of 20 13, nearly a quarter of the rich people in Chinese mainland have emigrated, but the vacancy rate of luxury new apartments in Vancouver is around 30%. Although there is no tracking record in Vancouver, David Ley, a professor of geography at the University of British Columbia, has been tracking the relationship between the rise in residential real estate prices in Vancouver and the influx of investment immigrants for many years, showing that the two are synchronized. The data found prove that Canadian investment immigrants (about 80% of whom are rich people in China) seem to have paid less personal income tax to the federal government in the past 25 years than refugee immigrants in the same period.

Last year, Macdonald Realty found that one third of the houses sold this year were bought by Chinese mainland buyers, so it opened an office in Shanghai, directly facing China buyers. In terms of Canadian dollars, in 20 14, nearly half of the turnover in Vancouver's detached house market was contributed by Chinese mainland buyers.

House prices in Vancouver have been soaring, and local people think their lives have been greatly affected. The life of Vancouver people has changed greatly because of the arrival of a large number of investment immigrants from China. However, immigrants from China have contributed to the development of Canada. What Vancouver people really need to think about is how to get along with them