Race and Real Estate:

How data informed public debate on

BC’s Foreign Buyer Tax

by

Sophia Han

BA (Communications), Concordia University, 1998

Extended Essay Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the

Requirements for the Degree of

Master of Arts

in the

School of Communications (Dual Degree Program in Global Communication)

Faculty of Communication, Art and Technology

© Sophia Han

SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY

Summer 2017

Copyright in this work rests with the author. Please ensure that any reproduction or re-use is done in accordance with the relevant national copyright legislation.

Approval

Name:

Degree:

Title:

Program Co-Directors:

Sophia Han

Master of Arts (Communication)

Race and Real Estate: How data informed public debate on BC's foreign buyer tax

Dr. Zhao Yuezhi, Dr. Adel lskandar

Stuart Poyntz Senior Supervisor Associate Professor

Date Approved:

ii

Abstract

This capstone references works and theories surrounding the 2016 debate over

causal factors of Vancouver’s inflated real estate market. Where and how this

discussion has been informed by data will be examined through a case study

supported by an analysis of mainstream media headlines. This case study will

lead to an examination of data as concept, a tool for making disorder “legible”

(Scott, 1998), after which Checkland’s model of dare and capere is referenced to

further break down the interpretive nature of data. Both theories are discussed

when I revisit Bill 28’s Property Transfer Tax (PTT) form amendment alongside a

few observations about the use of data in policy narratives.

Keywords: Vancouver real estate; BC legislature Bill 28; BC foreign buyer tax;

data collection; policy narratives; racism in Canada;

iii

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank Dr. Yuezhi Zhao, Dr. Adel Iskandar and Dora Lau for their

support, encouragement and the opportunity to undertake this candidacy through the

dual degree program. Dr. Stuart Poyntz has provided excellent insight and very patiently

reworked my drafts into this manageable version. I also wish to thank Dr. Katherine

Reilly, Peter Zuurbier and Sibo Chen for their editing work on a supportive paper for

Stream.

It takes a great deal of personal and financial resources to undertake graduate

studies and I am deeply indebted to Dr. Judith Marcuse, Dr. Lynn Fels, Kim Gilker and

Dr. Tracey Leacock for the opportunity to work with ICASC and the ASC! Research

Project while pursuing my candidacy. I also thank the lovely Lucy Menkveld at the

School of Communication and Desiree Nazareth and Valerie Moorman at the School of

Interactive Arts and Technology for their flexibility in accommodating my TA

appointments.

We don’t always know where life takes us and my own journey has taken me

back and forth across the Pacific some half-dozen times. Each re-settlement was made

a lot easier through the emotional support and encouragement of various people, from

Tamara Beznosyuk, Yukiko and Ichiro Ota in Japan, Michael Fukushima and Serene

Daoud in Montreal, David Asimwe, Lynda Campbell, Glenn Tarigan and Annie Zui here

in Vancouver, as well as many others. My interest in housing and urban planning was

seeded many years ago during an internship in Manila and so I am grateful for my time

there with the staff at Alterplan.

In a way, all these journeys have informed my choice of research topic so without

these past enablers, I wouldn’t be where I am now and my writing probably would have

taken a very different course.

iv

Table of Contents

Approval ii Abstract iii Acknowledgements iv Table of Contents v List of Figures vi List of Acronyms vii Glossary viii

Chapter 1. Real Estate in Vancouver 1

1.1 Introduction to the controversy 1 Chapter 2. Background to the Issues 3

2.1 Racial tensions 3 2.2 Concerns over housing unaffordability 11 2.3 Neighborhood transformation and Chinese new money 12 Summary 12

Chapter 3. The Role of Data 14

3.1 An example of the influence of data 14 3.2 A data purposed by narratives? 15 3.3 No dearth of data 16 Summary 18

Chapter 4. Data and the Process of Legibility 20

4.1 An objective lens to a complicated situation 20 4.2 Data in discussions on race and real estate in Vancouver 20

4.2.1 Subjects under discussion 23 4.2.2 Objects under discussion 24 4.2.3 Main issues under discussion 26

Summary 28 Chapter 5. Data as Concept 30

5.1 Dare and capta 30 5.2 A question of authority 32 5.3 The PTT Form revisited 35 Summary 38

Chapter 6. Conclusion 40

Appendix A 42

References 43

v

List of Figures

Figure 1. Full Version of the PTT Form (Version 26)

vi

 

Figure 2. Amendments to the PTT Form (Version 26)

vii

List of Acronyms

BIP Business Immigration Program

BTA Bing Thom Architects

CBoC Conference Board of Canada

CMHC Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation

CREA Canadian Real Estate Association

GVBT Greater Vancouver Board of Trade

IIP Immigrant Investor Program

IMDB Immigrant Data Base

IPPA International Public Policy Association

LTSA Land Title and Survey Authority

LIDS Landed Immigrant Data System

NAR National Association of Realtors (US)

PTT Property Transfer Tax

REBGV Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver

RBC Royal Bank of Canada

NAR National Association of Realtors (US)

viii

Glossary

Bill 28 BC legislature that was passed on August 2, 2016 that was intended to curb foreign investment in the local housing market. It includes amendments that enable the City of Vancouver to impose a vacancy tax, the creation of a foreign buyer tax, amendments to the BC Real Estate Services act and the creation of a Housing Priority Initiatives fund. Full title: “Bill 28 - 2016 Miscellaneous Statutes (Housing Priority Initiatives) Amendment Act, 2016.”

BTAworks The internal research and innovation division of Bing Thom Architects.

Preliminary report A presentation of early findings from a study based on sampled data.

Shadow flipping A sales practice that allows the realtor to sell or transfer the contract to another party. Contracts with assignment clauses often have longer closing periods, allowing the realtor to flip the property multiple times for additional commissions.

White paper In government, the term white paper is applied to official documents presented by Ministers of the Crown which state and explain the government's policy on a certain issue. The term can also refer to documents produced by corporations, public institutions, and non-governmental organizations that are intended to be authoritative and informative in nature.

ix

Chapter 1. Real Estate in Vancouver

1.1 Introduction to the controversy

On November 30, 2016, Evan Siddall, president and CEO of the Canada

Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) addressed the Greater Vancouver

Board of Trade (GVBT) on the matter of Vancouver’s housing crisis. The 1

controversy over Vancouver’s real estate bubble has seen various iterations over

the last 30 years but Siddall’s presentation, “Housing in Canada and the

Imaginary City: Addressing Vulnerabilities, Data Gaps and Affordability” provided

a year-end overview of current issues, particularly those areas that were thought

to have been addressed through property tax reforms passed in August, 2016.

Chief among these issues, was the question of foreign ownership. After

the widespread circulation of a November 2015 report by Andy Yan for Bing

Thom Architects (BTA), causal factors for the real estate bubble included a

theory that Vancouver was being bought out by speculative investors with

“non-Anglicized Chinese names.” The resulting debate led to a call for data 2

collected through the amendment of Property Transfer Tax (PTT) Form (Version

26). This change ultimately took effect on June 10, 2016. After a preliminary

report was publicized in July, Bill 28 was drafted and passed through the BC

legislature in an 8-day process. Siddall’s presentation to the GVBT takes note of

this amendment and refers to the obtained data as “transactions-based

administrative data.” He also observed the following: “As you are no doubt

aware, factual information on the scope and influence [of] foreign investment in

1 “Housing in Canada and the Imaginary City: Addressing Vulnerabilities, Data Gaps and Affordability,” was presented at the Westin Bayshore in Vancouver, November 30, 2016 to an audience of GVBT members. 2 Full title of the report: “Ownership Patterns of Single Family Home Sales on Selected West Side Neighbourhoods in the City of Vancouver: A Case Study.” Yan’s report is singled out here because it was one of the most cited works in mainstream media during the months leading up to the PTT amendment.

1

 

local housing markets in Canada is notoriously scarce and challenging to obtain”

(Siddall, 2016). It is an interesting observation to make four months after Bill 28’s

passage, particularly as these tax reforms were rationalized based on the

“conclusiveness” of the data obtained through the amended PTT.  3

This account suggests the importance of data in informing public debate.

Were there aspects to the collection, interpretation and presentation of the PTT

data that should have called into question its “conclusive” nature? The question

is important given the way in which data can be used by governing institutions to

shape debate, classify groups, or inscribe an overly simplistic narrative on

complex situations. What follows in this extended essay is an examination of

data as concept, with specific attention to the way data can operate as a tool for

making disorder “legible” (Scott, 1998). Checkland’s model of dare and capere is

referenced to further break down the interpretive nature of data. Both theories

are discussed through an investigation of Bill 28’s Property Transfer Tax

amendment with a view to understanding the use of data in policy narratives.

3 The use of “conclusive” is a reference to the media portrayal of the Property Transfer Tax Report. The report itself does not make explicit statement linking foreign investment and price inflation. It is a preliminary study comprised of 4 pages of mainly aggregated data and highlighted summations expressed as percentages and averages. The full title of the preliminary study is “Property Transfer Tax Report: June 10 to July 14, 2016” (Conference Board of Canada, 2016).

2

 

Chapter 2. Background to the Issues

2.1 Racial tensions

Since the mid-1980s numerous theories have arisen regarding the causes for

Vancouver’s inflated real estate market, from suggestions of an unholy alliance

among public authorities with neoliberal economic agendas, to the role of

stakeholders in the real estate, banking, and construction industries. Other 4

factors include the legacy of the Business Immigration Program (BIP) that is now 5

defunct in all provinces except Quebec (Malcolm, 2016).

Ethnographers have also noted the role of “Confucian capitalists” who 6

have been accused of exploiting global financial flows through “passports of

convenience” (Todd, 2013). Globalization itself can been seen as a principle

actor: faceless, formless and as accountable as a tsunami or other Act of God. 7

In this sense, globalization has been used as a nominal term in mainstream

media to describe a complex alchemy of geopolitical and economic forces that

increasingly limits the domestic population’s access to local resources.

While globalization is formative to the discussion, racism and classism

underlie popular responses to changes in the local real estate market. Racism

touches on the issues in a number of ways, from its appearance in newspaper

4 Ley outlines these as causal factors in the introduction to Millionaire Migrants. 5 Inaugurated as the Business Immigration Program, it was updated in 2010 and became the Immigrant Investor Program. 6 A conflation of Confucian ethics and Asian economic success. Donald M. Nonini and Aiwa Ong in their introduction to Ungrounded Empires, discuss Confucian capitalism as a discursive trope, but also part of a larger discourse that constitutes “Chineseness” in transnationalism (Nononi, Ong, 1997). Ong’s research focuses on behaviours related to the circular migration of Hong Kong immigrants in the US. 7 Mitchell referencing Ulrich Beck on characterizing globalization as an actor (Mitchell, 2004).

3

 

accounts of vandalism, arson and confrontations on public transit as reported in 8

the Vancouver Sun, to more subtle uses of the “race card” to circumscribe

discussions in public forums. It is the touchstone for those who interpret current 9

debate in light of a troubled history of land use that has excluded, marginalized

and contained groups (Mitchell, 2004; Ley, 2010), and the reason why any

discussion of a foreign ownership tax is problematic for groups who identify most

closely with the category of Asian or Chinese buyer.

How data can be used to circumscribe public discussion about race is the

premise of this work but to understand the reasons why avoiding a discussion on

race was important to the successful passage of Bill 28, it may be helpful to

briefly recap some relevant points in the history of Chinese immigration and

conflicts related to land use.

A brief history of racism

In the 19th century, some 15,000 Chinese labourers were recruited to build the

Canadian Pacific Railway but from 1885 to 1923, a $50 head tax was imposed

on Chinese immigrants, and the Chinese remain the only ethnic group ever to

have paid a tax to enter Canada. From 1923 to 1947, there was a ban on

Chinese immigration altogether. Immigration from East Asia as a whole spiked

periodically during the ‘70s and ‘80s with the passage of the 1976 Immigration

Act, as well as the adoption of a federal multicultural policy that became

legislation in 1988 under the Canadian Multiculturalism Act. During the 1980s

geopolitical factors in China and Hong Kong, as well as the popularity of a federal

8 Ley describes an account of an attempted arson near Arbutus Ridge (Ley, 2010). 9 In “There's nothing racist about Metro Vancouver housing study,” Todd reports that in the mid-'90s, accusations of racism were used to silence critics concerned by the rise in housing prices (Todd, 2015b). Mitchell explores related issues in Crossing the Neoliberal Line: Pacific Rim Migration and the Metropolis (Mitchell, 2004).

4

 

business immigration program (BIP), led to further intakes. At 4 percent of the

nation’s total population, Chinese immigrants now represent the third-largest

immigrant group in Canada, after immigrants from Great Britain and Europe.

The BIP was a federal program launched with the cooperation of the

Quebec government in 1986, when the early phenomenon of transnational

migration appeared to sit in perfect alignment with a neoliberal agenda that

welcomed financial and human capital from across the Pacific (Ley, 2010). It was

updated in 2010 and renamed the Immigrant Investor Program (IIP). Since the

program’s inception, Vancouver has increasingly been seen as a “gateway” to

the economic frontiers of the Pacific Rim (Mitchell, 2004; Ley, 2010), but it is also

a city that sits on the edge of a former British colony and reminders of this history

still crop up in public speech. In a 2014 budget report, Finance Minister Jim

Flaherty announced the cancellation of the Immigrant Investor Program,

observing, “There is … little evidence that investors as a class are maintaining

ties to Canada or making a positive economic contribution to the country”

(Carman, 2014). At the time, two-thirds of the IIP’s 16,340 backlogged

applications were from Chinese nationals. In Flaherty's remark, there are 10

curious echoes of the same anti-Chinese sentiment that was reported to the

1885 Royal Commission on Chinese Immigration: “[It] is charged that the

Chinese do not emigrate to foreign countries to remain, but only to earn a sum of

money and return to their homes in China” (Canadian Parliament, 1885).

Are the Chinese homo economicus or circular migrants?

The main criticism of Chinese immigrants is that they do not contribute to the

long-term economic well-being of Canada as their migration path tends to be of a

circular nature. (Todd, 2013). But have the majority of Chinese business

10 The cancellation of the program in the midst of so many backlogged applications would lead to a class-action lawsuit. “Wealthy foreigners to sue Canada over end of visa plan” (Gordon, 2014).

5

 

immigrants since the 1980’s been circular migrants? Social geographer David

Ley researched census, CRA and airport databases to address this question in

Millionaire Migrants.

David Ley’s work on wealthy business migrants solicited through the BIP

is a seminal examination of factors affecting the perceived success/failure of the

program and provides an interesting background to the collapse of the IIP in

2014, four years after Ley’s Millionaire Migrants was published.

Ley observes that the program's policy narrative cast the Chinese

businessman as a neoliberal hero, a homo economicus gifted with a business

acumen particularly suited for the new global economy. In the global recession of

the early 1980s, homo economicus was supposed to invigorate the local

economy, moving his talents and financial capital across borders and cultures in

a manner perfectly in line with Thomas Friedman’s view of a flattened geography  

(Ley, 2010; Friedman, 2005). In line with a traditional view of migration, the move

would be permanent. On describing the relationship between transnationalism

and neoliberalism, Ley concludes that “[it] is no accident that transnationalism

across the Pacific [arose] during a neoliberal period that so powerfully directed

Canada’s Asia-Pacific strategy” (Ley, 2010). From the start, transnational

migration was part of a neoliberal economic agenda and back in 1986, it was a

narrative that attracted thousands of citizens from Pacific Rim nations and recast

them as immigrants in a story of permanent settlement.

Ley suggests that this linear narrative of migration, from country of origin

to settler nation is disrupted by the contrast between spaces that are liveable and

spaces that are actually conducive to business. The qualities that attract

economic migrants to Vancouver (safety, slower lifestyle, environment, quality of

education) are those which make economic integration difficult (business and

environmental regulations, high taxes, low salaries, low profit margins).

Alongside the attendant barriers of language and education (with 39% of

6

 

economic migrants having nine years of education or less), Ley questions

whether many of the BIP participants can be said to have evolved much beyond

emigrant to immigrant.

Indeed, suggesting that the Asian business immigrant is “rational

economic man” (Ley, 2010) is a form of reductionism that marginalizes the

individual circumstances of BIP participants. Millionaire Migrants recounts many

difficulties faced by Chinese immigrants enrolled in the BIP’s entrepreneur

stream, from the unrealistic timeline for meeting conditional residency

requirements, to the difficulty of seeking entrepreneurial success in a market

largely confined to the boundaries of a competitive Chinese enclave. Implicit in 11

his arguments is a critique of policies that were operationally difficult to

implement and opaque to the program participants. It could be argued that the

BIP finally folded under the weight of its 16,340 backlogged applications.

Ley’s conclusions are based on data from focus groups, interviews and

surveys, as well as an empirical study of statistics from census surveys, the

Landed Immigrant Data System (LIDS) and the Immigrant Data Base (IMDB). His

findings are contextualized by the biographies of respondents often stressed and

demoralized by the dilemma of working in one nation but supporting a family in

another. Although Ley does not detail episodes of mismanagement within the

BIP, the selected transcripts evoke a sense of frustration and abandonment.

While focused on the economic activities of BIP immigrants, Ley also examines

the impact of transnational living conditions on family life. He presents a

sympathetic portrait of a group oppressed by economic imperatives, having to

migrate and reconstitute family structure with each life stage. Far from describing

the journey of a neoliberal hero, his account describes the typical BIP

entrepreneur as a fallible protagonist, often stranded by bureaucracy and

11 While those who entered the investor stream experienced similar obstacles to social and economic integration, these applicants did not have to meet the same stringent conditions as BIP entrepreneurs, often listing their occupational status as “retired” on Canadian tax returns. (Ley, 2010)

7

 

transnational economic commitments. To what degree were the program’s

executors responsible? The BIP served as a vehicle for the intake of financial

and human capital; yet governments at all levels did not appear to take into

account the need to create infrastructure to facilitate successful integration. 12

The circumstances of BIP participants contradict the "entrepreneurial

ethos” of the mid-1980s that created the program (Ley, 2010). In the late ‘80s,

this same neoliberal spirit was celebrated through the Expo 86 World Fair and

spawned another trans-Pacific enterprise: the landmark sale of the Expo lands to

Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing. The historical significance of this purchase

would be brought up during the World Fair’s 30-year anniversary in May 2016,

coinciding with contemporary discussions over real estate and a proposed

foreign buyer tax.

The Monster House Saga: An example of late 20th century systemic

racism?

In Millionaire Migrants, Ley tells us about circular migrants from the late

1980s and 1990s, but what of the immigrants who chose to settle? In Crossing

the Neoliberal Line: Pacific Rim Migration and the Metropolis, Mitchell examines

how transnationalism affects national narratives of place, culture and identity.

Mitchell’s ethnographic examination of neighbourhood transformation in

Vancouver addresses issues of race, class and the social constructs of home

and citizenship in the 2000s. Her research is relevant in two ways:

1. The amount of choice/agency she ascribes to the immigrant as a participant

in neoliberal markets. This is a view she shares with Aihwa Ong (although

12 Although a federal program, it is not clear what support was expected from the provincial and municipal governments; the dichotomy between federal policy and local implementation is a common theme in Canadian politics (Johal, 2017).

8

 

she attributes Ong’s focus on government to a “top-down” view; her own

approach reflects the “bottom-up” agency of the resistant subject. 13

2. The distinction between a narrative of economic liberalism as opposed to a

narrative of social liberalism.

Mitchell supports her argument through an account of the Monster House

controversy of the early 1990s. In summary, the Monster House saga refers to a

public controversy over the allowable scale of renovation to Tudor-style homes in

the south Shaughnessy and Kerrisdale-Oakridge areas on Vancouver’s West

Side. Residents of First Shaughnessy had earlier been successful in achieving

designation as a protected neighbourhood, incorporating new bylaws in the First

Shaughnessy Official Development Plan (now the Heritage Conservation Area

Official Development Plan after a 2015 status upgrade to heritage conservation

area). The residents of South Shaughnessy sought to emulate the success of

their northern neighbours by incorporating similar bylaws. However, the

movement was blocked by the actions of an ad hoc committee composed of

South Shaughnessy residents with Chinese family names. The result was a

series of six public hearings.

Mitchell and Ley situate the conflict within the context of tensions arising

from differing notions of private property rights, aesthetics (both topographical

and architectural), and community. While Ley provides a nuanced overview of

the issues, reflecting more on the historical significance of an immigrant group

speaking collectively for the first time in a public forum (albeit through

interpreters), Mitchell focuses on the conflict between economic liberalism (a

narrative that invites immigrants into a community on the basis of financial capital

and market demand) and social liberalism (a narrative that reflects a pluralistic,

multicultural view of society). In interviews with long-term residents of

13 Mitchell references Louis Althusser’s definition of subject here: the subject in a capitalist, neoliberal state society (Mitchell, 2004).

9

 

Shaughnessy, Mitchell detects a class-based resistance to the internalization of

the social liberal narrative.

In the local media, the Monster House saga grew from a nuanced public

debate to a conflict over land use along the axis of East vs. West, Asian vs.

White. Ley, however, points out that the resolution of the controversy involved

the cooperation of members from both associations, resulting in a

joint-committee report. In this sense, the saga highlighted a new role for the 14

Asian immigrant, that of an agent of social change. For in taking collective action

and engaging with the public at large, the Chinese residents of South

Shaughnessy not only announced their presence as homeowners with a vested

interest in their private property, they also positioned themselves as members of

a community from whom consent or dissent are expected participatory modes.

In the Monster House saga, we see early versions of themes that would

recur in subsequent discussions on race and real estate. The story was picked

up by international media as an example of systemic racism in Canada (Ley,

2010) and would later be referenced in articles explaining the controversy over

Andy Yan’s 2015 study for BTAworks (Cheung, 2015, Fung, 2016).

14 In spite of the headlines, the resolution was peaceful, even amusingly phlegmatic. The municipal response was salient in that its final decision was largely empirically-based: in the end, the number of briefs submitted by the South Shaughnessy Property Owners’ Rights Committee (residents with Chinese family names) outnumbered those put forth by the Shaughnessy Heights Property Owners Association (an established neighbourhood society composed mainly of residents with Anglo-Saxon names). Ley does not specify if the Chinese residents consciously intended to outdo the SHPOA in terms of the number of briefs but if they had then it would have indicated a sophisticated understanding of regional politics and notions of democracy.

10

 

2.2 Concerns over housing unaffordability

Historically, Chinese Canadians have been in the difficult position of being

wanted for their labor and financial capital but are seen as less likely to maintain

ties to Canada or contribute positively over the long-term.

No wonder, then, that the issue of immigration status and property

ownership became a sore point among the Vancouver Chinese diaspora in 2015

when calls for government intervention in the housing market included a request

to investigate the extent of foreign ownership (Todd, 2015a).

However, concerns over the impact of foreign capital on the local

economy were increasingly being legitimized by rising home prices. In the 2010s,

the trend could be attributed to increased market demand, as the population of

Metro Vancouver rose nearly 25 percent from 1.9 million in 2001 to 2.5 million in

2014. By January 2015, however, Vancouver ranked as the 2nd least affordable

city (after Hong Kong) on the Demographia International Housing Affordability

Survey. An RBC Economics report stated that the cost of an average two-storey

home in Vancouver had jumped 12 percent to $979,600 while The Globe and

Mail reported that the average selling price for a single detached home had

soared 30 percent higher than the city’s 10-year average (Dyck, 2015). With one

in five Canadian renters spending more than half their income on housing, the

call for government intervention was growing louder. However, in response to

prompts for government regulation, Minister of Housing Rich Coleman stated a

position of non-intervention: “ There is no initiative at this time in government to

go and interfere in the marketplace in regards to housing” (Slattery, 2015).

11

 

2.3 Neighborhood transformation and Chinese new money

The majority of economic migrants studied in Millionaire Migrants were those

who arrived prior to the 1997 handover of British Hong Kong to China. In 2014, a

National Post article characterized a new wave of immigrants from mainland

China as “brash newcomers… who bring with them significant sums of cash”

(Hutchinson, 2014). That a sense of resentment had entered the local discourse

could be seen at public forums over all-Chinese signage in Richmond (Chau,

2015). National Post also featured interviews with Kevin Li, creator of the web

series, “Ultra Rich Asian Girls,” Ian Young, journalist with the South China

Morning Post, and Andy Yan, an urban planning researcher mapping the extent

of foreign ownership in West Vancouver. All expressed concerns over the impact

of recent mainland Chinese capital on the local economy and culture.

Summary

Racial tensions due to a long history of discriminatory practices, conflicts over

neighborhood transformation, cultural tensions between different communities in

the Chinese diaspora, as well as recent spikes in pricing (against an overall rising

trend) were just some of the factors that made for heated public discussions on

real estate in 2015. On June 24th, when the creators of the hashtags

#donthave1million and #giveusdata organized a protest at the Vancouver public

library, the call for data was really a call for government action. In August, Prime

Minister Stephen Harper included a promise to investigate foreign ownership in

his election platform while an Angus Reid poll found that 70% of respondents

welcomed more political action on the issue of real estate and housing

affordability.

12

 

As to how this action might be undertaken, little was known; and while the

impact of global capital on Vancouver real estate was clearly evident, without

“hard proof” to determine a correct course of action, it seemed little could be

done to buck the current trend of rising unaffordability.

13

 

Chapter 3. The Role of Data

3.1 An example of the influence of data

Quantifiable data linking Asian investment, immigration and housing prices has

been available for decades. In a panel interview with the Asia Pacific Foundation,

Ley notes a direct correlation over a 25-year period between Metro Vancouver

housing affordability and numbers of foreign newcomers to the area (Asia Pacific

Foundation, 2015). However, as the degree of impact had not been quantified

and earlier prompts for the collection of data on foreign investment had been

frustrated by the government’s stance on non-intervention, the course for

government action remained unclear.

It was this political climate that received the findings in Andy Yan’s study

for BTAworks, “Ownership Patterns of Single Family Home Sales on Selected

West Side Neighbourhoods in the City of Vancouver: A Case Study.” The

contents of the study are summarized by a headline published by the National

Post: “ In a six-month period, 70% of detached homes sold in Vancouver’s west

side went to Mainland China buyers” (Cooper, 2015a).The study’s influence was

widespread, cited in more than 50 mainstream media articles between November

2015 and August 2016. The study is notable not only for its mapping approach

but also for the use of the term, “non-Anglicized Chinese family names” as a

proxy for buyers from mainland China. The widespread circulation of the study

can be attributed to the timeliness of the research topic. The study appeared to

answer questions regarding not only the causes of inflated real estate prices but

also the group largely responsible.

But while appearing to answer questions about the extent of foreign

ownership, there remained questions about the extent of speculative investment.

The difference is significant as noted by journalist Frances Bula: “ We don’t know

if the 70% of buyers were foreign investors, temporary residents, permanent

resident, non-resident dads parking their wives and children here, or families who

14

 

moved here wanting desperately to get out of China with its smog and

suffocating education system — families who are fully planning to create a new

life rooted in Vancouver” (Bula, 2015).

Another question left unanswered by the BTAworks study is one regarding

financing: if 70% of the buyers with non-Anglicized Chinese names are presumed

to be foreign speculators, how is it that 82% of the residential property owners

were holding mortgages? As the author himself notes, “With 82 percent of

residential properties in the study holding a mortgage, the image of pure ‘cash

sales’ seems highly problematic” (Yan, 2015).

Finally, the methodology used to identify the ethnicity of foreign owners

drew criticism. Yan’s study draws upon mortgage and sales transaction data to

profile owners according to occupation (self-declared) and ethnic identity (by full

name analysis). However, as Ian Young notes, having a non-Anglicized Chinese

name does not prove that a buyer is a recent Chinese immigrant or a naturalised

Chinese Canadian. For Young, the question is almost rhetorical, as the issue of

middle-income housing affordability cannot be addressed by researching the

ownership of luxury homes (Young, 2015).

3.2 A data purposed by narratives?

Aside from controversies over its methodologies, Yan’s study generated

feedback on its influence and use. In July, the ubiquity of the study was

discussed in a two-part feature by Travis Lupick for the Georgia Straight. Tagged

as a StraightTalk feature, the first article was provocatively subtitled with the

question, “How did the region become so convinced that foreign money is the

dominating force driving the Vancouver real-estate market?” Lupick suggests that

the reach of the BTAworks study had more to do with confirmation bias rather

than a comprehensive analysis of market factors. Among other causal factors,

Lupick notes alternative theories such as geography, low interest rates, buyer

panic, media focus on the foreign buyer narrative, zoning restrictions, as well as

15

 

the inter-generational transfer of wealth from baby boomers to millennials

(Lupick, 2016f). In a public debate where there has been such a loud call for

empirical evidence, Lupick suggests that the focus on studies that support the

foreign buyer narrative reflects a bias bordering on prejudice, a suggestion made

explicit by the footer link which references the first of this two-part series: “History

shows racism has always been a part of Vancouver real estate.”

Lupick’s observations parallel the theories of soft systems researcher

Peter Checkland that unless data is purposed by a human agenda, it remains

“raw” data. It is only when data is selected for analysis that it becomes

information. Regarding the BTAworks example, Lupick suggests that the foreign

buyer narrative purposed the data as information that was useful to support a

theory about speculative investment from overseas.

3.3 No dearth of data

At issue is the question of selected data. How does data inform our

understanding of the real estate market? How do biases influence our selection

of data? The hashtag #giveusdata suggests that information has been

deliberately withheld. However, this does not mean that information has not been

gathered. According to the Land Title and Survey Authority and the BC Chamber

of Commerce, citizenship declarations were once included with every property

transfer registered at the BC Land Title Office. The paper-based system was in

place for 20 years until 1998. As no financial resources were ever allocated to its

organization and analysis, the data was left unpurposed and eventually

destroyed.

Beyond the issue of ownership, our understanding of the home real estate

market comes from assessments of its availability (number of listings), market

value (pricing, tax assessments, sales volume) and affordability (pricing to

median gross income ratio). Historically, the two primary sources have been

multiple listing service (MLS) data and BC Assessment records. Other sources

16

 

include information published in reports on related financial transactions

(mortgage approvals), property development (permit applications) and

construction activities (costing averages for housing starts). In 2012, a City of

Vancouver task force researched foreign ownership by analyzing the

out-of-country mailing addresses registered with BC Assessment. For Millionaire

Migrants, Ley drew upon twenty-five years of census, immigration, airport and

property ownership data. In 1990, media analyst Donald Gutstein outlined the

linkages between Asian investment, immigration and housing prices through an

in-depth survey of newspaper articles.

As for market pundits, articles in Real Estate Issues dating from 2011

clearly reflect industry concerns regarding affordability. Analyst William McCarthy

researched the issue and included data from the Real Estate Board of Greater

Vancouver (REBGV). McCarthy reflects on the exponential rise in housing prices

while citing a statistics Canada map detailing recent immigration throughout the

Vancouver region and data from the National Association of Realtors (NAR)

affordability index (McCarthy, 2011). While McCarthy’s article is concerned with

gauging the depth of an eventual price correction, its breadth of research

acknowledges immigration (both domestic and foreign) as causal factors for

housing price inflation beyond a level that can be afforded by local buyers. 

Full name and other o wnership information is available through the Land

Title and Survey Authority of British Columbia (LTSA). Due to the Torrens land

title system used in BC, the information by law must be recorded and made

accessible to the general public (through a paid service). As the LTSA website

states: “Legal title to land can only be changed by the act of registration on a

public register, and the issuance of a certificate of indefeasible title.”

Regarding efforts to track foreign capital in-flows, Josh Gordon has

pointed out the usefulness of CRA databases (Gordon, 2017). Journalist Ian

Young has noted precursors to the Yan study, including two Landcor studies that

identified the ethnicity of purchasers by full name analysis (Young, 2015).

17

 

Among the studies Lupick notes as being largely ignored, is a 2015 report

by the China Institute of the University of Alberta that calls for more data of the

kind needed to evaluate policy proposals (Sun, 2015). The report’s observations

on the paucity of ownership/occupancy data are significant because they

acknowledge a conceptual difference in the utilization of housing stock.

Underpinning the legal definition of real property in Canada, is a distinction

between the conceptual frameworks of “home” and “investment.”

Summary

It is less about the dearth of data than about data that helps us to define

corrective action. As public policy researcher Josh Gordon observes, “ When a

government doesn't want to address a thorny issue, a typical move is to delay

action with a call for more information. Further study is justified in the name of

good policy” (Gordon, 2017). However, what information we select for analysis

may depend on the framework of a policy narrative. Therefore, delays can be

further aggravated by a conflict in narratives. In the case of real estate in

Vancouver, a neoliberal economic agenda that invites human and financial

capital from across the Pacific and turned Vancouver into a “hedge” city where

land can be purchased as an attractive global asset (Hutchinson, 2014), has

existed since the ‘80s. Such a narrative conflicts with a nativist policy that seeks

to protect the domestic population’s access to local resources. The former

approach can be seen as beneficial to the real estate industry and for preserving

homeowner equity, but the latter is necessary to redress class inequity. Then too,

against the background of a history of racism against the Chinese, discussing the

two approaches requires perspicacity. The questions generated by the Yan study

indicated that further research was required and that it was time for the

government to take a role in the collection of data but to do so in a manner that

remained sensitive to the history of racism against Chinese people.

18

19

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Chapter 4. Data and the Process of Legibility

4.1 An objective lens to a complicated situation

Andy Yan’s work for Bing Thom Architects is significant because of his attempt to

use metrics to explore the issues. Its findings encouraged questions about race

and real estate but did not necessarily clarify next steps for Christy Clark’s

government in 2015. In 2016, the PTT data was expected to answer some of

these questions by tracking the citizenship of home buyers.

According to Mike de Jong, the goal of the PTT data was never in

question: “The objective here is to get beyond the theory, get beyond the

conjecture and the speculation and actually have hard data that allows us to say

definitively” (Palmer, 2016). The results were supposed to prove that foreign

ownership was driving up the price of housing to a point necessitating political

action. This chapter explores one way in which the PTT data fulfilled this

objective: by helping to simplify the issues, the data appeared to chart a clear

course of action.

Making complex situations legible

In his 1998 book, “Seeing Like a State,” political science researcher James C.

Scott presents a theory about the ways in which pre-modern states established

control over its resources through the process of “legibility.” Legibility is the

process by which a state comes to acquire an understanding about its terrain and

peoples through procedures of governance such as census-taking and land

surveyance as well as specific projects such as the creation of permanent

surnames and the standardization of language, weights and measures: “The

more I examined these efforts at sedentarization, the more I came to see them

as a state’s attempt to make a society legible, to arrange the population in ways

20

 

that simplified the classic state functions of taxation, conscription, and prevention

of rebellion” (Scott, 1998, Introduction).

Scott develops this argument into a negative critique of data-based

social-engineering projects founded on high modernist principles. Drawing on

Cold War-era examples from the Soviet Union, Tanzania and 20th-century

ecological disasters such as forest diebacks in Germany, Scott concludes these

government efforts to exert control over local communities, resources and

practices failed because of a gross oversimplification of causal factors and

solutions. “[The] necessarily thin, schematic model of social organization and

production animating the planning was inadequate as a set of instructions for

creating a successful social order. By themselves, the simplified rules can never

generate a functioning community, city, or economy” (Scott, Introduction).

The final chapter concludes that these efforts failed and will continue to fail

because schemas that are drawn from an incomplete knowledge of situated

problematics and processes can never be successful; and yet it is these same

schemas that make society and its problems legible to the state.

But why is simplification necessary for legibility? Why are models for

social planning and remedial action “necessarily thin”? One answer may lay in

two additional requirements for Scott’s model of disastrous social planning:

“In sum, the legibility of a society provides the capacity for large

scale social engineering, high modernist ideology provides the desire,

the authoritarian state provides the determination to act on that desire,

and an incapacitated civil society provides the leveled social terrain on

which to build.” (Scott, Chapter 9).

Here, the two requirements of interest to us are “an authoritarian state”

and an ”incapacitated civil society.” In an authoritarian state, a schema is useful

for efficient communication within a bureaucracy that is less concerned with

21

informing its “incapacitated” citizens than with the development and execution of

a plan. In this type of society, schemas serve the purpose of informing citizens

only what they need to know in order to perform the task that is required of them.

However, even in a non-authoritarian state, schemas serve the function of

efficiently communicating information essential for decision-making in what Peter

Checkland refers to as a “consensual domain ... that is to say, a cognitive domain

in which knowledge can be shared” (Checkland, 2006). Not only does a

democratic state need to make society legible in order to propose informed

policies; it also needs to communicate its plans back to society to achieve

consensus. In this case, schemas are useful as containers of information that

can be easily disseminated for the purpose of building consensus around

proposals for political action.

But how are schemas created and rationalized? While it is possible for

schemas to be based entirely on theory, Western societies have tended to

organize their knowledge of the world according to scientific principles, relying on

empirical evidence acquired through the collection and analysis of data, (De

Sousa Santos, Nunes, Meneses, 2007). Embedded in this approach is the

assumption that data has an objective nature, that the information presented as

data is “given,” “factual,” and a true representation of the natural world as it actually exists. However, this ethos of data as “given” is one that deserves closer

examination, particularly considering the role of data in discourse simplification.

4.2 Data in discussions on race and real estate in Vancouver

To investigate the way in which data may have simplified the real estate debate

in Vancouver, 204 mainstream media articles were analyzed for keywords or

signifiers in order to identify focal points in public discourse that were possibly

influenced by the release of data. A change in frequency over time was tracked

for subjects, objects and main issues.

22

 

4.2.1 Subjects under discussion

Graph 1.

Subjects under discussion in mainstream media headlines between November 2015 and

August 2016

The graph shows the frequency of signified concepts for subject: immigrant, homeowner, foreign buyer, or Chinese (buyer). These concepts were selected

based on a) relevance to topic, and; b) a text search query for words that could

be identified as subjects in a subject-verb-object (SVO) sentence structure. The

significance of conceptual terms was inferred based on frequency.

Also selected for query were terms that represent a difference in

conceptual approach. For example, an immigrant is part of the national narrative

of multiculturalism but a buyer has non-nationalist qualities.

A correlation to data source was investigated through article content

analysis. Where possible, the data source informing the news article was

identified and tracked. Appendix A has more information about criteria and

choice of time frame.

23

 

Observations

Home owner and immigrant minimally met the criteria. Signifiers for the concept

of Chinese (and Chinese buyer) occurred 31 times while references to the

concept of foreign buyer occurred 69 times in headlines. Comparing November

and July, there was less use of signifiers for Chinese in July. July also saw an

increased use of the term foreign buyer without an indicator for the subject’s

country of origin.

Correlations to the release of data

Significant spikes in frequency for Chinese coincided with the publication of four

sets of data: data from the BTAworks study on November 2nd, the release of BC

Assessment data, the annual release of the Demographia affordability study, and

the release of a National Bank estimate in March reporting that Chinese investors

were buying one-third of Vancouver homes.

The spikes for foreign buyer coincide with the announcement of the

citizenship tracking system in February 2016, the release of a study by SFU’s

School of Public Policy and the release of the PTT data in July.

4.2.2 Objects under discussion

Graphs 2 and 3 indicate the occurrence of signified concepts: home , housing, investment and real-estate . Concepts were selected based on a) relevance to

topic, and; b) a preliminary text search query for words that could be identified as

objects in an SVO sentence structure.

24

 

Graph 2. Objects under discussion

Graph 3. Objects under discussion - “Home” vs. “Housing”

25

 

In graph 2, home is distinguished from investment because of conceptual

differences between the terms. A home suggests a property that is intended for

occupancy whereas investment denotes a commodity. Real estate can signify

the market or the context of the market or the values of a property whether it is

intended for use as a home or as an investment.

In graph 3, home is distinguished from housing because conceptually, housing is

more generally used to reference a resource or stock and can also include

structures other than single detached homes. For the most part, however, the

culture of home ownership in Canada refers to ownership of single detached

houses.

Observations

The concept of investment was referenced in 15 headlines. The concept of home

and housing was referenced in 50 and 61 headlines respectively. Real estate

featured in 53 headlines. Seven of the months saw higher occurrences of the

term housing over home except in March and July.

Correlations to data

There were more references to real estate than home in November and January,

coinciding with the release of the BTAworks study and the BC Assessment data.

In March, there were three times as many references to home than to real estate , coinciding with the National Bank estimate.

For both home and real estate , the highest number of occurrences were in

July, the same month as the PTT data

4.2.3 Main issues under discussion

Main issues were identified by the signifiers: ownership, immigration, market, race and affordability. Concepts were selected based on a) relevance to

26

investigation topic, and; b) frequency of occurrence. Using content analysis,

articles were coded according to the degree in which a main topic was featured.

Observations

Below is the breakdown for the articles according to main issue.

1. Ownership 84

2. Market (health or state of the market as expressed in values) 56

3. Affordability 58

4. Race 20

5. Immigration 8

Comparative results from November 2015 and July 2016

The months of November 2015 and July 2016 were compared (graph 4). In

November, the issues of race, market, and ownership were featured in a similar

number of articles, coinciding with the release of the BTAworks study. In July,

ownership and affordability were the primary issues, coinciding with the report of

preliminary PTT data.

27

 

Graph 4. Main issues - Comparative results from November 2015 and July 2016

 

 

Additional findings on the influence of data

Below is a list of the six most cited data sources informing the articles.

1. BTAworks 2. PTT data 3. BC Assessment 4. RBC Housing Report 5. CMHC 6. National Bank (NAR)

Out of the 204 articles, 50 referenced the BTAworks study and 38 referenced the

PTT data. Out of the 50 references to the BTAworks study, 46% of the headlines

contained a reference to race , racism or the terms Chinese and Asian .

Summary

This chapter included an analysis of media headlines in order to correlate focal

points in public discussions on real estate with the release of data. Based on the

28

 

frequency of citations and the occurrence of keyword signifiers, both the

BTAworks study and the PTT report were found to have influenced the debate on

foreign ownership, at least in terms of how the mainstream media framed the

issues in headlines. Most relevant to our discussion is the finding that out of the

50 references to the BTAworks study, 46% of the headlines contained a

reference to race , racism or the terms Chinese and Asian . In July, headlines

citing the PTT data were more likely to feature the word buyer without an

indicator of the subject’s nationality. In this sense, the PTT data report may have

helped to move the issue of foreign ownership outside of the context of race.

Whether or not this was done purposefully is of course, much more difficult to

ascertain. The end result, however, was that the release of the PTT data was

followed three weeks later by the proposal to implement a 15% foreign buyer tax.

According to Scott, simplification is necessary for the process of legibility.

Data can help with this simplification process by enabling the communication of

model problems with model solutions. In the case of the PTT report, the data not

only appeared to settle the debate but also indicated a seemingly elegant

(non-racist) solution to the problem: a surtax on foreign buyers. History tells us

that there would be ramifications from the hasty passage of Bill 28 but at the time

of the proposal, was there anything in the report that could have forewarned of

some of the coming issues? Perhaps, regarding foreign ownership, the issue was

less about data collection than a problem of data interpretation.

29

Chapter 5. Data as Concept

5.1 Dare and capta

Regarding the data gap mentioned by Siddall in his 2016 GVBT address,

we might ask several questions: How is it that in an extensively networked

society, where information regarding a state’s capital is collected to a degree

never before seen, we still hear the clarion call for yet more data. Why does

“data” in the digital age appear to make complex situations less “legible” in some

cases while “oversimplifying” nuances in others?

Regarding “data” as a concept of information, soft systems researcher

Peter Checkland cites Martin and Powell to explain the relationship between

data, information and “purposeful action” within organizations: “Information

comes from data that has been processed to make it useful in management

decision-making” (Checkland, 2006). Key to this definition is the notion that data

needs to be processed (extracted and analysed) in order to be used as

information.

Checkland presents a model to further break down the interpretive nature

of data by clarifying the distinctions between “data,” “information,” and

“knowledge.” Referencing the word origin of “data” from the Latin dare which is

“to give,” Checkland suggests that available raw data should be distinguished

from extracted data through the use of the term, “capta,” from the Latin word

capere which is “to take.” The purpose of distinguishing raw from selected data is

to highlight the interpretive nature of acquired facts. All values that are acquired

through a scientific process can be categorized as data but data that is selected

for analysis is capta; and capta by nature of being data that is (pre)selected by

30

 

the design of the research is never wholly objective. In other words, what we

choose to analyze depends on the research question and research design.

Capta is therefore data that has been “enriched” by assumptions

regarding the sort of information that is considered useful (Checkland, 1998).

Capta is then reframed in a larger story that causes it to gain in significance.

Capta that is analyzed, contextualized and reframed is information; when it is

related to larger, “longer-living” structures of meaning, it may be referred to as

knowledge (Checkland, 1998).

The above may seem a rather overzealous breakdown of the different

dimensions of data but it serves the purpose of highlighting areas where

problems of interpretation are likely to occur: “The most important feature of this

analysis of data, capta, information and knowledge is that the act of creating

information is a human act… [it] is the human being who can attribute meaning to

the selected data which have been highlighted for attention, this being done in a

context which may well be shared by many people but may also be unique to an

individual” (Checkland, 1998). In short, the information yielded by data can mean

different things to different people depending on context. Whereas science and

technology produces the data that constitutes research; human activity attributes

meaning to selected data (capta) that gives the research its significance. In

policy development, a large part of this meaning attribution takes place through

the lens of a policy’s narrative framework.

The data/capta model reminds us to distinguish between the methods by

which data is captured and the human activities of extracting and analysing

information from selected data to produce information and knowledge. It acknowledges that these human activities are often driven by the questions and

assumptions that produced the research in the first place. When the research

has been commissioned by the state for the purpose of effecting political change,

there are further problematics. What if the state drafts a policy proposal and

31

 

includes in its white paper a call for data to support justification of the proposal?

How should we view the validity and relevance of data that is already purposed

by its strategic use in a policy narrative? Is data sought after-the-fact necessarily

compromised? To answer these questions, it is helpful to examine the ways in

which data supports the positivist, empirical approach to problem-solving; and

how its interpretation affects deliberation and consensus-building around policies.

5.2 A question of authority

For their 2013 conference in Grenoble, the International Public Policy Association

(IPPA) called for proposals on “policy narratives” which they defined as “strategic

justifications of policies.” (IPPA, 2013) The term was developed by behavioural

economist Emery Roe during the early ‘90s and gained wide circulation in the

political and social sciences. Roe’s work focused on the strategic simplifications

that facilitate communication and understanding of complex situations: “[Policy]

narratives are stories (scenarios and arguments) which underwrite and stabilize

the assumptions for policy-making in situations that persist with many unknowns,

a high degree of interdependence, and little, if any, agreement” (Roe, 1994).

As schemas, narratives can be fairly representative models of the

situations they address. They can help to structure our understanding of

situations whose complexity might otherwise instill “policy paralysis.” In our

example of the real estate bubble in Vancouver, individual interpretations of

causal factors (particularly within the context of racial tensions) can be seen as a

roadblock to the achievement of consensus around policy changes. But a

government working within a narrative framework that sees foreign investment as

a likely factor can still build consensus for political action based on this narrative

even without understanding or commenting on all causal factors.

For Roe, these narratives are strategic simplifications that can be based

on theory (for instance, the theory that foreign investment drives up housing

32

 

prices) but they differ from a scientific theory in that science is validated through

its findings (published and peer-reviewed) and the conditions of scientific inquiry

involving predictions that are testable and falsifiable such as when we ask the

question, “Are the majority of homes in BC being purchased by foreign

investors?” This difference can be perceived in the “consensual domain” as a

difference of reception and interpretation, of which economist Jeremy Swift has

observed: “Scientific facts are falsifiable … [narratives] are not. They escape the

checks and balances of science.” And by “escaping” the constraints of science, 15

narratives are seen to be a reasonable focal point around which to build

consensus.

This is not to say that narratives do not have a use for scientific research.

Policy narratives require the support of scientific authority in order to a) establish

the credibility of its approach and b) to rationalize its solutions. Here we see the

rhetorical potential of data, as data not only gives a policy narrative credibility

(providing initial evidence to support a claim); it also informs an understanding of

the problem in a way that makes the solution appear logical (through deductive

reasoning). It serves an argumentative purpose. Used judiciously, it can facilitate

discussions around policy by “embedding scientific expertise into [the]

meaningful social context” surrounding a proposal. (Fischer, 2012) Used without

circumspection, it simply serves the purpose of confirming biases. What is

important to take note of here is the relationship between narrative and data. Not

only does the framework underwrite a study’s representation, the framework sets

the goals for research, thus possibly compromising the validity of its data. This is

especially true when the framework defines the measurable component of a

research design (through the process of operationalization) in a manner that may

or may not be helpful to our understanding of the problem but almost certainly

15 Attributed to Swift by Mike Shanahan in his 2012 blog, “What’s in a narrative? In policy, everything or nothing,” for the International Institute for Environment and Development (Shanahan, 2012).

33

suggests its solution. Thus, measuring the number of foreign homeowners in

Vancouver in the context of studying causal factors for real estate inflation

suggests that the solution is to move forward with proposals discouraging foreign

homeownership.

What is being questioned here is not the use of data in providing insight

on a complex situation nor is it the purpose of this essay to critique the general

use of policy narratives to frame a hypothesis. However, there are problematics

involved with the assumption that all data acquired through a scientific inquiry is

objective. There are also problematics when the proposals underwritten by a

policy narrative do not include a call for comprehensive studies or when the

operationalization of a fact-finding study is left unquestioned. At issue is the

presentation of data in its analyzed form, wherein the results are infused with

both the authority of a scientific process and the authority of an official

commission.

Regarding authority; it might be useful to remember Scott’s recipe for

failure in social-engineering projects. Scott suggests that one essential

component is “an authoritarian state that is willing and able to use the full weight

of its coercive power” (Scott, 1998). In the case of a non-authoritarian state,

governments will ideally seek information that will help them to make decisions

around policy with the support of public opinion. If the government chooses to

embrace a policy narrative without pursuing a comprehensive analysis of factors

then it is likely to propose policies based on incomplete knowledge; thus the

possibility of poor social planning is still present with or without state coercion.

This brings us back to a discussion of the data collected through PTT

Form (Version 26) and the notion that calls for solutions involved a call for the

“right” sort of data, ie., selected data that was useful to support the foreign buyer

narrative.

34

 

5.3 The PTT Form revisited

The announcement

The change to PTT Form (Version 26) (figure 1) was announced February 16,

2016, as part of Mike de Jong’s Balanced Budget 2016 report. The change was

described under a category of actions intended to develop better data on cost

drivers. In summary, the changes granted the government the authority to collect

new information from owners during property registration. The backgrounder

mentions that this data was once required with land transfers until 1998. The

purpose of the data was clearly stated: “BC Housing will conduct a study on the

key factors affecting housing affordability in British Columbia, which may then

contribute to policy-making across all levels of Government” (BC Ministry of

Finance, 2016).

The form

PTT Form (Version 26) is an editable PDF that can be downloaded through the

Land Title and Survey Authority (LTSA) website. While an individual purchaser

may fill out the form themselves, the website strongly advises consultation with a

legal professional and the link to the form is grouped under the heading, “Forms

for Legal Professionals.” By law, LTSA staff cannot provide legal advice or

assistance in completing the form. LTSA does provide training to legal

professionals on how to update the form. This information is provided through

news updates posted on their website.

The form collects information through the addition of yes/no checkboxes

and subsequent fields for the identification of citizenship (figure 2), as well as a

field to collect information regarding any two years of tax returns filed within six

years of registration. It collects information on purchases made by both

individuals and corporations. Though Bill 28’s foreign buyer tax exempts

corporations, the form also collects data on the citizenship of a foreign

35

 

corporation’s board of directors. Below is a breakdown of unique data points

captured by the form:

1. Whether the purchaser is a Canadian citizen or permanent resident.

2. The purchaser’s country of citizenship

3. Whether or not the purchaser continuously resided in BC for at least one year prior to registration.

4. A listing of any two years for which the purchaser filed income tax during the six years prior to registration.

5. If applicable, citizenship of a foreign corporation’s board of directors.

The report

The report of the preliminary data from the PTT amendment was based on data

collected between June 10 and July 14, 2016. It is a preliminary study comprised

of 4 pages of mainly aggregated data and highlighted summations expressed as

percentages and averages. The full title of the document is “Property Transfer

Tax Report: June 10 to July 14, 2016.” Under notes, respondents are identified

as “foreign nationals.”

Presentation of the report

The PTT data was presented on July 7, 2016 alongside of a powerpoint

presentation, titled “Housing Market Information.” Highlights from the PTT data

report were extracted and used for visualizations.

Comparing the form to the extracted data (capta)

The most significant difference between the dare (collected information

represented by the design of the form) and the capta (the dataset pulled for

analysis in the PTT report) is the lack of reference to the tax-related info that was

presumably collected in Section A.

36

 

Analysis

On the PTT form, the field for information on tax return years is significant

because it acknowledges a category of respondents who may not hold

citizenship/permanent residency as defined under the Immigration and Refugee

Protection Act but are still tax-paying, “contributing” members of society. If this

information was collected, then we might expect to see this information also

highlighted in PTT report, at least in an appendix or supplementary table. In fact,

there is no reference to the data that would have been collected from this field,

nor is there an explanation for its absence in the notes. Indeed, anyone who has

not examined the form itself would not be aware of the missing data.

The matter is concerning because it suggests the reason for a rather large

oversight in the tax proposal: this lack of reference may have caused a category

of respondents to be overlooked in the proposal’s draft. Had the preliminary

report selected this data for analysis, it would have been apparent that the

proposal needed an amendment to acknowledge the circumstances of long-term

residents on work visas, those in the transitional stages of residency applications,

or those living in mixed citizenship households.

Aftermath

In fact, all of these circumstances would be later addressed in changes to the tax

announced in March 2017, seven month after its effective date. The tax now

exempts residents with work permits or residents who achieve

citizenship/permanent residency status within one year of registration. Residents

who paid the tax and meet the new requirements for exemption may now apply

for rebates under this amendment. In spite of these revisions, there are still

37

consequences needing further resolution: as of April 2017, the foreign buyer tax

currently faces a court challenge on the basis that it is unconstitutional. 16

Summary

In Western democratic societies, consensus decision-making depends on shared

knowledge that is seen to be both reliable and invested with authority. A call for

data arises in situations where people do not feel that they have access to the

information they need to make informed decisions. Throughout 2016, controversy

over real estate inflation in Vancouver was framed in part by the apparent lack of

empirical evidence in the form of available data concerning ownership and

speculation. However, our previous analysis of media content from this period

shows numerous references to data sources. This suggests that these calls for

data included a call for the “right” sort of data.

Chapter 3 discussed Lupick’s critique of local and national coverage of

real estate issues. What Lupick is drawing our attention to is the selective use of

data (capta) in a narrative that links foreign investment with inflated real estate

prices, a link that is problematic because of the assumption that much of the

“foreign money” buying up Vancouver real estate originates from mainland

China, a country that has also provided BC with a large immigrant population and

a large in-flow of financial capital.

As noted in Chapter 3, the correlation between immigration and

Vancouver housing prices has been documented for at least twenty-five years

across industry, government and academic sources. The link between

immigration and population growth (resulting in increased demand for housing)

was reaffirmed in Siddal’s November 30th presentation to the GVBT:

16 As of April 2017, Jing Li, the main plaintiff in the class action lawsuit has not withdrawn her case.

38

 

“At the national level, and in our largest cities in particular, immigration far

outweighs the impact of natural (domestic) increase as the source of population

growth. Net international immigration currently accounts for roughly two-thirds of

Canada’s population growth, up from around 40 per cent in the early 1990s.”

(Siddall, 2016).

But immigration is a very different practice from investment; and in

Canada, its issues are carefully discussed within the framework of a multicultural

narrative that celebrates “inclusive citizenship.” A history of discriminatory

policies against the Chinese had made discussion of foreign ownership into a

sensitive topic. Policies to limit individual foreign investment must therefore

distinguish between the practices of purchasing a home (a desirable goal for

immigrants) as opposed to investing in a property (an activity of overseas

speculators). The amendment to PTT (Version 26) can be seen as an attempt to

identify the scope of the practice of home ownership among non-citizens but its

research design does not capture the information related to the practice of

property speculation or the economic activity of contributing taxes. Including the

data on tax returns may have helped to clarify the scope of any of these

activities.

39

 

Chapter 6. Conclusion

The above case study has served to highlight issues with the use of data to

support policy narratives on housing and real estate in Vancouver. When we use

data to confirm our biases or to move forward with policies that have already

been underwritten by a narrative framework, we run the risk of overlooking

significant variables; when we accept its findings as conclusive, we risk blind

spots in our understanding of a complex situation. Additionally, the relationship

between data and narrative is susceptible to flux, with empirical evidence

sometimes investing far too much authority in a “thin schema.” At other times, a

narrative can shape the boundaries of inquiry in a manner that actually

handicaps understanding, leading not only to honest errors of inference but

oversights that are marginalizing. In the case of the PTT report, the use of data

did help to steer public discussion away from a “racism outbreak” (Tieleman,

2017). However, it could also be said that there were oversights in the analysis of

the data that marginalized non-citizens without permanent residency, those who

have contributed to the local economy through their labor and tax contributions,

and who may have every intention of rooting their lives in Vancouver.

Recent policy changes indicate that there were mis-steps in the

application of knowledge acquired through the PTT report. While the report may

have indicated “conclusive” links between foreign investment and real estate

inflation, both the study and subsequent tax policy changes have faced criticism

for failing to address the real issue on hand: making housing affordable. While

the amount of foreign investment has decreased, housing prices have not, with

March 2017 home sales hitting a record high and the average price of a

detached house reaching 1.77 million in June. With Christy Clark’s

announcement of reversals to the foreign buyer tax, it would appear that the

narrative of foreign investment as a primary causal factor has lost favor.

Consequently, it would seem that the data used to support the initiatives in the

40

 

first place has decreased in value: the BC government has not updated the PTT

report since October 2016 and the cost of the research to date has not been

disclosed. Regarding the change in narrative, Siddal concludes with this

observation:

“To some, the scapegoat is obvious: blame foreigners. It's the recurring

theme, the clear cause according to the twitterverse and many commentators. In

fact, according to a 2015 Angus Reid poll, nearly two-thirds of Vancouverites

believe that foreign investing is the ‘main cause of high housing prices’ here…

while it would be convenient to hang all of the blame for high prices on others —

offshore buyers — it’s just not that simple … while foreign investment clearly is a

factor, it is not the only one.” (Siddall, 2016).

Siddall has since been criticized for assertions that the PTT data was

tainted. However, the point he makes is a good one: a simplistic overview can

lead to simplistic solutions. This is the same point made by David Ley in his

assessment of the proposal to collect data in 2015: “There is a danger, too, in

thinking that data on foreign buyers is all we need. Far more important is a

strategy to build affordable housing” (Asia Pacific Foundation, 2015).

41

 

Appendix A

Source selection criteria for media analysis

Articles were sourced from news websites with a print circulation of 150,000

and/or an online circulation of 2 million visitors a month. Google keyword ranking

was taken into account as the Google algorithm ranks sites according to keyword

usage, unique visits, duration of visits, the number and quality of inbound and

outbound links. It must be mentioned that the algorithm also factors in a user’s

location, past search history and search settings; however, out of the three,

location is the primary factor. These supplementary factors are given lower

priority than page rankings and rankings according to usefulness and context.

Time frame

The time frame selected for investigation was from November 2015 until the end

of August 2016. The start of the time frame coincides with the publication of the

BTAworks study on November 2. The end of August was chosen in order to

include discussions of the PTT data and the foreign buyer tax proposal.

Additional criteria for keyword terms

Included in this query for subjects were terms referring to a person or group of

people. Excluded were proper names or subjects with occurrences less than five.

42

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