Re: StrUnpublished letter submitted to The Toronto Star
ess test could take toll on house affordability, experts say. June 2, 2021.
It is apparent to even any logical, untrained eye that the rapid rise in home prices over the past ten years has more has more to it than simply young people chasing their first homes in a market that prices everything in the millions while the average family brings in approximately $67K a year. Prices do not rise by hundreds of thousands of dollars yearly and sell by the same amont over asking in bidders-wars unless there is smethjing else quite sinister going on.
What the government and the real estate industry does not want to admit is that organized crime has taken over the housing market across the country. They are the only ones who could have the massive amounts of money ready for laundering through the Canadian real estate market and have been pouring cash into Canada while the government, real estate agents and the RCMP talk abut supply and emand and look the other way. Canada has some of the laxest laws regarding money-laundering. Organized ciminals and gangs from Russia, China, Italy, the U.S. and around the world are rushing into Canada to get rid of their money made in the illicit drug trade, human sex-trafficking and other illegal activities. These are the nouveau-riche of the 21st century. Real estate agents turn a blind-eye because they are picking up quick, fat commissions. They are part of the problem. The government prefers to ignore this problem.
It is high time that we had a real government that cracked-down on the illegal activities of organized cime of all kinds before the likes of Al Capone are running our real estate industry and our country. They could start by demanding that purchasers prove how the money they are using was obtained and banning short term rentals that have locked up the market. The RCMP should get off their incompetent butts and be focussing on real police work of arresting the big drug and rea estate kingpins, seizing property and cash in the process and breaking up this financial fraud not on beating up unarmed Indigenous people and other helpless individuals that are the low-hanging fruit of law-enforcement.