Canada: Laundromat for the World’s Dirty Money

In BC, the Cullen Commission has concluded that BC (and, technically, the rest of Canada as well) is seen as the globe’s laundromat for dirty money. The Globe and Mail covered this story via an editorial.

REAL ESTATE is critical to this flow of cash.

The financial industry – basic banking, investments and more – have been subject to extremely rigid regulations for decades. These rules allow for greater transparency, protection of Canadians, but most importantly, controls on dirty money.

It’s time we pivot significantly with respect to the way build, manage, buy and maintain houses and property in Canada.

Dig deep into this story. Here are my conclusions:

DARK MONEY is the reason why:

• we can’t have affordable housing.
• first-time homebuyers will have to wait until they’re in their 60s to buy a house.
• we can’t treat our parents and seniors with dignity in reasonably-priced retirement homes.
• property taxes will continue to keep up, but only barely.
• we’ll never get transparency with real estate transactions.
• we’ll always have hyper-inflated bids on new home listings, without any buyers behind them.
• universities won’t be able to exist without dark money lining their residences.
• developers will continue to build empty buildings, despite the housing crunch.
• short-term rental services like AirBnB and VRBO will have to leave Canada if we’re ever going to have a decent roof over our heads.
• rent will continue to soar.
• inflation is just hitting the tip of the iceberg.

It’s time to act. If we don’t, we’re subjecting entire generations of Canadians to poverty and the lack of financial gains earned via real ownership of their own real estate.