Ah yes, the old "I know a couple that bought a house in Toronto twenty years ago for 140K" and "I know a couple that bought a house in Vancouver thirty years ago for 120K".

Um, hello?

What is your point? Back in those times, you could find houses in those cities that cost about five times the average annual local income or less. That was true in 1986, it was true in 1976, it was true in 1966, it was true back a hundred years.

So what?

The pertinent question is this: Why did house prices suddenly skyrocket in recent years to reach dozens of times the average annual local income in those two cities?

The ANSWER is that in the mid 1980s Canada CHANGED its immigration system hoping to vacuum up overseas multi-millionaires en masse, through investor immigrant programs.

It worked! We vacuumed them up and set in motion the trajectory that now has tiny houses selling for millions in both cities.

Should we keep doing this? Was it a good idea? Should we instead cater to local workers?